When a life-sized skeleton dressed as the Grim Reaper first appeared on a street altar in Tepito, Mexico City, in 2001, many passersby instinctively crossed themselves. The figure was Santa Muerte, a popular saint shrouded in mystery and controversy, known until then, if anything, as a figure of domestic devotion: someone who could be prayed to, but in the privacy of the home.
She personifies death itself and is often depicted holding a scythe or a globe. Since the early 2000s, its popularity has steadily spread throughout Mexico and the Americas, Europe and other continents.
The idea and image of death becoming holy is both unthinkable and fascinating. Its association with drug traffickers and criminal rituals generates suspicion in many towards the skeletal figure. Santa Muerte also faces strong opposition from the Catholic Church, which condemns her veneration as heretical and morally dangerous. High-ranking ecclesiastical figures, such as Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera in Mexico, have publicly denounced his devotion, warning that it encourages superstition and attacks Christian values.
This criticism highlights a deep tension between official religion and popular devotion. Many Mexicans who feel abandoned by the government and religious institutions venerate her as a source of hope. In fact, according to my research, Santa Muerte represents strength, protection and comfort to her devotees, who include prisoners, police officers, sex workers, LGBTQ+ people, migrants, workers and other less vulnerable population groups. Despite its imposing appearance, it offers them a form of care that is often denied them in other areas.
As an anthropologist who has studied Santa Muerte in Mexico, I believe her power reflects a paradoxical Mexican understanding of death: not only as a symbol of fear, but as an intimate part of everyday life that has become a form of resilience and resistance amid the country’s chronic violence.
Death and the state
In my most recent book, “The Intimacy of Images,” I examine how devotion to Santa Muerte in Oaxaca—the state famous for its Day of the Dead tradition—is based on Mexico’s long and often playful relationship with the image of death. After more than a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, I discovered that the prayers, offerings, and promises that people dedicate to him are part of the desire to find solutions to everyday problems such as illness, economic difficulties, and protection from evil.
Its frequent representation in images such as altars, tattoos, and artistic productions also reflects an ever-evolving social understanding of death, which has long been a ubiquitous symbol of Mexican culture, identity, and state power.
Following the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century, death as a symbol of the new Mexican nation was popularized by artists such as José Guadalupe Posada, especially through La Catrina, the elegant skeleton caricature often associated with the Day of the Dead. While death and its personification were once part of an ethic of celebration and bravery in the face of it, they have now become disturbing reminders of growing insecurity and violence in Mexico.
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This transformation, and the role that the skeleton saint plays in providing protection in this dangerous context, reflects the growing instability that Mexico is experiencing. In the national elections of 2000, the PRI lost power after 71 years of uninterrupted government. The election of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) in its place evidenced the breakdown of informal alliances between the State and criminal networks that had previously controlled crime through patronage systems.
In 2006, the newly elected president of the PAN, Felipe Calderón, launched a militarized war against crime after the evolution, over years, of these first criminal networks into ruthless organizations.
In the decades that followed, cartel violence intensified, civilian deaths and femicides increased, and state institutions were accused of direct complicity or refusing to intervene. The disappearance in 2014 of 43 students in Iguala – a case that revealed the degree of collusion between the State and criminal organizations and that still remains unsolved – only exacerbated public outrage. This rampant violence continues to this day.
Since the start of Mexico’s drug war in 2006, an estimated 460,000 people have been murdered and more than 115,000 are officially listed as missing in the country, equivalent to approximately one in every 1,140 inhabitants. In severely affected states such as Guerrero and Jalisco, this figure is likely to be much higher, evidencing the uneven geographic distribution of violence and disappearances across the country.
Claudia Sheinbaum, the country’s first female president—who took office in October 2024—vowed to dismantle organized crime. However, violence and widespread public perception of insecurity persist.
A violent mirror
For the majority of its devotees, Santa Muerte is not an ally of criminals, despite its use by groups linked to cartels. Instead, it represents one of the few forms of help left in the midst of a terrifying social reality. It offers no illusion that the situation of political dysfunction or rampant violence will improve; just presence and protection. His image reflects a brutal truth: survival is no longer guaranteed by a state whose ties to the cartels run deep.
This political and spiritual vacuum is observed in the rise of other secular figures of devotion: popular saints like Jesús Malverde, other more official ones like San Judas Tadeo, or even devotion to the devil.
La Santa Muerte is unique. She is death personified, the end of life, the supreme judge and a symbol of shared mortality, regardless of social status, race or gender. As one devotee told me: “If you open us, you will find the same bones.” Her followers also worship her with affection and love. Some treat her as a relative, an aunt or a doting mother who embodies maternal protection and a force more commonly associated with the masculine. As many say: “She is a powerful woman.”
In a country where state protection is scarce and the lines between authorities and cartels are blurred, she represents the people and, in addition, protects her faithful through miraculous protection. Her followers flock to her because, as they say, only death can protect them from death.
Given the vulnerability of her devotees and the deep trust they place in their skeletal saint, Santa Muerte is much more than folklore. She is the patron saint of many in a country where death lurks. It is a symbol of personal comfort and collective resilience. Above all, it is a mirror that reflects a society in crisis, mired in violence, and a people seeking meaning, dignity and protection against all of this.
* Myriam Lamrani is a research associate in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University.
This article was originally published in The Conversation
Continue reading: The perception of insecurity rises in Mexico
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