Holy Death in the Time of Coronavirus: Santa Muerte, the Salubrious Saint
- PDF / 1,173,406 Bytes
- 24 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 90 Downloads / 143 Views
Holy Death in the Time of Coronavirus: Santa Muerte, the Salubrious Saint Kate Kingsbury 1
& R.
Andrew Chesnut 2
Received: 9 June 2020 / Accepted: 18 August 2020/ # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract As Santa Muerte prayer cards and candles circulate in Mexico with petitions of protection against COVID-19, we consider death as doctor in these tumultuous times proving that the folk saint of death is not solely a narco-saint, as the press depicts, but is supplicated for miracles of COVID healing and protection from the virus. We not only reveal the importance of religion for coping with pandemics but also focus on the notion of death as healing and as a giver of life. We decolonize knowledge of Santa Muerte and explore the saint’s syncretic origins, hailing not only from the European Grim Reaper during times of plague but also from Indigenous thanatological epistemologies that account for her dual powers of gifting life and also doling out death. Keywords Santa Muerte . Coronavirus . Mexico . Healing . Folk saint . Death
Across the world, as of early 2020, many countries announced a lockdown, some even declaring a state of emergency due to coronavirus. COVID-19 is a potentially deadly respiratory disease that is highly contagious and has killed hundreds of thousands of people, with no known cure. Citizens in most countries across the globe have been encouraged to maintain social distancing, namely to keep a two metre space between themselves and people other than those within their households at all times. They have also been ordered to stay at home and in some countries businesses other than those considered essential, such as restaurants and hairdressers, have been instructed to close their doors. These and other measures have been taken as governments and citizens seek to quell the virus’ reach. Although effective in preventing widespread contagion,
* Kate Kingsbury [email protected] R. Andrew Chesnut [email protected]
1
Anthropology Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
2
School of World Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
International Journal of Latin American Religions
such actions have severely impacted the economy and the livelihoods of many. The paranoia and panic over the pandemic in many nations, such as Mexico, are the result of the convergence of governmental incompetence, conspiracy theories and the fear of serious illness and death. All living beings must inevitably perish; nevertheless, across the ages, human beings have seldom accepted their mortality nor that of their loved ones. And religion has long served as a means to seek to avoid disease and death or come to terms with it, whether in Mexico, Brazil (Chesnut and Kingsbury 2019) or elsewhere in Latin America. One of Jesus’ principal roles was as healer, one could even term him a shaman as Craffert has, positing that his main roles were curing, mediating and prophecy (Craffert 2010). This article stresses the importance of looking at religion in times of pandemic as a coping mechan
Data Loading...
