which is a fascinating and very large celebration in Mexico, but I haven't seen evidence of it outside of this holiday.

Will keep my eye out for it.

Economics are abysmal right now, so it doesn't surprise me that people are turning to a saint who gives property.

I found this from the Post article to be interesting.

Interestingly, there are a lot of people that dress like her during the holiday.



We went to a big celebration that had a costume contest. People take this very seriously and the costumes were amazing.

I don't know if the costumes are related to her or not.

One man in my Santerian Ile is a 1st generation Mexican immigrant. He claims to be a 3rd generation Brujo (witch/warlock/sorcerer) and venerates Santa Muerte. He has a rather large and quite gorgeous altar to her in his Yerberia here in Phoenix. Many Yerberia's do actually.

I have learned from him that Santa Muerte is actually a syncretic figure. She is not a traditional Catholic Saint but rather the embodiment of the Aztec goddess of death, Mictecacihuatl, whose 'feast day' was made to coincide with All Hallow's Eve by Catholic missionary priests to Mexico centuries ago.

She is a fascinating mythic figure.

There are often Aztec and Mayan religious ideas and rituals that have been combined into the traditional catholic ones.

That may explain many of the traditions associated with dia de los muertos. I happened to be in France once for this day, and while it is a very big holiday (everything closed, including museums, etc), it is nothing like it is here in Mexico.