Item Details

title

TO DEATH DO I DEVOTE: AN INCLUSIVE STUDY OF SANTA MUERTE’S IDENTITY AND HER RELATIONSHIP TO DEVOTEES

author

Cabrera, Gabriela

abstract

The primary goal of this thesis is to focus on the foundations of understanding Santa Muerte and the relationship she has with her devotees. There are three main questions that I will be asking in this research. Each chapter will focus on a main question, with the goal of reaching a conclusion of who Santa Muerte is by analyzing how her devotees shape her identity through their own agential activity. The first chapter, From Where Do We Hail the Saint, addresses the question: What is Santa Muerte’s relationship to Catholicism? The main objective of Chapter one is to become familiar with the relationship between indigenous Latin American practices and Catholicism. Chapter two ties the Aztec origin death stories to the modern-day Mexican traditions of the Day of The Dead. The second chapter, Mexicans and Death, revolves around the question: What is Santa Muerte’s relationship to Mexican death traditions? Chapter two will focus on theories related to the interconnectedness of Mexicans and death to hypothesize why Mexicans do not fear the appearance of Santa Muerte. This hypothesis sets up the introduction of Chapter three, Who Is the Bony Lady, which addresses the question: How does Santa Muerte transcend to being considered a sacred object? This chapter will highlight the three main components for understanding who Santa Muerte is, and the importance behind her image.

subject

Borderland

Criminology

Immigration

Mexico

Saints

Santa Muerte

contributor

van Doorn-Harder, Pieternella (committee chair)

Foskett, Mary (committee member)

Gandolfo , Elizabeth (committee member)

date

2021-06-03T08:35:54Z (accessioned)

2021 (issued)

degree

Religion (discipline)

embargo

2026-06-01 (terms)

2026-06-01 (liftdate)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/98784 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

type

Thesis