BACKGROUND

The iconography of death was popular in medieval Europe since the 13th century because of the plague, but the earliest documentation of Santa Muerte by name is from an 1797 Inquisition report in Mexico (Michalik 2011, 161-162). While the origins of Santa Muerte may be European, “the most widely accepted theory is that the pre-Columbian influence in Santa Muerte's identity originated from the Mesoamerican gods related to death and the underworld: Mictlantecuhtli, Mictecacihuatl, Coatlicue, and Xipe Totec” (Bastante and Dickieson 2013, 445-446). This combination of European and pre-Columbian origins interestingly also represents the Mexican people, who have European and indigenous ancestry.