San La Muerte: The Non‐Saint Saint. Identity, Ideology, and Resistance

Abstract

I analyze in this article the relationship between San La Muerte (a pagan saint worshipped still today) and the official Catholic institution, the specific characteristics taken up by this devotion, and the way the belief in this saint is linked with the social relations that worshippers establish among them. In the first place, I intend to show that although San La Muerte represents an aborigine tradition blended within Christianity, the cult has healthily survived and grown out of the scope of any official control by the Catholic Church. Secondly, I believe that the subjectivity of San La Muerte's followers is strongly associated with their identification with such ancestral belief, and that they contribute, at the same time, to generate the specific characteristics attributed to the saint. Thirdly, I propound that the worship and respect enjoyed by San La Muerte are reflected in social relations whose terms and codes turn into an expressly blatant challenge to the universal values consecrated by bourgeoisie morals.