{"id":65695,"date":"2019-08-05T16:04:42","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T16:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=65695"},"modified":"2019-08-05T16:04:42","modified_gmt":"2019-08-05T16:04:42","slug":"border-crossing-mexican-folk-religion-meet-american-pop-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=65695","title":{"rendered":"Border crossing: Mexican folk religion, meet American pop culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — this should really be a Sunday Surprise, but you probably won’t see it till Monday, so why not wait and post it in the morning? ]
\n.<\/p>\n

A DoubleTweet<\/strong> killer: The Mexican cult of the skeletal sacred, Mictecacihuatl<\/strong> or Santa Muerte<\/strong> depending what century you’re looking at:<\/p>\n

:\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

Saint Death<\/strong>, to whom one might pray, or Holy Death<\/strong>, which one might pray for, with an implied positive afterlife — Santa Muerte<\/strong> can be translated, or understood, either way, or perhaps better, both. <\/p>\n

The idea that that Titanic <\/strong>ending love-image can be translated into a muerte santa<\/em> tableau illustrates the imaginative power of the santissima muerte<\/em> tradition — liebestod<\/em>, lovedeath, if you love Wagner <\/strong>— or in Hilaire Belloc<\/strong>‘s version of Tristan and Isolde<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

My lords, if you would hear a high tale of love and of death, here is that of Tristan and Queen Iseult; how to their full joy, but to their sorrow also, they loved each other, and how at last they died of that love together upon one day; she by him and he by her.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

Wagner<\/strong>, Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde<\/em>, sung by the impressive Nina Stemme<\/strong>, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by (I believe) my nephew Daniel Harding<\/strong>:<\/p>\n