it's said that the Santa Muerte is the fastest growing new religious movement in the Americas. That means that more and more people with a non-Mexican, non-Catholic background are becoming interested in her. That's all well and good but something I really hate is when these people basically go to great lengths to deny that she is Indigenous.
For example, you have the self-styled Santa Muerte expert Dr. Chesnut who says that Santa Muerte is basically just a glorified Grim Reaper, the Spanish "contribution" to the genesis of Santa Muerte being "much greater than Indigenous beliefs and iconography", because of the existence of skeletal saints and effigies in other parts of the Spanish empire, including the Philippines. (SOURCE)
Even more egregious is this dude Steven Bragg who wrote this article which Chesnut praised called "Is the Santisima Muerte an Aztec Goddess?" In it, he claims that,
As a European descendant, [the lack of connection between pre-Columbian Indigenous peoples' and the Santa Muerte] makes a great deal of sense as to why la Muerte would have come to me so strongly (...) everyone who can trace their blood back to Western Europe also traces their spiritual ancestry back to the Catholic Church and the veneration of the Saints, who in my opinion are elevated ancestors.
I believe that the Santa Muerte is part of a long tradition of Indigenous resistance to imperialism in the everyday life, through the hidden meanings. Kind of like that story about the Lenin statue in Odessa that they changed into Darth Vader because of the anti-Communism law. Obviously Star Wars has a bigger contribution to the appearance of the statue in its present state than socialist realism, but underneath, you still have Lenin. Before the Spanish invasion, you had Tonantzin, etc, Nueve Hierba (Mixteca goddess of death with skeleton face who it seems like gringo Santa Muerte researchers conveniently ignore by only focusing on the Mexica--although, to his credit, Chesnut does touch on a Purépecha connection) and aspects of these were preserved through transformation for survival. This is well known with say the Virgen de Guadalupe, or the construction of churches atop the temples, or even Dia de los Muertos. Maybe the comparison between Christianization of the Americas and of Europe should be touched on. These Indigenous syncretic elements are, in my opinion, in no way comparable on the same level with any Euro-pagan aspects Christianity such as Easter bunnies and eggs, Christmas trees, and so on, because Europe wasn't colonized by capitalist powers; it was a colonizer, and there Christianity was more voluntarily integrated with the pre-existing culturally structured thought and so the legacy and significance of enduring pre-Christian elements there is quite different.
But now with the Santa Muerte becoming more trendy (Breaking Bad, etc.), you have these Wiccan and academic gringos ripping Her out of context for their own jouissance. What do you think? Is the Santa Muerte just a Grim Reaper?