No matter the scholars' will to establish a line of continuity between the pre-Hispanic gods of death, Posada's Catrina, and Santa Muerte. The "white lady" is a modern concept.
She is called "Santa Muerte," and this name means Good Death or Holy Death. The term was borrowed from Catholic prayers asking for a peaceful passing of this word, in peace with God, satisfied with life. The medical nation has its own word for it. The Greek word is euthanasia, which also means "good death," the right to die without unnecessary suffering.
Santa Muerte nowadays
Since the beginning of the 21st century, a bizarre cult has developed from a solitary street altar in a poor neighborhood of Mexico City to become a continental phenomenon now studied by specialists. It is the cult of Santa Muerte.
Its most original feature is perhaps that, while in Catholicism, the good/holy death is a process and in medicine, it is a procedure, the cult of Santa Muerte has made it a person.
Her followers say that deep down, it is the same thing: the desire to have a death without physical pain, the hope of experiencing a peaceful passing.
But since in this new movement Death is a person, a third element must be added: the desire, the obligation among her followers, to please and worship her (in Spanish the word death is a feminine noun).
Her followers give her affectionate names: beautiful, skinny woman, cute girl, little mother, and even virgin.
Origins of Santa Muerte
Some specialists claim that Santa Muerte is a direct descendant of the Aztec deities of death, but she is not a symbol of fertility and abundance. And she is not a direct descendant of the very Mexican Catrina, as others suppose.
The first reference to the modern cult of Santa Muerte appears in a novel by American anthropologist Oscar Lewis, Los hijos de Sánchez. Lewis published his story of a Mexican family in 1961.
Martha, one of the characters, states: "My sister Antonia (...) told me that when husbands stray, one can pray to Santa Muerte. It is a novena that must be prayed at twelve o'clock".
Originally, it was to Santa Muerte that one had to turn to rehabilitate unfaithful husbands.
Lewis published his work in the early 60s, which means that the cult existed at least since the mid-50s in the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City. In Lewis's novel, the novena to Santa Muerte is treated as a secret, passed by word of mouth among women.
The explosion of the Santa Muerte cult
The cult remained clandestine throughout the second half of the 20th century until it exploded at the very beginning of the 21st.
In 2001, on Halloween, a woman named Enriqueta Romero, who had until then made a living selling quesadillas, set up an altar to Santa Muerte in front of her house, on Alfareros Street, in Tepito, the same neighborhood where Sánchez set his novel.
Mrs. Romero opened a small souvenir shop: books, medals, photos, and candles of the Holy Death. It was a resounding success.
The cult did not go unnoticed in Hollywood. In 2004, it was briefly mentioned in Man on Fire, a film with Denzel Washington. But it was in 2010 that the American public had its first massive exposure to the icon thanks to two popular TV series: Breaking Bad and Criminal
If Santa Muerte is a person, then who is she, according to her worshippers and followers?
Santa Muerte started as a character with the ability to grant any miracle, regardless of its moral value: it could be finding a lost lover, getting a job, or protecting oneself by killing an enemy.
But the central expectation is to obtain protection and shelter, in a world of abandonment and insecurity, and to experience a good death, without pain.
Her identity is subject to debate. Some followers think she is an archangel. Others see her as a demigod, who controls the lives of all beings in the universe. Still, others believe that Santa Muerte is a soul from purgatory. Finally, there are those who see her as a...
Esequiel Sánchez, a well-known Catholic pastor, expressed his concern in 2008, when some parishioners asked him to bless their Santa Muerte statues.
"It worries me because it is an aberration. It is a misunderstanding of faith. At the same time, I can understand why it is growing. Many people, especially Mexican immigrants, feel that institutions are abandoning them."
Widespread opposition came from the Mexican government. The antagonism increased when its intelligence forces began to notice the relationship between drug trafficking and the appearance of altars on highways; between ritual murders, violence, and the growth of the cult. Researchers also found that the cult thrived in city neighborhoods where families had members in prison.
It goes without saying that not all Santa Muerte followers are involved in organized crime - there are many sincere believers, as is the case with Santería and New Age movements.
But its origins deserve an explanation. Santa Muerte may be an emotional reaction in a country terrified by death and violence, hence the people's need to give her an identity and appease the Grim Reaper, a sort of Stockholm syndrome. Posada also personified death, for a different purpose.
However, death has always been meant to be a metaphor. José Guadalupe Posada carved his famous Catrina to mock those who took the upper class too seriously, but he knew that the skeleton was always a metaphor, just as for the Aztecs for whom it represented cosmic forces.
Perhaps it would be more uncomfortable, for those who are violent, for the people to start wondering what the symbol means and why it has become a person, rather than taking it literally.