INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world.
These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.
I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.
I hope you had a lovely and safe Halloween on Monday - I know I did, as a pagan, I do celebrate Samhain so it was a lovely holiday to reconnect with my relatives who have passed and enjoy some usual spooky activities with my friends too.
I did post my costume on Twitter, I was immensely proud of it and won my competition at work, but by default as I work in finance and no one else dressed up so that was embarrassing. Also apologies for the late publishing of this episode, I got a horrendous cold after Halloween, so I took some time to actually relax and recover.
DESCRIPTION:
So our ‘monster’ and that’s in the most ambiguous of terms, this week is something so different - and actually something that we’ve actively tried to stay away from. We are looking at the wonderful deity, Santa Muerte from Mexican folklore, so if you’re a long term listener, you’ll know that I always try to avoid gods and goddesses, but this one is slightly different so I thought we could give it a go.
Santa Muerte is a deity of Death from Central America, but has kind of expanded outside of these borders too to North America. She generally appears as a skeletal female figure, wearing a long robe of usually a red colour, but can come in any colour, with a hood over her skull coated in long black hair, topped with flowers. She’s usually holding a scythe and a globe or orb in her hands, representing all that she actually represents. She is also usually associated with flowers and candles, and naturally it’s easy to associate this deity with the Mexican celebration of Dia De Los Muertos, but actually she’s not heavily linked to this event as you would expect.
She is defined as the folk personification of death, and is associated with the powers of healing, protection, financial wellbeing and the path to the afterlife. She’s one of many in Latin America, but she is the only female saint of death. There is a male counterpart called San La Muerte, and they look very similar, but you can tell it’s Santa Muerte by her long flowing hair, which is pretty wild considering she has no skin for it to grow out of. The hair was actually added later to her appearance, but she was never given a ‘womanly’ figure to her skeletal body - so it was quite tricky originally to tell the two apart.
She was never considered a living human, although she appears in a skeletal human form - according to legends, she was and always has been a skeletal woman, rather than an ascension from a human woman, which definitely makes her more spooky in my view.
She is usually seen carrying two objects with her, and that’s the globe and the scythe. The scythe represents her origins as the Spanish Grim Reaper or La Parca, which certainly makes sense with the invasion of the Spanish to Mexico - but it can also represent a cutter of the thread of faith or the moment of death, much like the Fates of Greek mythology, she is said to hold out the silver thread of life, and cut this with the scythe to end it. This scythe is also long-handled, like the Grim Reaper in most modern adaptations, indicating that it has a long reach and is able to be used anywhere in the world. In modern worship, it can represent the ending of negative influences or energies, and people can be seen worshipping within bad situations to cut off these on their lives. However, in the most literal way, a scythe is used as a farming tool to reap harvest - and so can also be seen as a sign of prosperity, hope and success.
The globe however represents Death’s power and dominion over the Earth, with her knowing that everything must die, and the circle of life begins and ends with Death, making her and other Death gods, powerful deities. However, she is also associated with other objects which all symbolise different things such as an hourglass, scales, an owl and an oil lamp. An hourglass obviously represents time of life, and the thought that Death is not the end, but is a fresh start. The also hourglass
notes Santa Muerte's relationship with time as well as with the worlds above and below. The scales to indicate justice, equality and impartiality, owls are always a symbol of wisdom, but they also have the power to see in darkness, and to act as messengers within that darkness. And lastly, the lamp symbolises intelligence, and light to navigate through darkness and to light the way for others.
Owls are actually really important within Mesoamerican culture, due to the association with death deities throughout this location’s history - Mictlantecuhtli is one of the Aztec gods of death, and is also associated with this animal. We’ll talk about how the Aztecs and Santa Muerte mix more later, but it is good to note that Santa Muerte is believed to be jealous, and so her image is never to be placed next to other deities or saints or there will be consequences to the worshipper.
ORIGIN:
Okay so onto etymology, anyone who speaks Spanish can tell you that her name very literally means Saint Death or Holy Death. So that one is pretty simple - however, she does have some other names such as Santísima Muerte, or Most Holy Death, The Godmother, la Madrina, Señora de las Sombras Lady of Shadows, Señora Blanca, White Lady, Señora Negra Black Lady, Santa Sebastiana, Holy Sebastian or Doña Bella Sebastiana, Beautiful Lady Sebastienne and La Flaca, The Skinny Woman. So you can see all of her names do link back to this idea of Sainthood, Womanhood and her appearance as a skeleton.
In regards to her history though, it’s certainly an odd one. This all goes back to the Aztecs. We’ve not really covered the Aztecs much on the podcast, which is weird when you think of the popularity and fame of the Aztec civilization. However, I had a good reason for this, and that’s that they only really have a few monsters to their name - so I’m trying to keep them for a good occasion. Santa Muerte can actually kind of come under this mythos, so I’m glad we finally got to touch on them.
The Aztecs were around between 1300 and 1521, whilst people do think they are an ancient culture, they are much more modern than we think. There were Aztecs when Henry 8th was on the British throne, and just before the Elizabethan era - so they really are a lot more modern than you might think. Anyway, this civilization had their own mythology, culture, languages, and were a pretty mighty force to go up against - but in 1521, they were invaded by the Spanish, and in the early 1800’s the civilisation was abolished. But how does this relate to our subject?
Well they also had their own gods, and the Aztecs had gods for literally everything, tattoos, snakes, crocodiles, knives - just to name a few. Honestly, if you’re curious about the Aztec gods, have a look at Maya and the Three on Netflix - it’s got a great representation of Aztec mythology within it. They had multiple gods of death, and all of which ruled over different aspects of death itself. One of these was, and forgive my pronunciation, they are notoriously difficult to say, Mictlāntēcutli was the Aztec god of the dead and king of the underworld, Mictlan. Most importantly to our subject though is his wife, which is sometimes considered a part of himself, but her name was Mictēcacihuātl, meaning lady of the dead.
Her role in the underworld was to look after the bones of the dead and guide any festivals of the dead in the living world. But if you’re like me, you might be thinking okay, I see the similarities between the two of these deities, but not exactly.
After the abolishment of the Aztecs, the worshipping of the dead did not finish, as we know from the continued celebration of Dia De Los Muertos, apparently indigenous people would tie up skeletal figures, who they called Santa Muerte, and threatened it with lashings if it did not perform miracles or grant their wishes.
Speaking of Dia De Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, this is one of the main celebrations that Mictēcacihuātl would look over. It’s celebrated every year to this day on November 2nd, so actually this episode comes out at the perfect time. During these celebrations, families go to cemeteries to sing and pray for friends and family members who have died, they leave offerings of food and children eat chocolate and candy in the shape of skulls - which is where the term sugar skull comes from.
Also note here, following up from our Halloween episode - the sugar skull and dia de los Muertos face painting is also something that is embraced for this holiday within Mexican culture, and to dress up like this for Halloween is utterly disrespectful - the key here is that if it belongs to a culture, it’s not a costume.
In more modern times though, in the 20th century the movement behind Santa Muerte kicked off again - however, it was often met with violence and desecration of the vigils. But José Guadalupe Posada, who was a political artist of the time, created a similar death deity called Catrina, a feminine skeleton who was dressed in fancy clothing of the time. Although, he mostly did this to represent an unequal society within his work and that death was the ultimate equaliser. Eventually though, the image was warped into the popular image for Dia De Los Muertos, to have hair and fancy robes - which was appealing to tourists and created an image of Mexican identity. It became a full on movement in 1998 when a Mexican gangster was found with a shrine dedicated to Santa Muerte in his house, and the movement gathered more momentum by 2001, with 5% of the population believing in her. By the late 2000’s, she was the second most popular Saint in Mexico, behind Saint Jude and it’s now considered one of the fastest growing religious movements in the world with 10-12 million followers in the Americas.
There is a big link to this Saint and the Catholic Church too, which makes her considerably more interesting than normal deities in a modern sense. She is very much condemned by the Catholic church, due to followers of the religion often mixing Santa Muerte into worship, which is massively against one of the 10 commandments ‘thou shalt not worship false idols’. However, some Catholics even convert to her neo-paganism worship, and create altars to her, usually at home or in local stores and gathering spaces. The Pope even condemned the worship of her back in 2016 when he last visited Mexico, and both Catholic and Protestant churches in Latin America sometimes condemn the worship as Satanic, trickery or black magic. She, of course, is considered a folk deity, so is very much linked to modern paganism paths, which is very much dismissed under the Christian religions.
But this does lead to some of the good that comes out of this worship too, she is often linked with marginalised groups, including those of poorer backgrounds, working class, sex workers and those with criminal backgrounds. However, she is most famously linked to gang members and prisoners in modern media - with shrines within American prisons being extremely common. This comes from the idea that Christianity often turns their back to this part of society, although the ideology of this religion says otherwise, and so these people have created a religion of their own, which reflects their values and protects them in their ways of living, which I think is fantastic.
On this same topic, she’s actually a really big LGBTQ+ symbol, and she’s revered as the saint for this group in Mexican culture. Many LGBTQ+ people ask her for protection from violence, hatred, disease, and to help them in their search for love. Her blessing is often asked for in same-sex marriage ceremonies in Mexico and The Iglesia Católica Tradicional México-Estados Unidos, or the Church of Santa Muerte, recognizes gay marriage and performs religious wedding ceremonies for homosexual couples in her name - what a happy ending.
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Now onto modern media, there's not much going on this week for Santa Muerte individually - but we can talk about kindly Death figures, which I think fits into her narrative.
For art, oh my goodness, please look up the independent art around this deity - she is usually depicted, although as a skeleton, so beautifully, and independent art from these areas where she is mostly worshipped is just incredible. I really like the almost Tarot card designs that have been created for this goddess the most.
In movies, specifically for Santa Muerte, we have the Book of Life - which has a gorgeous depiction of her, but she’s called La Muerte instead. In other friendly death movies, we have The Halloween Tree, Spirited Away, Watership Down, Jacob’s Ladder, A Prairie Home Companion, The Seventh Seal, MonkeyBone, The Sunset Limited, Click, Der Mode Tod, The Lady and The Reaper, All That Jazz, Death Takes A Holiday, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey & Love and Death.
For TV, for Santa Muerte herself we have; Breaking Bad, Fear the Walking Dead and Maya and the Three. For others, The Sandman, Guardian: The Lonely & The Great God, Grimm, Shinigami-kun, The Twilight Zone, Touched by an Angel, Dead Like Me, Supernatural, Married with Children, NCIS, Mysterious Ways, Charmed, Horrible Histories, American Horror Story: Asylum, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Lucifer, Xena: Warrior Princess, Moon Knight, Guiding Light, Family Guy, Frankenhole, Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, The Simpsons and The Sifi and Olly Show.
In video games, we have ones such as; Tom Clancy’s Recon Wildlands for Santa Muerte content herself. Then we have Fate/Grand Order, Brawlhalla, Bad Fur Day, AdventureQuest, Death Junior, Death and Taxes, Grim Fandango, Guild Wars, Hades, Hatoful Boyfriend, Hitman, Incursion, Jade Empire, Legend of Legends, Majesty, Let It Die, Neverwinter Nights, Maximo: Ghosts to Glory, Manual Samuel, Napple Tale, Nocturne In Yellow, Persona 3, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, Runescape, Riddles of Fate: Memento Mori, The Sims, Shin Megami Tensei 4, Spiritfarer, Touhou Project, Vega Strike, The Wonderful 101, The World Ends With You, Soul Nomad and the World Eaters & Tales from the Reaper.
My book recommendation this week is Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint by Andrew R Chesnut which talks about the phenomenon of the Santa Muerte worship within the Americas. This author is one of the leading experts on Santa Muerte too, so is definitely a super interesting and deeply intellectual read about her.
DO I THINK THEY EXISTED?
Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?
Well this is a tricky one, because she is in theory, a god and deity - so it’s not up to me to decide whether she exists or not. I think if belief is in the followers of that faith, then she exists within their faith, she doesn’t need to exist in any others.
I can tell you though of my experience in finding more out about Santa Muerte. I didn’t know much about her, but I found her really fascinating when she appeared in one of my favourite movies, the Book of Life. She’s depicted as this beautiful, dia de los muertos style skeleton, with a gorgeous hat of candles - the embodiment of life - and I loved her so much as a character. So I’m really happy we got to cover her, even if this podcast is called Myth Monsters, I can happily say that she is definitely not a monster.
But what do you think? Do you follow the belief in Santa Muerte or have any experiences with her? Let me know on Twitter!
OUTRO:
What a wonderful change to this week, especially after a special last week too - it was nice to liven us all up again after such a spooky time. Although, I’m still unsure on whether I should cover usual deities - it does mean that my Egyptian list is much smaller than you may think monster wise - but we’ll see. Do you want to see more? Or should I leave it to other mythology podcasters? Lemme know.
Next week, we’re crossing the border and heading back up to the US for a fabulous native creature, you may know this one from totem poles, but get your rain boots ready for the fabulous Thunderbird from Native American folklore next Thursday!
For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.
Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.
But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.