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I've been lurking in the old thread for a while now and thought I'd say hi now that it's all fresh and new. I'm not at all religious, my Dad was theoretically Evangelical but never went to church and didn't care much one way or the other and my Mom is a very lapsed Catholic so I didn't have religion inculcated on me as a child, but since college I've been interested in religion in terms of aesthetics, narratives, and rituals. A couple years ago I read an anthropological study of Haitian Vodun, followed immediately by an abridged edition of the Golden Legend and I've been really interested in syncretism and folk Catholicism/Orthodoxy, as well as more official theological arguments ever since. The legends, mythology, and symbolism really appeal to me and I like the way that to various degrees both the traditions of the average people and the official Church authorities have created a really rich, interesting, and above all varied set of beliefs despite the monotheistic framework they're working in. At any rate, I'm unlikely to actually join a church or adopt a theistic (especially not a monotheistic) outlook on the world but I'll be following the thread and I'll definitely jump in if anyone wants to talk about the lives of the Saints or related topics. Forgive my ignorance in those cases, as I said, I never had an actual religious education, I'm just an interested outsider.
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Sep 21, 2016 14:37
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Since I mentioned yesterday that I'm interested in syncretism and folk religion I thought I'd mention a few of my favorite Latin American folk saints. None of these are officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church and in fact many of them have been vociferously opposed, but that hasn't stopped millions of people who consider themselves to be good Catholics from venerating them. First off, my favorite, and probably the most well known in the US, Santa Muerte:  Generally considered an example of syncretism between Catholicism and pre-Columbian Mesoamerican reverence for death, Santa Muerte is a folk saint that's pretty widely venerated in Mexico and among Mexican-American communities and she's started to have a few non-Latino devotees in the US as well. The Church in Mexico regards veneration of Santa Muerte as blasphemous and satanic, though from what I understand the Church in the US has largely remained silent on the issue, despite its growing popularity north of the border. Santa Muerte is really interesting because while she's widely associated with criminals, especially drug traffickers, she's also very popular among police officers and prison guards, and has been sort of adopted as a patron saint of the LGBTQ community in Mexico. Not to be confused with Santa Muerte, there's also San La Muerte from the Guarani speaking areas of Argentina, Paraguay and southern Brazil:  He serves a similar purpose, possibly representing a link to local pre-Columbian traditions, associated with criminals, hated by the official Church, etc., but I personally find it interesting that he's male, considering that the word muerte is grammatically feminine in Spanish the Mexican female characterization seems more expected. These are just two examples though, there are death saints in a number of Latin American cultures. Another Mexican folk saint, also associated with the drug trade, is Jesus Malverde, the Generous Bandit:  He's a historically questionable figure who may or may not have lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Supposedly he became a bandit after his parents were killed. The legend goes that he was told he'd be pardoned if he could successfully steal the governor of Sinaloa's sword but when he did so he was executed anyway. He gradually became regarded as sort of a Robin Hood figure and I can't help but see a link between his story and the character of Zorro, I wonder how much influence went back and forth there between the folk traditions and the Hollywood films. Somewhat different from these three is Maria Lionza from Venezuela.  I think Maria Lionza is quite a bit different from the others I've mentioned because at least some of her followers regard her as the central figure in her own religion with a really interesting pantheon of spirits, saints, and historical figures divided into so-called courts. Despite this semi-independent status she still seems tightly linked with Catholicism in most people's minds, in fact one of the courts consists of actual Catholic saints, sort of like how the saints are used in Cuban Santeria and other African Diasporic religious traditions. Finally, I'd like to mention the one that I think is most surprising, San Ernesto de la Higuera:  Yes, that's Che Guevara, noted Communist, and therefore atheist, revolutionary, who has apparently acquired a number of devotees who actually say prayers to him in the vicinity of the small Bolivian village where he was killed. This is one of my favorite things about folk religion, it's so unpredictable and surprising.
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Sep 22, 2016 19:46
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Mr Enderby posted:Do you know how these folk saints are venerated (worshiped)? Is it just the same as form of veneration as that done by lay people for recognised saints, or are there additional aspects? It depends on the individual traditions but yeah, a lot of them are basically just treated as extra saints. Even things like dressing up your statue of Santa Muerte really aren't that different from the traditions of dressing up your statues of Mary, which is also a really common thing in Mexico. There are some that are taken a bit more seriously, as you can see in the picture I posted Maria Lionza is sometimes given offerings of things like fruit, drinks, and cigars but even with her there's kind of a spectrum of belief ranging from, "sure put a statue up, why not? we've got statues of all the other saints" to believing she's literally a goddess at the center of her own religion.
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Sep 23, 2016 16:04
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Arsenic Lupin posted:I was reading that in the Philippines you dress up the Santo Niņo instead. I wish *my* religious tradition included dressing up dolls for the home. Yes, I know I could just do it, but my husband would roll his eyes at me. A lot, and in any case the Baby Jesus wouldn't be high on my list of preferred saints. Now that you mention it, that's probably what I was thinking of. I know I've been in peoples' houses in both the US and Mexico where they've had properly dressed up Marys but I can't really find examples online so it's possible it's just something those individuals did rather than a traditional thing. Also, you should totally get awesome religion dolls, why not? stereobreadsticks fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Sep 23, 2016 |
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Sep 23, 2016 16:32
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Because I wouldn't be venerating them, and it would be tacky. And there would be no fun in dressing up a statue of (say) Elizabeth Fry because Quaker. That's fair. And yeah, Elizabeth Fry's pretty cool but it wouldn't really work to bling her out.
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Sep 23, 2016 17:11
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