Santa Muerte

Our Lady of Holy Death Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte
Close-up of a Santa Muerte statue south of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas
Other names	Lady of Shadows, Lady of the Night, White Lady, Black Lady, Skinny Lady, Bony Lady, Mictēcacihuātl (Lady of the Dead)
Affiliation	A wide variety of powers including love, prosperity, good health, fortune, healing, safe passage, protection against witchcraft, protection against assaults, protection against gun violence, protection against violent death
Major cult center	Shrine of Most Holy Death, Mexico City, Mexico
Weapon	Scythe
Artifacts	Globe, scale of justice, hourglass, oil lamp
Animals	Owl
Symbol	Human female skeleton clad in a robe
Region	Primarily Central America, Mexico, and Southwestern United States (scant worship in the Caribbean, Canada, and Europe)
Festivals	August 15, November 2, and many public shrines celebrate the date of their founding

Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte (Spanish: [ˈnwestɾa seˈɲoɾa ðe la ˈsanta ˈmweɾte]; Spanish for Our Lady of Holy Death), often shortened to Santa Muerte, is a new religious movement, female deity, folk-Catholic saint,^[1][2] and folk saint in Mexican folk Catholicism and Neopaganism.^{[3][4]: 296–297} A personification of death, she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees.^[5] Despite condemnation by the Catholic Church^[6] and Evangelical pastors,^[7] her cult has become increasingly prominent since the turn of the 21st century.^[8]

Santa Muerte almost always appears as a female skeletal figure, clad in a long robe and holding one or more objects, usually a scythe and a globe.^[9] Her robe can be of any color, as more specific images of the figure vary widely from devotee to devotee and according to the ritual being performed or the petition being made.^[10]

Her present day following was first reported in Mexico by American anthropologists in the 1940s and was an occult practice until the early 2000s. Most prayers and other rituals have been traditionally performed privately at home.^[11] Since the beginning of the 21st century, worship has become more public, starting in Mexico City after a believer named Enriqueta Romero founded her famous Mexico City shrine in 2001.^[11][12][13] The number of believers in Santa Muerte has grown over the past two decades, to an estimated 12 million followers who are concentrated in Mexico, Central America, and the United States with a smaller contingent of followers in Canada and Europe. Santa Muerte has two similar male counterparts in Latin America, the skeletal folk saints San La Muerte of Argentina and Paraguay and Rey Pascual of Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico.^[13] According to R. Andrew Chesnut, Ph.D. in Latin American history and professor of religious studies, Santa Muerte is at the center of the single fastest-growing new religious movement in the world.^[14]