Essay from the year 2018 in the subject Sociology - Work, Profession, Education, Organisation, grade: A, Kenyatta University, course: sociology, language: English, abstract: On top of understanding the rituals and beliefs of death, burials, mourning and memorialization of the dead and afterlife beliefs among the Mexican Catholics, this paper will also be providing further insights concerning how these people perceive the presence of the dead and how they evade or accept the realities of death. Beliefs and rituals of death, burial and their significances, and the after death happenings, plus, the living and non-living connection remain to be focal, among all major cultural and even religious traditions. In this sense, the rituals and beliefs behind grieving and death vary from one culture to another, and they are often highly influenced by religion. Evidently, the Mexican culture has been observed to have a unique fascination with this aspect; a relationship that has generated myriad meanings, practices and attitudes concerning death across history, not to mention that it has also contributed to the building of the Mexican state and its respective culture; becoming a constituent of the national symbol. The distinct Mexican holidays’ expressions are normally reflected in the yearly religious and civic, alongside historical calendars. The primary demonstration of the relationships between death culture, holidays and the Mexican identity is the Day of the Dead, which is celebrated every year on 2nd November. While the population’s majority is considered to be catholic, it has been noted that religious syncretism, which dates back to the Spanish invasion and colonization, is mirrored during these holidays.

Kristin Norget explores the practice and meanings of death rituals in the popular culture of poor urban neighborhoods on the outskirts of the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca. Norget's work offers an original perspective on the significance of the Day of the Dead and other Oaxacan ritual practices in shaping people's values and social identities. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork in Oaxacan neighborhoods, Norget includes vivid descriptions of Day of the Dead rituals.

Discover The History and Rituals of The Saint of Death Santa Muerte is responsible for protection, healing, and safe passage to the afterlife for those who venerated her in life. This deity has significantly grown in popularity over the past few decades, much to the dismay of the Catholic Church, Mexican government, and other official bodies. You can see her now in many places in Mexico with shrines erected in her name and the many followers associated with the Santa Muerte movement.

*Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts and descriptions of the cult *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading European and American scholars are fascinated by her. She is exotic; they look at her with the romantic look of the anthropologist and the sociologist; she is Mexican, colorful, and third-worldly (not to mention that she is a fantastic reason to get funding from their universities). Many see in her, correctly, a prodigious syncretism, so common in the troubled history of Latin America. The Catholic hierarchy, the predominant religion in Mexico, is horrified; the church calls her a satanic cult figure, associated with organized crime. Similarly, governmental authorities watch cautiously, deny official recognition to her "churches," and destroy her solitary shrines in northern Mexico, in roads riddled with crime. However, among her followers -besides prisoners, drug traffickers and many well-meaning men and women seeking other spiritual alternatives- there are some working on the side of the law, especially soldiers and police officers. Enter La Santa Muerte, the "Holy Death," a skeletal figure dressed like a Catholic saint, whom her faithful raised to the altars without asking anyone for permission. From her followers, she gets not only candles, prayers and petitions, as any other saint; they also call her loving names that to the outside observer would seem to be a joke: beautiful, skinny, cute girl, little mother, and at the height of the confusion, "virgin." What then is the Santa Muerte movement? As a practice, it has borrowed extensively from Catholicism, Santeria and even New Age, depending on the leader of the moment and the region, from Central America to Chicago. In the variety most similar to Catholicism, people find images of the skeleton dressed in a green robe with stars and golden borders, with rays of light coming out of her head: a negative image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. "It's our little mother, our skinny, she always takes care of us," says an anonymous woman who refers to Santa Muerte in the same way Mexican Catholics refer to The Virgin. Although fleshless, Santa Muerte is, without a doubt, a female figure (in the Spanish language, "death" is a feminine noun). But the garments of the Virgin of Guadalupe are not the only thing that the "white girl" borrowed. In fact, one of the main features of this cult is its extraordinary elasticity. It will adapt to anything. Anyone can dogmatize. Everybody contributes according to his or her feelings and experiences. Young cholos (street punks) prefer a version more reminiscent of some Iron Maiden albums, and the elderly of the Tepito neighborhood, another more similar to those found at small town churches, with flowers in her hair, and a robe with embroidery. Therefore, for the casual observer watching the candles, the flowers, listening to the murmur of prayers and noticing the insistence on receiving miracles, Santa Muerte is like another Catholic saint, despite the fact the cult of the Holy Death is not only not approved by any Christian denomination but is not even tolerated. This is the story of Santa Muerte, the so-called cult of crisis, a red-hot combo of a kermesse (Mexican carnival), Catholicism and New Age; a hedonist practice but involving bodily sacrifice too. It is an expression of economic, psychological and social forces, bigger than perhaps any of her acolytes suspect. The Santa Muerte: The Origins, History, and Secrets of the Mexican Folk Saint looks at the folk saint and the manner in which her cult grew. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Santa Muerte like never before.

In Digging the Days of the Dead, Juanita Garciagodoy depicts various aspects of the celebration - including Prehispanic and Spanish Catholic traces on its development as well as folk and popular culture versions - and describes its changing place in contemporary Mexico. Garciagodoy examines in detail differences in attitudes toward death in Mexico and the United States. In part because the living do not exclude the dead from their family circle, celebrants of Dias de muertos treat death as an intimate life companion and fear it less than their northern counterparts, who tend to view death as inimical.