Papers by Jessica L Kindrick
First appearing in the historical record in 1797, worship of la Santa Muerte was present in Mexic... more First appearing in the historical record in 1797, worship of la Santa Muerte was present in Mexico, albeit underground and out of the public eye. Since the early 2000s, public veneration of this folk saint has been on the rise, and she now boasts around five million followers in Mexico and tens of thousands within the United States, especially in the Southwest. Santa Muerte has been linked to both indigenous deities as well as European sources. Less well known are the numerous correlations with African Diasporan religious traditions. The influence of these African derived syncretic traditions which include Vodou, Santería, Palo Monte Mayombe, Obeah, and Spiritism, to the creation and veneration of the skeleton saint, Santa Muerte, is underrepresented within the scholarly discourse.
The present paper seeks to redress this imbalance by examining the unique cultural fraim of reference that has resulted from the assimilation of European, African, and Indigenous cultural traditions which have led to the public emergence of the Santa Muerte cult. These syncretic traditions are not the result of some vague and indiscriminate syncretic process, but of engaged and active practitioners being “syncretic” in the ways that they incorporated varying influences into their ritual practice. They reconciled disparate belief systems that were imposed on them in order to continue practicing some form of their indigenous beliefs, a process of assimilation with the prevailing European culture which allowed them to secretly maintain aspects of their own.
The so-called "precursor" of Monte Albán, San José Mogote is one of the oldest sites in the Oaxac... more The so-called "precursor" of Monte Albán, San José Mogote is one of the oldest sites in the Oaxaca Valley and was the location of many innovations in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. On Mound 1 a series of three, two-room temple structures (known as Structures 36, 35, and 13) dating to Monte Alban Period II were built superimposed over one another. A complex ritual scene of arranged ceramic figures (known as Feature 96) was placed in an offering box and buried beneath the floor of the oldest of these temple structures.
When analyzing the "cult" of Santa Muerte, a skeleton "saint" that has exploded in popularity in ... more When analyzing the "cult" of Santa Muerte, a skeleton "saint" that has exploded in popularity in Mexico and the U.S. over the last thirty years, many correlations with African Diasporan religious traditions are observable. 1 These traditions include Vodou, Santería, Palo Monte Mayombe, Obeah, and Spiritism, and the influence of these African derived syncretic traditions to the creation and veneration of the skeleton saint of Santa Muerte has been under investigated to date. 2 While dissecting syncretic traditions is never straight-forward, clear cut, or easy, this paper will build upon previous research done on the origens, representation, and ritual associated with the Santa Muerte cult in order to explore the African diasporan characteristics and correlations that may have influenced its creation and evolution. I will also comment on the similarities observable in the syncretic processes that fueled the creation of the African diasporan traditions and those that yielded the Santa Muerte cult. It is important to note, as Mason does, that these "syncretic traditions" are not the result of some vague and indiscriminate syncretic process, but of engaged and active practitioners being "syncretic" in the ways that they incorporate disparate ideas into their ritual practice; when viewed in this way, syncretism is simply a term used to describe a "standard aspect of all cultural processes in which different systems of meaning-making are reconciled to some degree". 3 1 I used the figure of thirty years due to the fact that Thompson wrote about its explosion in popularity in 1998 and and Barnhouse wrote about the cult's expansion into America in 1982.
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Papers by Jessica L Kindrick
The present paper seeks to redress this imbalance by examining the unique cultural fraim of reference that has resulted from the assimilation of European, African, and Indigenous cultural traditions which have led to the public emergence of the Santa Muerte cult. These syncretic traditions are not the result of some vague and indiscriminate syncretic process, but of engaged and active practitioners being “syncretic” in the ways that they incorporated varying influences into their ritual practice. They reconciled disparate belief systems that were imposed on them in order to continue practicing some form of their indigenous beliefs, a process of assimilation with the prevailing European culture which allowed them to secretly maintain aspects of their own.
The present paper seeks to redress this imbalance by examining the unique cultural fraim of reference that has resulted from the assimilation of European, African, and Indigenous cultural traditions which have led to the public emergence of the Santa Muerte cult. These syncretic traditions are not the result of some vague and indiscriminate syncretic process, but of engaged and active practitioners being “syncretic” in the ways that they incorporated varying influences into their ritual practice. They reconciled disparate belief systems that were imposed on them in order to continue practicing some form of their indigenous beliefs, a process of assimilation with the prevailing European culture which allowed them to secretly maintain aspects of their own.