SANTA MUERTE NOT JUST A NARCO SAINT WITH DR. KINGSBURY

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Everything is a mental game, sostay attentive. We're talking about the drug
cartel, but from my whole newperspective. Break it down with some intelligence,
psychology and criminology. This is notfor the faintale heart. Yeah,
this is narcology, a look againstidethe culture, the ideas in the minds
of the law. Let's stay alert, gotta beat cause she's gonna keep it

(00:21):
down. They might hear you talking. Let's pick it out, what makes
them tick and who's at the top. Make sure you tune in because it
gets deep. You do not wantto miss out arcology. Welcome back everyone.
Well, today we have a greatguest, doctor Kate Kingsbury. She's
got a doctorate in philosophy and amaster from Oxford University. She's an adjunct
professor in the Department of anthrow Apologyat the University of Alberta. And today

(00:46):
she's gonna be talking about sign somewhereday. That's right. You might have
heard of her, and if youhaven't, you're gonna learn all about her
today. Before we get started.To make sure to share and subscribe.
Hit that I like button. Youknow we like it. That's not what
it's any more time Welcome to theshow, Doctor Kings. Welcome, doctor,
Thank you so much for having meon the show about it. Thank
you very much, professor for beinghere. This is a fascinating topic with

(01:08):
a lot of people don't understand,and it gets complicated in a hurry.
And before that, it's interesting case. I have one story I'll tell you
really really, it's a really greatstory. And I was in a I
think it was an uber, oneof these right shared companies, and I
remember speaking to the individual when wewere talking. Every time I get into
a car, I like to learnabout the different cultures if I have somebody
who's comes from a different culture thanme or born in a different state.

(01:32):
And when I asked him at onepoint, I said, I said,
hey, do you know anything aboutsomething with that? He turned around while
he's driving, which wasn't too exciting, and then he said, I can't
talk about that. I said,what do you mean? I said,
I don't want to talk about thatat that end of the discussion within about
ten seconds. So I was fascinatinghow much of an impact it had on

(01:53):
his life. So I guess myvery first question, we'll get into the
complexities of something went to two whatmotivated doctor Kingsbury to look into Yeah,
I'm going to segue off your littleintroductory prefatory story there in a second as
well, because I've had similar experiences. To be honest, so I was

(02:15):
teaching. I'm a trained anthropologist,if you know, trained social and cultural
anthropology, got my doctorate in thatat the University of Bosted in the UK.
And the show was working on religionin Africa, looking at the Sufi
order. But it was very whati'd call angrosentric, so male focused,

(02:37):
where women couldn't go into certain spaces, and that was always a bit frustrated
by that because I want to goeverywhere, see everything, know all the
secrets. You know, as ananthropologist, you know, just some researchers
tour around asked QUESTI blah blah.What anthropologists do so that your listeners know
what our job is is we immerseourself in the community. We find a

(03:00):
community which we think is really interesting, religious or otherwise, and we just
spend loads of time there, youknow, we participate in all the rituals,
we observe everything, and we tryto know the secrets. Basically were
real nosey Parkers. We try toknow everybody's secrets, really find out what's

(03:20):
going on behind the scenes. SoI felt I wasn't you know, I
couldn't do that fully in Senegal andAfrica because there were certain spaces, you
know, I could do that inthe female spaces, but not the male
spaces. So I was kind ofgiven back in my head looking for a
religion as spirituality because I'm very interested. That's my field, religion in a
spirituality. Whereas a woman I couldsome broth flies, So that was in

(03:43):
the back of my head. Anyway. I was teaching a course at the
University of Alberta on the anthropology ofreligion, and one week I really wanted
to look at death because death isan ubiquitous experience, right, Nobody escaped
it. You know, even ifyou believe in vampires, right, you
can still get a stake in theheart. There's a vampire and thun I
mean maybe zombies right, undead,but basically none of us can escape death.

(04:10):
It really is the unifying experience ofhumankind. So societies have always since
the dawn of time, you know, we know that, you know,
even Neanderthal people, even early homoscapients they call ourchaic Romo scapiens. We're
holding variants, we're holding rituals forthe dead. So we have always had

(04:35):
religion ideology in our culture since thedawn and time of the species to cope
with death, to understand death.So I thought, yeah, I've got
to cover death in this course onreligion. So I was looking around trying
to find interesting stuff, what wecall sanatology. I did something. I

(04:55):
found some stuff on cannibalism. Youknow, students always love reading about people
to other people, you know,are they put in ketchup on those other
people? Like? You know?How how are you consuming the death?
Right? Why are you consuming thedeath That's a whole other kettle of fish
that I won't get into. Butthis book popped out at me and kind
of literally fell off the shelf whenI was foraging around in the library as

(05:18):
I love to do because of VirginiaWolf said, I go to the library
and I find hidden treasures. Right, the library is full of hidden treasures
if you take time. And thisbook fell off the shelf with this skeletal
figure of death on it, andit was by doctor Andrew Chestnut, and
it was called Santham woodby the skeletons, saying, So I looked at that,

(05:41):
I leaped through, and I thought, wow, this is interesting stuff.
And I set a chapter for myclass and the class just loved it.
Now, it wasn't that Narcot whowas the Black Candle chapter, which
is all about narcot, you know, drugs. Santham Woodber is a Narco
saint that I mean, the bookas a whole doesn't focus solely on that,

(06:02):
but that chapter was on that excellentbook by doctor Andrew Chestnut, and
I recommend it to those who wantto want a good book on the topic.
And I've since collaborated a lot withdoctor Chestnut. But anyway, that's
another story. So yes, studentslove they love cannibalism, and they also

(06:24):
love reading about sex, drugs androck and roll. Right, so they
had loads of drugs in it.So great for the students. They're going
to study it for the exam becauseeverybody loves reading about chatboar and you know,
wants to know how how somebody gotgot chopped up and blah blah blah.
There was one I don't know Narcoin it called Mohas who goes around

(06:45):
chopping people's ears off. Apparently,so yeah, you know, not exactly
the kind of thing you want toread while you're having your lunch, but
the students loved it, no probably, So anyway, all of this piqued
my interest, and and I happenedthat very Christmas. I was living in
Edmonton, Canada at the time.I mean, I've now moved to Vancouver

(07:09):
to get away from that terrible climate. But for your listeners who are not
familiar with Edmonton, but weather isbrutal the six seven months of the year.
It's deadly winter. And when Isay deadly winter, I mean in
February you're getting temperatures of minus fiftyeight fahrenheit or which is pretty much the
same in centigrade that minus fifty centigrade. Like, it's so cold that centigrade

(07:33):
and fahrenheit are pretty similar at thatSo in brutal you can't go outside.
You know, you're just ready tosplash your wrists at that time of the
year. So we decided, mypartner and I took to head off somewhere
board and it so happened that wedecided to go down to Mexico. Now,

(07:54):
as an anthropologist, I cannot lieidle in a hotel. I get
very bored sitting on the beach,you know, with a tequila in my
hand, morquito, whatever people arehaving. I'm very curious about what's going
on locally, and so much likeyou with your uber driver. And you
know, I'm always what my myspouse called interrogating people. I can't help

(08:18):
asking people, you know, whatdo you believe in? What's your story?
So I started asking people about santimeWorthy and their religion in general,
and I really got very mixed responses, which made this all the more intriguing
to me. I mean, somepeople were like your uber driver, Oh,
I don't want to talk about this. You know, this is the

(08:39):
name that should not be be said, speak of the devil or you step
on its pale type thing. Yeah, And then other people would tell me,
oh, you know, be carefulof santim Worthy once you start worshiping
her. It was always spouse Tim. You know, once you strike a
deal with santime Worthy, she'll askfor more and more, and she'll take

(09:03):
more and more unless you respect her. Other people told me interesting tales of
her saving them, saving family membersfrom suicide. So I was really get
you a very wide range of responsesthe younger generations in particular open Oh Santha,
what this She's cool? Yeah,And people started telling me about this

(09:26):
shrine, this shrine for santham Worthy. There was about an hour and a
half away from the hotel. SoI'm just like, oh my god,
I've got to climb this right,so very woman. Oh, I'm just
an anthropologist, the curious anthropologist.So anyway, we arranged to go on

(09:48):
this turtle tour where you go tothis place. It's this sort of eco
village. They call it an ecovillage that's been marketed as an eco village
to promote tourism. When you canrelease turtles into the sea, little baby
ones that have just hatched, it'svery cute. So we went on this
eco tour with a tour guide.Now this was about an hour away from

(10:11):
the hotel, and I thought,well, wait, this is an hour
away from the hotel. I thinkthis is close to the shrine. So
the tour didn't have a lot ofpeople on it. It was great.
I released my turtle. I'm agreat Yeah, I'm used to you.
Maybe you know like you. I'mpedagogue, I'm professors. So I spoke
to my turtle. I was like, come on, you're going to do

(10:31):
it. Race down to that.You're gonna go for it. You're going
to survive and cry that my turtlewas one of the first tickets to see.
I was so proud. Meanwhile,my spouses is going really slowly outcry
and he's like, my tever,I want to do anything. Anyway,
my turtle was released and I starttalking to our tour guy and I'm like,
look, you heard at this andwent this shrine. Luckily for me,

(10:56):
the guy was really open minded.I had heard of Santime my pid,
but didn't know much about her,and was really sort of excited to
speak to him. So called Gringer, you know, a British gringer,
who was telling him about his culture. And he was like, wow,
this is really cool that you knowso much. I'm going to help you
find the shrine. So I waslike, great, don't worry, you

(11:18):
know, I won't I won't kidnapyour tour too much. But I did
end up kidnapping everybody on the tourto srine to you know, some of
them were horrified. There was thissweet old lady in our tour bus and
I'll talk about her late It butanyway, so we set after the tour
is over, the turtles have beenreleased into the sea, and so we're

(11:43):
driving around because we know it's closeby, and he's asked around, he's
asked for the people, and wehad that same experience with the Uber driver.
We're asking local people where is theshrine and some of them are like,
oh, I don't want to tellyou. I don't want to tell
you. Other people are like,it's over there, you know, near

(12:03):
that tree, blah blah blah,by the electricity part, because there's like
a big electric thing near that.And so it was also very hush hush,
you know, which made it allthe more intriguing. Anyway, night
was falling and it's a very intriguingtime. This was in Wahaka. I
don't even mentioned where it was then, Wahaka, Southern Mexica. It's a

(12:24):
very intriguing time of night, intriguingtime of the day at night in Wahaka,
because you're in the middle of thejungle, it's very fertile, fect
and I want me to picture this, so I want the listeners to picture.
There's very fertile second landscape full ofpalm trees and exotic plants and flowers.

(12:46):
It's a very very beautiful landscape.That jagu wards you know, roam
around in these jungles, the sortof bananas growing by the side of the
road, coconuts. It's a verygorgeous landscape. Very lots of indigenous people
as well, so are very richculturally. The roads, you know,

(13:09):
are small and winding. There's headin bends. But the other thing I
want to say about this region isthat it's severely impoverished. You know,
people are very deprived there. Imean the rubbish or what people garbage in
the US, the garbage is notconnected. So at that time of my
people burn their garbage, so youhave like a lot of I want you

(13:33):
to picture it also in terms ofscent. So there's the scent of the
jungle which is very strong and earthy, which are juxtaposed with the scent of
burning garbage because people make fires andthen they burl plastics and plastic bags and
then debris. So you know,we're riding in this kind of little torbus,

(13:54):
small tor bus on this jungle road. All these smells are around the
monasms. Guy started thinking and allof a sudden something catches my eye,
and it's this chapel that's just comebecause there's no lights there, you know,
there's no street maps. This chapeljust comes out of the darkness with
all these candles burning and the figureof Santa Muff. She looks like a

(14:20):
skeleton, like the Grim Reapress,as Andrew Chestnut called her. Doctor Andrew
Chestnut, she's the Grim Reapress.She's got a scythe in her hand,
the female version, basically the GrimReaper. She's standing there with a side
of her head and she's flickering inand out of these shadows of all these
candles burning. So I just sayto the torbut styles so we start this

(14:45):
tour bus. This poor little oldlady that I mentioned earlier on is horrified
because she's just met death for thefirst time in the middle of Mexico and
this is what's going on. AndI'm on the oh mom, the other
head. I'm so excited. I'mlike, oh my god, I'm running
out of the bus. And hereis this little shrine for sometime which actually

(15:09):
had several effigies, one with likea walks head on it, the central
one, and there's all these candlesburning. There's offerings of flowers, the
Guila Mescal water, food of allsorts. So I'm admiring this for me.
What's this extremely beautiful shrine of devotionto death? And this small lady

(15:37):
comes out of the shadows with along platque down the back of her head,
and she turns out to be thissample tech indigenous woman. Her name
is Donna Elena Martinez Berez, andshe happens to be the shrine owner.
And we start talking. Now I'msorry, I'm gabbling on, and you

(16:00):
may have questions, but all ofthis is so exciting to me that it's
fascinating. And now, up untilthis point, you know in the media,
I've heard that sometime what did thenotch? Right? This is I
mean, I want you to talka little bit, doctor Bascus, because
I'm gobbling on a lot, totell me about something. What did Nkosi?
What you've heard? Well, yeah, that's the interesting thing, as

(16:21):
we talked about before the show,sometimes people can well automatically think it's just
related to Narco's been. In reality, as we talked before, it's really
much more complex because there's a lotof people in Mexico who celebrate or not
celebrate, but worship something white.They or prayed to something white. They
who are nothing, have nothing todo with the narcos whatsoever. Now does

(16:42):
she have some relations to Narco?Saying she does? And I know one
of the questions I'll talk to youabout and you can answer, whatever is
the different colors they're also associated with. That's something what she comes on,
white and black and green, allthese different colors seem to mean something different.
Yeah, so yeah, I beenuntil that point. I mean,
I've read doctor Andrew Chessla's book.But in the media breaking Back, you

(17:04):
know, all these shows, Imean True detectively came out with something similar.
Ghost recall Santa what they is alwaysdepicted as a saint of drug dealers,
right, as a saint that criminals, nefarious men that are up to
dirty deeds are praying to to,you know, get her spiritual blessing to

(17:25):
go ahead and do whatever naughty thingthey're planning to do, whether it's get
their myth amphetamine shipment across the border, you know, go and kill the
police or fight the rival gang.Right, that's the image that's been engraved
in our heads with regards to Santa. Worth it. But I need this

(17:45):
lady, and her story just blowsall of that away from for me and
makes me realize, you know,this is complete disinformation, misinformation, misreprepectation.
So I asked this, this lady, and I'd say to her,
you know, if this your shrine, and she said, yes, this

(18:06):
is my shrine. Twelve years ago, I was extremely sick. I was
very, very sick, and Ithought I was going to die. And
yet we have to remember that thisis the context the Royal or Harker.
There is not good healthcare. Youcan't just nip down to your local doctor.
And in fact, a lot ofthe doctors that have sent out there,

(18:29):
or surgeons are often those who werein their early practice who had just
sent out there to practice on Indigenouspeople because nobody cares if an Indigenous person
dies, right, And in fact, Donna Eleanor later told me and showed
me some pictures of deceased relatives inthe shrine who had died during routine surgeries
down there because nobody cares. SoI have to remember this is the context.

(18:53):
This woman tells me she's been extremelyill for twelve years and I wasn't
able to get the requisite met tocompare. So she thought she was going
to die, and she was lyingin her bed convinced that death was coming
for her. And death did cometo her, but not as she imagined

(19:15):
Santa would be. The saint ofdeath came riding into her on a carriage
drawn by an owl in front.So an owl had she said to be
an owl sort of had this harnesson it and was drawing this carriage,
and then there was an owl onthe back, and satan Wood came to
her in this you know, wemight characterize as a as a dream,

(19:38):
but you know we have these arevery you know, as you might know,
doctor Carlos, that'scars a dream isa very sort of Western concept in
a way, in the sense thatwe've distinguished dreams between reality. But in
in indigenous cultures and particular, dreamsare not distinct from reality. They are
part of life and equal to wakinglife and not really something separate. And

(20:03):
we can talk about that later.I don't want to get into that philosophical
discussion right now. But anyway,so she has this vision of sometime what
thing, and sometime what dessays toher, I'm going to heal you.
I'm going to give you a miracleof healing. But you should dedicate for
your your life to me, prayto me. So she gives her this

(20:26):
miracle of healing, and the followingday, Dona Elena wakes up and she
is cured, miraculously cured. Alsoat that same time, she tells me
her son was the victim of witchcraft. Things were going terribly wrong in his
life. He again was not gettingmedical help. He was behaving like a

(20:49):
crazy person. He was afflicted byby many different symptoms which you know,
almost sounded to me like schizophrenia orsomething of that nature. And again he
went to a courandero. Because DaniaElena, again being an indigenous woman,
has grown up with these traditions ofcourdanerismo, so folk healing. In fact,

(21:14):
her father was a Urdanderic who wasa famous folk healer. So she
took her son to a folk healerwho cured her son with santan wing.
So they decide to set up theshrine. From what I understand, her
son was doing the heavy lifting.He goes out to build construct but she
is the one that maintains it.So they start this small shrine and every

(21:38):
day she's there. It's right byher house, day in, day out.
You know, she's maintaining the shrine, lighting candles, and as she
starts the shrine, more and morepeople see it by the roadside and come
in and start praying to Santa.And over time the shrine starts to expand

(22:00):
and from something small to something muchmuch larger. And I'll talk about that
more in a second. But whatstruck me with this shrine was that it
wasn't narcote. I mean, Narcot'svisit it shure and they visit it in
the dead of the night. Butthere was a huge motley crew of different
people visiting it, and a lotof women. A lot of women were

(22:22):
visiting this shrine, and I realized, Wow, you know, it's this
elderly woman who is running the shrine, cleaning it because it has a much
of maintenance, having a chap allright, think about all people that come
in bring candles, they get burntout flowers. You need to remove those
candles that burn out, change thewater of flowers, discard the old flowers,

(22:45):
clean up all the dast et cetera. I mean, it's a full
time job, and basically it hasbecome Donya Eleanor's full time job, and
what I realized was, Wow,you know, this elderly woman, this
mother is is really not a narcohere away and I need to go and
study the shrine. I need tofind out more about who's going there and

(23:07):
what the truth is or whatever truth, you know, because truth is that
are quite an abstract concept, whatthese layers are of devotion to death.
So so that's where I did.I went back home. She gave me
a beautiful statue. It's more,but you know, a gift like that
is an incredible thing to have insuch a context when people are impoverished and

(23:30):
you know, living barely with anyelectricity, often with no running water on
less than you know, ten dollarsa day if they're lucky, if they're
lucky, you know, And soshe gifted me this. Santhem went to
Figurine and I took her home andI just would look at it day in

(23:51):
and day out, and I justI made this connection with her. I
mean, we spoke very deeply aboutdeath by myself and had a view that
experience, and I just knew Ihad to go back. I mean,
as an academic, I don't wantto talk, you know, too much
about superstition, but that sometimes youjust get this nagging feeling I've got to

(24:12):
go back. This is, youknow, my fate to study this.
So I did. And I'll stopthere because otherwise I'll keep garbling. But
any questions you have, and thenI can talk later about what I found
when I returned subsequently. And Iwant to say one thing. I want

(24:32):
to clear up one thing for thosepeople I've heard previously another podcast. People
think I'm going out there and stayingin five star hotels all the time.
I'm not. I just happened tobe in a hotel that trip. When
I returned subsequently, I was living, you know, in a local village
in what people call the sort ofpalapa and you know, a very sort

(24:52):
of simple structure with no running water. I had to call someone to fill
up a well that I had.I didn't have a flushing loop or I
think you call them toilets in theUSA. You know, I was,
I would like a dog. Ihad to bury my own business with.
Yeah, they give you stand andthey give you stuff, and I'll have

(25:14):
ants coming in all the time.I had to kill scorpions, spiders.
I was living very rustically, soI don't want people thinking that I'm there,
I'm staying in five star hotels orclub I have a great way of
telling a story that's fascinating. Again, folks, Doctor Kate Kingsbury, So
I guess my first question this isprobably one of the most elusive ones I've

(25:34):
found and looking at something, whatthere is? Where does she come from?
Her Columbia, her Central America,South America, Spanish origins? Do
we know anything for sure of theorigin of something like it? Um?
This is a very contentious topic ofdebate, and there is no agreement between

(25:55):
scholars who study this, Doctor AndrewChestnut myself. There's also a Mexican anthropologist
called Gapia Ferdan Castaniela who's in agreement, and a few others. I think
Godlos, I think he's called Gamaor something like that. He has a

(26:18):
written a lot, but he's spokenin the press about it. We're all
in there's so two schools of thoughts, so we're all in agreement that she
is syncretic. What do I meanby that she has hybrid origins? She
has both indigenous depth theirity origins andI'll speak about my theory in a second,
and also Spanish origins. The otherschool of thoughts see her as uniquely

(26:41):
Spanish, which I think is atravesty and robs us of indigenous knowledge.
If you know, you might callthat an epistemicide, right, It's like
the genocide of indigenous knowledge. Somy theory, with agreement with doctor Andrew
Chestnut and others scholars, is thedoctor data is that. So if we

(27:07):
look at pre Hispanic Mexico, therewas a lot of indigenous religion, great
spirituality, and a lot of thiscomprised devotion to death deities. Now they
weren't necessarily the gods and the goddessesthat you and I can imagine. People
imagine these figures of more having essentialforces, as having sort of almost like

(27:36):
breath, having this sort of vitalenergy of different forces, and one of
these forces the death. So ifwe look at you know, the most
famous example is of course the Aztecexample. Everybody loves the Aspects, but
there are many other examples. SoI want to move away from the Aztex
articles. The Aspects believed in anunderworld called Niklan, and in nik Clan

(27:59):
they had a death, a duo, a couple through God and the goddess.
The goddess was Mick the gas Quataland she was sort of the guardian
of bones. She looked after thesebones which were very precious. With her
husband currently quickly difficult, Nantha ummic Landon quickly and they together with the

(28:23):
death duo that looked after the underworld. But not only was the Mitakasquatal and
mick Landon quickly, we also havethe May and Death. So they believed
in also an underworld which was calledShibaba, which was again presided over by
death deities such as yum Semel andr. But what's very interesting to me

(28:48):
is that m Wahaka, where Iknew my research, the Zapotec also had
death derties. Now, whereas forthe Aztec and the mine and the death
ties, Wich is sort of partof this larger pantheon where there were more
important derties. For the Zapotec,the death deities were the most important and

(29:11):
venerated above all other deities for favorsof healing, for success in war even
and there was again a deathly duoa couple. She was called the death
goddess was called Shanashiquia and her husbandwas called Piou Pizala and Picou sort of

(29:32):
translates his breadth again. So it'sthis notion of the sort of windlike force
of death. And what's fascinating tome is that just ubiquitously across this region
we're seeing belief in the underworld,belief in death derties that have powers.
We're also seeing ancestor worships, sowhen people buy, they pass away,

(29:57):
but they can still be propitio created, supplicated for favors of healing again.
And what's also very important to meis that the death derties, your death
is not as it is in theWest, imagined about finality. You know,
it's not like you die and that'sthe end. It's a cycle a

(30:17):
bit like we see, you know, in Buddhism and Hinduism. I mean,
I don't want to draw too manyparallels because it's different, but it's
a cycle of death and rebirth.So female death derties are obvious, honestly,
quite ubiquitously portrayed as pregnant. Soyou know, for us, that's
very strange. Why would death beportrayed as pregnant, as heavily pregnant.

(30:41):
But you know, it's this understandingthat death is pregnant with life that death
can breathe new life into ventures,into things, into people. So you
know, we have to understand thatit's very, very different from the European
understanding of death. So all ofthis is going off and go into it
more. But what I want,because it's an in depth topic, we

(31:03):
should also glean from this, andas I've written in my upcoming book and
other academic articles, that the owlis very important in terms of symbology that
we see associated with indigenous depth deity. We see the owl, we see
the back, we see these bestfertonal nocturnal creatures. Anyway, fast forward,

(31:27):
the Spanish come along, so let'stalk about colonialism. The Spanish come
along, and obviously the whole colonialmission is not just about choiring riches.
It's also a brainwashing sort of endeavorto convert people to Christianity. Right,

(31:48):
And so when they come along andthey all these colonial missionaries come in from
Spain, they bring in figures astheir symbology, right, their icons to
convert people. So what figures dothey bring in. Of course, they
bring in Jesus, They're bringing Mary. They bring in lots of saints,
you know, Saint Christopher, SaintJude, Saint Martha, who would be

(32:14):
known as Santa Martha. Think abouthow similar that is to Suntan wed Thing.
Right, And they bring in theGrim Reaper, who, as doctor
Andrew Chestnut has pointed out, youknow, is a female figure in Spain.
So he course have the Grim reapertsknown as la Back. So we

(32:35):
have to understand that when conversion enforcedconversion takes place, people are not going
to understand these figures like you andI do. They're going to understand these
religious figures in terms of their ownreligious background. Right. So when they
see the figure of death, arethey going to see that as in the

(32:58):
Christian tradition it just represent enting death, as representing the triumph of Jesus over
death. No, of course they'renot going to see that figure the Grim
Reaper. You know, that skeletalfigure of death is just representing death.
Some of those people are perhaps goingto think, wow, you know,
maybe this is kind of like adeath debity, right, maybe this is

(33:21):
like Mick LANDI quickly Miktikasi work orSean actually works a lot. You know,
you're sim right. They are goingto reorient themselves in their world according
to their own understanding. The otherthing that we have to take away for
anybody you know that's familiar with Voodoo, pandomblay Band that all these syncratic religions

(33:43):
is that also when people are forcedunder duress to practice the religion that they
don't really want to practice, theyare them covertly in the background, secretly
still keep on worshiping the old godsand goddesses, the indigenous gods and goddess
is, but using Christian figures.So we've seen that, you know,

(34:07):
with Voodoo for example, you knowthey would say, you know that's Mary
if the worship as Mary, orthat's you know, I don't know Saint
Patrick worship in this that they mightthink of. You know, I imagine
Saint Patrick as Dambala. You knowthat can sneak like figure. Right,
So I think that indigenous people mayhave been doing this as well. They're

(34:28):
like, oh, you know,we're being forced to And in fact there's
proof of that, Like I've lookedat the archives. There's proof that amongst
the Zapotec they were told to worshipJesus. Right, but the men prior
to going on a hunt, theywould go to the church and they would
pray to Jesus, but secretly theywould pray to Masana, the god of

(34:50):
the hunt, and imagining Jesus asMasanama because Massanna, like Jesus, is
a god of creation. So theywere kind of of intermixing. Do you
see what I'm getting at here?Yeah, and imagining them and imagining them

(35:13):
in the guide of their own godsand goddesses. So I think it's very
likely that the grim repress Or wasbeing imagined as a death seat. She
might have also been confused or perhapsintentionally imagined as a saint, because if
you're telling people or worship Santa Marthaand then along comes this figure. And
the Spanish. The other thing weshould know about the Spanish is they emphasize

(35:36):
all that Santa word thing. Whatdoes that mean? You need to have
a holy death. So for theSpanish, all that Santa and what thing
is the idea that to get toheaven you need to be a good Catholic,
say your prayers, respect the commandments, and you confess to a priest

(35:57):
on your deathbed. Right, Soit's the idea of being a good person
so you can have a holy depthand depth to heaven. But I don't
think that the Indigenous people were understandingit that way. They might have seen
it saying, well, you know, Santa math that is a saint,
so why not Santa Worthy being theGrim Repress being a saint in her own

(36:20):
right? Just see what I'm getingat him? Absolutely? Yeah. So
we know from the archives, andthis is recorded in from seventeen fifty four
to seventeen ninety seven, there's two, at least two three different references in
the archives that Indigenous people were foundworshiping the figure of the Repress. In

(36:42):
one case in seventeen ninety seven ina church. The Catholics priests were extremely
pissed off, to put it lightly, because they found this church where the
figure of the Grim Repress have beenbound to a sort of stick. People
were getting high on hallucinogenic I thinkit might have been mushrooms or plants of

(37:04):
some elk. They were getting totallybomboed, and they were whipping this figure
and insisting that it produced a miraclefor them, a political miracle. Interesting
the amount. So the Catholics camein, you know, we're really pissed
off. The Spanish obviously punished allthese people, destroyed this chapel, and
you know it said you can't dothis. There are also instances in seventeen

(37:29):
fifty four of Couranderos folk healers,and this, to me is very interesting
using images Spanish images of death toheal people and to diagnose illness, you
know, which is not at allhow the Spanish should go imatch with this
figure is death should be you,I said, are like, oh my

(37:50):
mo. And the other thing thelast point I want to make it so
important to me because we're laughing.But then at the same time this is
all very tragic. We have toremember that there's genocide, mass genocide going
on. You know, nineteenth percentbetween i'd say, between the arrival of
the Spanish and the fifteen hundredth ofthe seventeen hundreds, the ninety percent of

(38:12):
indigenous people get wiped out by whatthe scholar doctor Jared Diamond called the guns,
germs and steel. So you know, guns, steel, It's it's
pretty obvious, you know, theSpanish going around musing violence, but the
big killer also was germs, right, the Spanish bringing in small pots and
all these other European diseases that localpeople had no immunity too, had never

(38:37):
been exposed to unlike the Europeans who'vebeen exposed to these begears and had developed
community. So all these indigenous peoplewere being wiped out. So you know,
perhaps Jesus to some of them,did it look very powerful. I
mean, death must have looked likea very powerful horse. And they had,
within the context of the landscape wherewe're just be your turning to death,

(39:00):
there ties to tune into their power. They're seeing the death still has
immense power. So why turned toJesus And you know why not did Jesus
in their minds? Did Jesus reallytry over death? Or is death try
anything over Jesus? Right, becauseeverybody's dying around them, So I think
a lot of people would want tohave tuned into the power of death to

(39:22):
even cope with all the death thatwas going on around them. M So
we you know, we really needto have that the context. And you
know that's still a context today inMexico. There's so much you know,
Madam went bad death, so youknow, death is really front and center.
So anyway, these people but areworshiping death, and we know that,

(39:45):
you know, there's there's pockets andclass Mexico worshiping death are punished by
the clergy, severely punished. Sowhat happens like with any faith where people
are being punished and you know youcan potentially bug to that for heresy,

(40:06):
it goes underground. It completely goesunderground for years on end, for years
on end. And I can talkabout the recrudescence that the resurfacing of that
if you wanted in a second,but I've been talking so much that I
feel like I should shut up now. And then you get to wed and
edgeways. Now, you did greatdiscussing the history, and look, we
can always bring it back if you'rewilling to come back too, always to

(40:28):
continue the discussions and different aspectcause there'sso many areas. And it's interesting because
the Mexican culture is always fascinating me, and I've seen in any other Hispanic
cultures too, But the aspect ofthe thinking your way back into the conversation
without the connection of death and lifewhen the little is much us, and
how they celebrated and how they reallytry to create a bridge and try to

(40:52):
create more certainty and understanding and lessfear of that the other side the underworld,
I guess you can call it orwhatever you want to refer it to.
Well, I guess in a distressingtoo when you talk about Catholics of
how they they've had problems for twohundred years worth it, and even today
they still have issues. A lotof priests who don't want people who celebrate

(41:15):
Stithy. They're saying that she's notan official saint. I guess my question
to you would be, did younotice anything throughout the different states? Every
time I talked to people from Mexico, from different states people Sometimes people don't
realize the thirty two thirty three statesin Mexico or something like that, but
they're all very different and they alsohave very different versions of santome Worth they

(41:36):
did you notice that? Oh?Absolutely, you know absolutely. I mean
there is a ubiquitous figure of sometimewhite place of your listeners. I was
talking about the owl, your ownbeing very important indigenous symbology, and I
think you know that. To meis one of the great signs that sometime
work they still has impart an indigenousheritage, is that she's always depicted this

(41:58):
that's figgure, the skeletal figure ofdepth, you know, with a skulp
or a face wearing a long gowndown to her bony toes which generally peep
out, and I love those ofher bony toes. And then she holds
a side in her hand on oneside, and then often the scales in
one hand the other hand or theglobe, and then she's often got an

(42:21):
owl generally around her person, oftenat her feet. So there is this
central symbology, but the way inwhich the faith is practiced, there's just
so much heteropraxy because unlikely within theCatholic Church, where you have a governing
body in charge telling people what todo, even if people are not listening,
right, people still add live withinCatholicism across the world. You know,

(42:45):
it's very varied, but generally youknow there are precepts, there are
stipulations, regulations everybody's supposed to followwithin sometime worth it. Because it's so
loosely organized, there's no authority bodyin charge. It means that people are
very much practicing as they want to. Now we can talk about the main

(43:07):
sort of tenets, like the useof candles in a second, and the
specific offerings you have to give toher. Prayer is a very important part
of devotion in Mexico, there arewitchcraft elements as well, which we can
talk about. But as you said, the devotions of death is very different
across the country as our beliefs regardingSantime, what its origins. I would

(43:31):
say in northern Mexico, you know, there's there's more sort of Cuban influence.
We see a lot of steepitch fromcandle lay coming in also from Santiaia
in particular Santario, which is Cuban. We see sort of lots of New
Age influences as well in northern Mexico, in Mohaka where where I study,

(43:55):
in particular, it's a lot morebased indigenous understandings of devotion to death.
And I really saw that with regardsToday of the Dead, you know,
with Day of the Dead celebrations inCancoon, I visited a shrine there.
I'm very close with a shrine owner, a lady called Uri Mendez. And
that's another aspect I've really been lookinginto, is that I'm trying to own

(44:20):
by women, and that's you know, my work really focuses on the female
followers of Sante. You know,we all think old male Marcos says,
this really silence of the voices ofwomen. Women are very powerful with its
work. A lot of them areleaders. You know, we could talk
about Dona Guetta in a second,who is the pioneering person who made devotion

(44:40):
to death go public in Defeatual MexicoCity two thousand and one. But getting
back to the question, you know, her devotion to death, don ye
Getas is very different to say EurieMendez way of practicing santam and again is
very to Donna Elena down in Wahaka, and I saw this during the Day

(45:02):
of the Dead celebrations when people celebrateSantan what this birthday in Wahaka, the
celebrations is so infused with Indigenous Dayof the Dead practices, whereas you know,
Urimendous was more a sort of thatmainstream Day of the Dead kind of

(45:24):
you know, influenced by the JamesBond film as well, double a set
that was sort of an interesting thingthat happened there where we could talk about
where you know, life inspire thefilm that then a film starts inspiring people
and making them change their culture.But you know what, Harker, people
don't have act I mean most ofpeople don't have a television right down there,

(45:46):
right, they don't have Telly asmuch people are. I think the
younger people are watching James Bond theDonya Eleanor, I mean she doesn't own
a television. I mean she's fortunateenough that her son was able to recently
buy her a boody watching the shefor crying out that. So you know,
she just listens to stuff on thenews, and she certainly has never
watched Specter, the Double zero seventhfeaturing Day of the Dead. So I'd

(46:10):
say the practice is down in Wahakaraare sort of the much more insua compared
to Northern Mexico, where you you'vegetten a lot of influence from the media
from US, even Halloween or allof that. That's a good point too.
I don't think about the Halloween Empacttwo and heavy metal as well.

(46:36):
You know, in northern Mexico peoplemight get into digitally netal sort of this
kind of goths trend, you know, rural Wahhaka, you're not going to
see. I mean, yes,among younger people like you know, in
the twenties and thirties. But knowDonya Ellen, nobody knows how old Donetella
is um because she was born inthe Sierra and the thing you know in

(47:00):
the mountains. Um, there's abeautiful story about her. People say that
she's gone to deal with sometime webbit can never die or that, you
know. I hope that's true becauseI love that lady. Um. She's
just such a wonderful character and sofull of life, so spride. But
nobody knows how old she is.She you know, these things are not

(47:22):
recorded when you're born up in themountains, right, that's a challenge.
Yeah, she can't read nor write, um, but she sort of has
her own knowledge. She's very streetsmart and and a lot of her knowledge
is is passed down, you know, it's family knowledge. So I thought

(47:43):
all of that was very interesting.I guess my last pucons we are running
out of town. Don't believe it. We've been together almost an hour.
Fascinating discussion. Um, how herpersonality treats. I know there's different colors
for different types of something. Wentto I think greens for money or something
like that, greence for justice,Yeah, greenest for justice. Also gold

(48:10):
is for money. Yellow could alsobe used for money, can of success,
white ist purity and cleansing, redestfor love, passion, sex,
because you can ask stime working laughtythings. You know, this is not
the Catholic Church, right, soif you want a dirty day on a
Saturday night, don't hesitate. SatimeWorking is going to listen to you.

(48:31):
And I think this is a bigappeal for women again. You know,
women for me are so central tothe story because they've really been at the
forefront of the movement. And Ithink women are so drawn to Sathi working
because within Catholicism, you know,there's all this thing, you know,
thou shalt not bong kong Saturday nightor you have to go down and say

(48:51):
sorry to you a priest right withinsometime Working we don't have any of that
going on. This is a verysort of a model Black reports for vengeance,
texting protection. So yeah, soyou wanted to know about the different
aspects of sometimes what they have personnow or what's interesting is that you push

(49:13):
me in, push me into thisdirection. But it's interesting to see it
as as an empowering figure for womenthat she can be. And there's this
you once you know that we mustn'tforget is that you know, people men
who are femicidal, you know,going around killing women, drug dealers who
you know were you know, they'renot involved just in impeddling drugs. You

(49:36):
know, they've got their dirty handsand a lot of things that could be
prostitution, your sex trafficking, youknow, human trafficking of women. You
have to sell them into really nastysex work. So you know, we
have these kinds of very femicidal misogynists, sick men who were worshiping Santa turning

(50:01):
to her to to vindicate their activities. But at the same time have women
if you could feel very empowered bythis figure. Recently, I've spoke to
a very interesting corrandera Bruha Witch,who is based in Hidalgo, Mexico,
and we were talking about this andI said to you know and this,

(50:24):
she gave me the same answer.Oh my goodness. I always get the
same answer from all the women thatI ask, and if I get amazing
because I don't put words in theirmap. I always ask well, why
is it women who are turning toSanta'm worth this so much? And the
answer I always gets is because womensuffered war in Mexico. You know,

(50:45):
this is a very sexist country.And then I always asked him, well,
why aren't you turning to leaven him, right, the Virgin of guada
Upe, the sort of Mary typefigure. And the answer again, I
always get the same answer, Well, you know she's she's kind of yeah,
she's powerful, but she's a bitmeek and mild. And we see

(51:06):
this in the symbology, you know, whereas sometime work there is known as
being una una. She won thateven you know about us under a warrior,
and women need to be warriors inthis context of so much death,
so much femicide. You know,femicides are one hundred and thirty seven percent

(51:29):
in the past five years. Overten women are being murdered daily, and
that's just the ones we know about. Women are disappearing all the time,
girls as well. You know,in will Harker, seventy percent of the
people who disappear our girls between sevento seventeen years. Oh seventy yeah,

(51:49):
wow, to seventy percent of thosewho disappear are our girls and women.
So there are so many threats towomen in this context. You know,
they really need and meanwhile they're trying. You know, this is this poverty,
its fresh named rural Wahaka. Youknow, so that sixty percent of
people are living underneath the poverty line. Forty percent of people are living in

(52:10):
extreme poverty. UM. So youknow, women are the ones that have
to feed the children, look afterthe sick, so a lot flowed on
them. So women suffer a lotum and so you know this this virginal
figures to some it's just it's justnot empowering enough. And some of them

(52:32):
may have to do dirty deeds themselvesor let father's husband's sons no go and
peddle drops because they don't have anyother choice to get money in right,
So women are just suffering on allthese different levels. Uh, you know,
potentially from malnourishments, malnourishments of theirchildren, no access to proper healthcare,

(52:55):
and then plus you know, I'mexperienced at first hand, but you
know what, women went out there. You do not go out at night
unless you are very sure you canget home safely. I mean I've even
been followed by the police there,and you cannot. You know, I
was warned by Donna Eleanor, whohas sort of become my honorary granny now
I call her granny because she's alwaysgiving me life advice. Frund down there,

(53:20):
do not trust la Polycia. Right, if La Polycia there, you
cannot trust them. Laugh, Polycia, I can rape you. You know.
I was. I was followed byLa Polycia one day. I was
in my car and I pulled intoa shop. I knew the shop owner,
and I just kid out in thatshop and waited for them to go
away. So, in this context, your women are afraid. There's all

(53:40):
these different threats, but you stillhave to feed the kids, you still
have to go to work, youknow, you still have to do your
best. So you need support andyou're not necessarily going to get that locally.
So yeah, there's no psychologists likeyourself, doctor Carlos Vasquez, that
women can just knit down to andsay, you know, I've been having

(54:02):
a really tough time. So lotsof women turn to something wed. And
I've seen Donya, Elena and otherwomen literally they speak to Santi. What
is if she with their best friendand she is about what happened during their
day, and they feel like thislegitimizing them because she's a female figure.
Right, she's listening, they tellme, everyone tells me, she listens

(54:22):
to me, she protects me,so she legitimizes their they're suffering and you
can also go to court and theirswho work with Santami, they will also
listen to you. And this isvery therapeutic, this is cathartic, this
is empowering. And there's been somevery interesting studies by Davis um because Davis

(54:43):
and ds who proved their psychologists,they proved, if you think that you
had the agis the supernatural support ofa powerful figure. If you think you
have that, If you had thathope, whether it's true or not and
it's not come into that, that'sgoing to help you have less anxiety,

(55:06):
have more stability, be able tocope with your problems. So I think
this is very important for women.So they agree. It's interesting because when
I talk about religion, I usuallygo to William James Route and I always
talk to tell people that I'm notlooking at to prove whether God exists or

(55:27):
now that's not my expertise. Ican't answer that question. But what I
can do is talk about the functionalityof religion and what does it provide for
people. That's usually the area Igo to when it comes to religion.
Fascinating conversation. I hate to endit, but you have to end it
sometimes really amazing stuff, Doctor KateKingsbury. Again, folks, when't your

(55:49):
book coming out, Doctor king whilstdelayed because of COVID, Because if anybody
wants is a goot listening, pleasepray the Trudeau opens out the borders so
I can leave this country, becauseright now, if I leave this country
and come back in, I needto pick two thousand dollars to return and
then be detained in a COVID hotelas they're calling them, but it's pretty

(56:14):
much a detention center and pay twothousand dollars, you know, which is
not budgeted in you know, I'mnot paid enough as a professor. And
the grants, as you know rightnow, we're very limited. So it's
sort of been delayed because I wassupposed to be out there this Christmas and
I couldn't go because I need togo cancel or flights to Mexico, which
was just really a big, abig blow to my research, you know,

(56:37):
I think, Yeah, I meanit was supposed to be out next
next year. Let's let's see whatthat looks like. Because I just don't
feel like I can do justice tothe research without spending more time down in
Mohaka. I mean I've got.I'd say I can do a good two
thirds of the book, but thereare just some answers that you know,

(56:59):
I need to robe in more depth, and I don't want to be making
stuff stuff up as I go along, and I want to be true to
to what I'm studying. So soyeah, sometimes want the dvotes if you
tuned in praying prayer for Trudot tostop charging two thousand dollars so I could
go down and spend more time withDanielle Anda the Santon Worker community, and

(57:22):
I want to give a shout outto all the devotees as well off there
and thank them heartily. I've hadso much support within the Santime Work the
community. So many people have openedtheir doors and their hearts to me and
taught me their stories, which haveall been I mean, I wish I
could tell more of these stories,but especially from women, just the stories

(57:46):
of being able to leave an abusivepartner or an abusive father or uncle,
being able to fight back against depression, wanting to commit suicide thanks to santam
Weidby. One devote recently told methat she wanted to meet death. She
had been abused sexually by someone withinher family, and so she didn't even

(58:12):
want to shower anymore because she feltso disgusting. She would just go around
stinking, and her family would belike, poor gear, you know,
why aren't you washing yourself? Likewhy why are you? Why are you
so stinky? And she was puttingon loads of weight like she just wasn't
taking care of herself anymore because shewas so depressed that she was just at

(58:34):
death door literally. But then shehad this this epiphany and she discovered Santham
Webby, and she told me,I realized that I didn't need to die
to meet death. That I couldbe alive and have death in my life
and have the power of death inmy life supporting me so that I could

(58:54):
live more fully as the woman thatI'm supposed to be. So I just
wanted to sort of enter with thatbeautiful story. That's powerful. That's a
powerful story. Thank you again somuch, doctor Kingsbury, truly appreciated.
Hopefully you'll get your answers and you'llbe back on the road again towards Mexico.
Thank you so much for having meon the show. I really appreciate

(59:15):
it, and I look forward tohearing the feedback from your listeners too,
so thank you so much. Butmy books fill out yet. But you
can find loads of stuff that Ihave written. It's easy to access online
for those who want easy to readstuff. There's a website. I'm a
co editor for it. It's kindof like an informal blog on Santa Wedday.

(59:36):
It's non academic. It's called Skeletonsat dot com because obviously Santana is
a skeleton Saint, so skeleton sintdot com. There's loads of great articles
on there, a lot of testimonyby duvots that I've recorded and transcribed,
visits to shrines, et cetera,et cetera. But work with a more

(59:58):
academic ilk and you can look upmy profile on academia dot edu, where
I'm just you know, vistited asKate Kingsbury. Loads of free stuff there.
If you're more of the brainy geekytype like me, you know,
I'm a secret geek, but hopefullya cool one because the study sun that
wordly and not one of those boringones that wears cardigans. No offensive people

(01:00:22):
who wear cardigans. I wear thetwo when I called, but you know
what I mean. Then you cango on Google scholar and just typing my
name Kate Kingsbury sometime likely there's loadsof interesting stuff, including on how sometime
Waddy is helping people during times ofcoronavirus with the black Candle to you know,
help them fight off them and protectand heal from from coronavirus. So

(01:00:46):
loads of interesting stuff online. Justgoogle me. I'm one other podcasts as
well, and I also recommend Yeah, the work is Block and Chestnut if
you're looking for a book that hasbeen published yet, the only one monograph
in English that's been published thus asfar on the topic. Absolutely, thank

(01:01:08):
you so much, doctor Kingsbury.Thank you everyone for listening as well.
Make sure to share and subscribe.We'll catch you all next time.