Me and La Flaca

All I  to do intended to do today was see the Museum of the City of Mexico.  I walked to the subway along a beautiful side street.  I had breakfast at Sanborn's and headed to the subway. Half an hour later I was in the noise, color and beauty of the Zocolo.




I went to the City Museum, but for the first time here I was extremely disappointed in a Mexico City attraction. The building was in poor repair.  There was some furniture and a display of cartoons.  I had been expecting a comprehensive story of the city.  Even the museum book store was uninteresting...and filled with cigarette smoke.

So I walked back to the Zocolo.  Every time we go there, we see crowds of people heading in a direction we have never gone.  Well, thanks to my abbreviated visit to the museum, today I had the time.  I became a part of the crowd that seemed to grow larger with every block.  This was not the Mexico City I was used to; the city of beautiful flowers, fountains, interesting restaurants and historical buildings.  This was the grittier side.  Here, people didn't sit on park benches to enjoy ice cream cones, but sat on the curb quickly eating their tacos, changing babies, smoking cigarettes.  Every building was the home of numerous stores...uniforms, military gear,  pipes, electrical equipment.  This was not the area to find a beautifully woven shirt or piece of Mexican pottery.  This was a neighborhood of working people; poor people.

And here in this neighborhood I had my first glimpse of Santa Muerte..Saint Death.  She has been venerated here for a long time,  some say since the 1940's, but has only been above the radar for the past ten years or so.  The two million people who pray to her, allegedly mostly criminals and the poor, believe that she has the power to solve problems, grant wishes, make their dreams come true.  Because she is a skeleton who wears a robe or  dress, she is also knows as "La Flaca"...The Skinny One.  The use of skeletal figures in pre-Christian religion in Mexico is well documented.  There are stories of people tying up skeletons and threatening them with lashings if they did not grant requests and wishes.  Needless to say, the Catholic Church has condemned the worship of Santa Muerte.    But here in Mexico, the Catholic Church is not filled with the bland, blond statues that it is elsewhere.  No, here in the churches of Mexico, Jesus on a cross really looks like a man dying on a cross.  He is thin, his face wears an expression of agony, he wears a real crown of thorns in his wig.  He wears real clothing and is covered in rivulets of blood.  Religion is all around...part of everyday life, certainly not just a "Sunday" thing.  I go into churches all the time and have never found one empty.  People are fervently praying...they bring flowers and candles to statues.  They pin photos of themselves to the robes of statues.  This is also where the "Day of the Dead" is celebrated with passion and love.  People bring the favorite foods of the deceased to their graves on November 1 and celebrate with their dead friends and family, right in the graveyards.  Every business, no matter how small, has a statue or picture of Christ of Our Lady of Guadalupe displayed.

On the first day of each month, the "original" Santa Muerte is worshipped. She is given gifts of alcohol, candles, flowers, cigars and cigarettes, gold, food, money and, instead of incense, is surrounded by marijuana smoke.  Some people who used to believe in the Catholic Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes, have now stopped praying to him in favor of Santa Muerte.  One woman explained, "he has enough to do."  It is also said that one can pray to Santa Muerte for the kinds of things that wouldn't be "acceptable" in the Catholic church.

Seeing my first Santa Muerte was both exciting and frightening.  I saw a man putting something on a statue and figured it was the Lady of Guadalupe.  But this statue was wearing a beautifully embroidered bright red dress or robe.  I looked up, and saw her skull face.  Santa Muertes wearing red are the ones who grant wishes relating to love and passion.  I noticed that a statue of Jesus was directly across the street from Santa Muerte.  On the very next block was a Santa Muerte dressed in bright golden yellow, indicating that she would grant wishes relating to financial success and power.  Again, a statue of Jesus seemed to watch her from across the street.

I went into every church in the neighborhood after my contacts with Santa Muerte.  I couldn't shake the chill that had come over me.  And I thought...only in Mexico would people casually work, eat, and socialize under the shadow of beautifully dressed skeletons.

So, the Museum of the City of Mexico was a bust...but it led me an experience that taught me much more about this surprising place.