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San La Muerte (Spanish for Saint Death), also known by several other names, is an Argentine folk saint and cult image that originated and is mainly venerated in the country's Northeast region, which comprises the provinces of Corrientes—to which he is most associated—, Misiones, Chaco and Formosa, also having followers in the neighboring countries Paraguay and southern Brazil. In the 21st century, his cult has spread to the whole of Argentina, although the largest number of devotional centres are located in the Littoral region and the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area.

The cult of San La Muerte is a result of religious syncretism.

History


The cult of San La Muerte originated in the Northeast region of Argentina, which includes the provinces of Formosa, Chaco, Corrientes and Misiones, and is also present in Paraguay and Southern Brazil; that is, in regions influenced by the indigenous Guaraní people. Although the exact origin of the devotion cannot be determined, it is often believed to have arisen as a result of the hybridization of Guaraní ideas and practices with the Catholic beliefs transmitted by the Jesuits in their missions, which had an important development in the region. In addition, researchers have developed two main hypotheses to explain it: on the one hand, there is the "reproductivist" view, which argues that the devotion reproduces Christian icons introduced by the Spanish evangelization, which were appropriated and modified by the Guaraní following the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. On the other hand, the "creationist" position holds that San La Muerte originated first as an indigenous devotion and only later incorporated European influences. Researcher María E. Gentile points out that the oldest published record about San La Muerte dates from 1917 and comes from a trip to Misiones by archaeologist Juan Bautista Ambrosetti. According to Gentile, Ambrosetti stated that among the payé or amulets he found was a figure that was called a saint even though it was not included in the Catholic Church's list of saints: "it was San La Muerte made of lead, with the appearance of a skeleton, good against bullets and knives. This happened 10 years before the finding of the amulet by Hilario Barrios, in 1907." Ambrosetti also claimed that the amulet was "made to sleep" outside the house, and was not carried when fighting so as not to kill the adversary.

There are no known subsequent written testimonies about San La Muerte until well into the 20th century: that of Guillermo E. Perkins Hidalgo in 1948 and José Miranda in 1963, who reported that its cult was already consolidated in the areas of Corrientes and Resistencia, respectively.

In a 1966 article published in Panorama magazine, Rodolfo Walsh noted that: "In the Corrientes countryside or the belt of villas miseria that surrounds Resistencia, in Formosa towns or Paraguayan cities, [San La Muerte] is loved, feared, rewarded, punished, invoked for better or worse. Some of his devotions are indistinguishable from the more peaceful Christian worship; others are close to voodoo, and are not spoken of or spoken with a tremor in the voice."

According to professor Frank Graziano, the images of San La Muerte are "indebted to the medieval Dance of Death and to the widely disseminated personification of death as the Grim Reaper", while they "also relate more broadly to imagery associated with the Day of the Dead, particularly in Mexico; to the Andean veneration of skulls and bones; to the iconography of Christ's crucifixion; to imagery in Catholic Holy Week rituals, such as the representations of death used by Penitentes; and to the death imagery used in such magical and esoteric practices as witchcraft and tarot.

https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/san-la-muerte/html/

Main practices
https://revistacrisis.com.ar/notas/san-la-muerte-y-san-son

https://revistacrisis.com.ar/notas/san-la-muerte-flor-de-piel

https://ri.conicet.gov.ar/handle/11336/143774

http://www.scielo.edu.uy/scielo.php?pid=S2393-68862020000100019&script=sci_arttext#B22

https://www.ellitoral.com.ar/corrientes/2020-8-21-1-0-0-cuales-son-las-versiones-de-san-la-muerte-y-por-que-lo-celebran-en-diferentes-dias

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40170073?read-now=1&seq=12#page_scan_tab_contents

https://medwinpublishers.com/AEOAJ/the-inlay-of-san-la-muerte-as-configurations-of-the-passionate-state-of-faith.pdf

Iconography


According Frank Graziano, the image of San La Muerte is "indebted to the medieval Dance of Death and to the widely disseminated personification of death as the Grim Reaper."

In Corrientes Province, San La Muerte exists in two iconographic forms; the most common is a skeletal figure carrying a scythe, a form in which he is known as Señor de la Buena Muerte ("Lord of the Good Death"), San Esqueleto ("Saint Skeleton"), among other names.

The other, lesser known iconographic form of San La Muerte consists of a "naked skeleton without a scythe, seated on a sphere or cube, with the elbows resting on the knees and the head supported between both hands."

"small figure, usually made of wood, with a seated king with his crown", known as San Justo, San Bernardo or San Paciencia ("Saint Patience").

Narratives
Unlike other Argentine folk saints like the Gauchito Gil or the Difunta Correa, there is not a fixed narrative about San La Muerte's legend, with "multiple myths [competing] for primacy as they advocate quite different origins." A common origin myth of the saint was transcribed by Frank Graziano in 2007: In the remote Esteros del Iberá, about 150 years ago, there lived a shaman who was famous for healing. He also cared for lepers who were abandoned in a prison, bringing them water and easing their sufferings, but he never caught their disease. Some say he was a Franciscan friar or a Jesuit who stayed behind after the expulsion. The shaman often repaired to a tree beside the water, squatting, in order to meditate and restore his powers. His great charity and love of his neighbor were interrupted, however, when Catholic priests returned to the region to resume control. One day, when the shaman was entering a village to tend to someone sick, the priests had him arrested and imprisoned with the lepers. The shaman accepted this unjust punishment without resistance. He refused ot eat and remained standing, wasting away, and supporting himself with a long walking stick that looked like an upside-down L. No one knew of his death until much later. They discovered him standing in his black tunic, supported by his stick. He had withered away to a skeleton.

https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/san-la-muerte/html/

Social aspects
Because one of the main powers attributed to San La Muerte is that of protection against violent death, the saint is commonly chosen by young delinquents and by the prison population.

His cult is widespread in prisons.

In the mass media, the cult of San La Muerte is mainly presented in a highly negative light, simplifying it as a devotion of criminals and delinquents.

In popular culture
The cult of San La Muerte is the subject of a 1969 short film made by Jorge O. Ott and Mario Molina y Vedia entitled En busca de San La Muerte (English: In Search of San La Muerte), based on a short story by María Luisa Acuña.