On the margins of theology – IV

The curious case of St. Guinefort

For those who fancy themselves cultured and somewhat versed in the more bizarre points of history, the case of St. Guinefort is perhaps one of the more exotic and colorful stories at which to gawk. For those few who do not yet know the story, it begins in the castle of a nobleman whose name is now lost to the erosion of time and lore. Upon returning from a trip, he hastily killed his loyal greyhound after thinking that it had mauled his newborn child to death in his crib. After finding a dead snake and the child safe and sound, the nobleman realized what had really happened: the dog had once again presented itself as “man’s best friend”, having ferociously killed the snake that was stalking the bed of the newborn. The nobleman buried the dog and planted a tree at its burial site to commemorate its heroic actions. The castle itself was eventually leveled, the family departed, and a grove of trees came up in its place. But the locals did not forget the “martyrdom” of that greyhound, and little by little, the tree at which it was buried became the site of pilgrimage, particularly for mothers with sick young children.

This was the state in which the devoted Dominican, Stephen of Bourbon, found this area of the world in the 1200’s. Hot on the trail of heresy and witchcraft, the educated city dweller entered the countryside looking for anything that did not cohere with the “orthodoxy” that was triumphantly established in the great cathedrals and universities of the age. When through much prodding the friar found out that the local saint was a dog commemorated at a sacred grove, he began a campaign to eradicate the blasphemy from the region. He preached against the “rites” performed by the mothers there who would bring their sick children as a “sacrifice” to the fauns, passing them through the trunks of trees and leaving them exposed to the elements. Finally, he preached at the place itself, and had the bones of the dog dug up and burnt, and leveled the place to the ground. Unforunately here as well, Holy Mother Church was not able to eradicate completely the superstitions of the local “cafeteria” Catholics, and the cultus to St. Guinefort lasted well into the early 20th century.

Saint Marron

St. Marron, a folk saint unique to New Orleans, was the patron of runaway slaves; the name derives from the French word marron, meaning a runaway. He was usually represented by an image of St. Anthony, apparently this saint not only found lost people, he aided those who “got lost” on purpose.

-Carolyn Morrow Long, A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau

Thug (after)life!

from Time Magazine, July 2nd, 2008

Judith Escalona visits the General Cemetery in southern Caracas at least once a month. At the tomb of Ismaelito, she pours the dead man a drink and lights him cigarette after cigarette. Ismaelito was no relative, however. He is the king of the santos malandros — the holy thugs. The purpose of Escalona’s tribute, including the prayers she offers to Ismaelito, is protection. Almost 50 people die from criminal violence in any given week in Caracas. Escalona’s store has been burgled several times, but she is grateful that no one has been killed — and she hopes Ismaelito will keep it that way.

San Miguel y Santa Muerte

AG was listening to my CD of Crisotbal Morales’ Requiem (see video above), when it hit me that St. Michael is mentioned in the text of the old Requiem Mass, at the Offeretory:

sed signifer sanctus Michæl
repræsentet eas in lucem sanctam,
quam olim Abrahæ promisisti et semini ejus.

but may the sign-bearer, Saint Michael,
lead them into the holy light
which you promised to Abraham and his seed.

Of course, this image also came to mind:

Notice the ancient scales of Maat, signifying judgment over souls. I suppose that is why some people say that it is St. Michael that comes to retrieve souls at the point of death.

Like many traditions, however, this one seems to not have been passed down, except in the garbled, early morning prayers of a priest at Low Mass. So it is no wonder that in Mexico at least, the Angel of Death morphed into this:

No comment:

On the Popular Canonization of Entertainers

As a follow up from last week’s post, I present to you a few notes on “folk canonization” of singers in Latin America. The first is the already mentioned Carlos Gardel, whose tomb in the Chacarrita cemetery of Buenos Aires is a popular shrine complete with ex-votos thanking the deceased singer for “favors granted”. To be fair, I was reading that such ex-votos only began to appear about thirty years ago, so it may be a more “modern” phenomenon.

One author summarizes Gardel’s appeal with a very succinct formula:

Carlos Romualdo Gardés, conocido como Carlos Gardel, presenta dos de los rasgos esenciales para constituirse en un santo popular: murió joven y dramáticamente.

Carlos Romualdo Gardés, known as Carlos Gardel, has two of the necessary qualities that constitute being a folk saint: he died young and dramatically.

One personal anecdote: the way one porteño friend in seminary spoke of Gardel and his music, I found such a “popular canonization” hardly surprising. And this was in an ultra-correct, Lefebvrist religious house. I am kicking myself now that I didn’t go out of my way to visit Gardel’s tomb when I was down there.

Another Argentine artist “canonized” by the populace is the cumbia singer, Gilda, as you can see from this program on South American television:

According to a report from a couple of years ago from the Mexican newspaper, La Jornada, some believe that the tomb of Mexican singer, Pedro Infante, who also died quite young and tragically, is also miraculous. The face of Pedro Infante was grafted onto the early 20th century outlaw, Jesus Malverde, leading to an indirect popular canonization of the singer by those devotees.

I sort of experienced this phenomenon when people in my predominantly Mexican-American hometown “freaked out” when Selena was shot by one of her fans back in the late 1990’s. Since she was a Jehova’s Witness, I don’t think many of her fans “pray to her” the way some Argentines would pray to Gilda or Carlos Gardel, but given another context, such a cultus would hardly be surprising.

On “False Saints”

It’s good to see my own personal obsessions get wider attention:

An essay on the relationship between the recent death of Michael Jackson and the hound “St. Guinefort”

via

a Shrine of the Holy Whapping blog post

As one would expect from a blog associated with First Things, we have a very correct, very sober attitude towards the unruly masses who are not as educated as “we” are. As he writes:

In both cases, the cults were propelled by two engines: the ignorance of the people, and the desire to venerate. As with the angels, we are created as creatures of praise. We seem to be hardwired to praise something, to worship anything. Just as we will eat rotten food and filthy water if no healthy food and clean water are available, we will venerate dogs and celebrities if we see no truly worthy objects of veneration before us.

On the Communion of Saints

image credit: Juan Soldado altar in Tijuana, Mexico

A good article from Inside Catholic. Here are some highlights:

The convert sometimes finds that he’s not completely comfortable with how Catholic the Catholic life actually is. He may come to the Church with all the slobbering, tail-wagging enthusiasm of a hungry beagle hearing table scraps hit his supper dish, but he can suddenly turn into an overfed cat when he finds out what’s in that supper dish.

It’s all too much. To be able to talk to the Mother of God, or to St. Joseph, or to the great martyrs of the early Church, or a favorite medieval theologian — that’s great. It’s simple and straightforward… But then it begins to get complicated, with the multiplication of people with whom you have a real connection. And worse, this group includes people you’ve known well. It can include people you’ve seen in embarrassing situations or whose sins you’ve witnessed. You’re a private saluting . . . other privates. At least it feels that way.

That, in my experience, is where the convert tends to balk. It just doesn’t feel right. Even after eight years as a Catholic, when someone I know says, “I was praying to X,” naming someone we’d both known, I still want to respond, “What, are you nuts? X?”

And of course, since this is my blog, I will include my own comment here:

I’m so Catholic …I pray to saints even the Pope doesn’t recognize. When we went to the cemetery as children, we used to visit the graves of my brother and sister who died a few days after birth. Because they had been baptized, my mother said they were angels (not true, but a common belief in Mexico… heck, close enough). It was kind of cool having a brother and sister who were angels.

In Latin America, it is hard not to think at times that the graves are shrines and not places of mourning. Maybe it’s “Catholic ancestor worship”, but people feel that they are helped from beyond the grave by even the suffering souls in Purgatory (there are holy cards for the “Anima Sola”, and people can seach my site for an English translation of the prayer.) Down there people have all sorts of “Catholic spiritual helpers”, some good, some bad, some not so clear: Sarita Colonia, Juan Soldado, La Milagrosa, Gauchito Gil, Pedro Jaramillo, etc.

All canonization does is say that a public cult can be celebrated for a person, and indeed it should. But I am beginning to think that, scratch the surface a bit, and PRIVATE cults are just as necessary. I pray to my deceased grandmother and some of her “folk saints”. I knew one blind woman who was a pillar of the Legion of Mary in my town who I consider a saint. Saints from long ago, reigning in glory both in Heaven and in the hearts of all the faithful, serve as an example of emulation and intercession that tie us into the mystery of the Universal Church through the ages (the Virgin, St. Jude, St. Michael, St. Joseph), but those “uncanonized” saints make it all real and tangible in the here and now. Both are very much needed, and both should be propagated both from the pulpit and in the Catholic home.

La Juana Figueroa

This time from Salta, Argentina:

According to sources such as Felix Coluccio’s Cultos y Canonizaciones Populares de Argentina and a folklore site from Argentina, Juana Figueroa was the wayward wife of Isidro Heredia, who was beaten to death by her husband during an argument about her infidelities. While by no means a woman of virtuous life, her “martyrdom” made her a “miraculous soul” especially for housewives in unhappy marriages. Her traditional day of veneration is Monday, and people gather around the shrine seen above and ask for a miracle.

It all seems like a the sacralization of a telenovela, but such spectacles are not uncommon throughout Latin America. As I have shown before, from Tucson to the pampas of Argentina, violent death is seen to have a canonizing authority all its own. Coluccio, however, tries to see a deeper cultural and religious significance in this cultus:

“Poor thing! How much she must have suffered! Who knows what really went on in their house! What do men know about women’s problems?” These and other expressions flowed in answer to my questions , one Monday afternoon next to the devotional tree, where I went as a curious observer. Before the popular feminine sentiment that forgives and overlooks a shameful fall, I could not but help think of the goodness of the Lord as He looked over the Magdalen: “Thy sins are forgiven… go in peace.”

High John the Conqueror : African-American “folk saint”?

From Bay Area botanica to Muddy Waters

The following is a translation of a prayer I found in a religious store in San Francisco:

In the name of God Almighty. Soul of John the Conqueror, who some call the Great John since you were a great lover and guardian of money, for this reason and because of the hours they are giving you, I ask that you put me in the heart of so-and-so and favored by my Guardian Angel, it be granted to me what I sincerely and of good faith ask you: that my fate and luck change and may the pains and torments of my life cease just as your punishment for your foolish actions and ambitions ceased in purgatory. To the Guardian Angel of so-and-so: do not give him/her tranquility until s/he is by my side.

At first glance, this is another prayer in the midst of many to “questionable” figures who may or may not have existed, such as Jesus Malverde, Maria Francia, or Juan Minero venerated in many places in Latin America. What is more interesting is that this man definitely falls into the category of an “anima sola“: a deceased person whose life was by no means virtuous but is miraculous nonetheless because of his suffering in Purgatory. It is one of the most interesting finds that I have encountered in my botanica hunts.

However, I have begun studying as well the religious traditions of African-Americans, and I have found a John the Conqueror there as well. Indeed, in “rootwork” or Hoodoo, John the Conqueror is a trickster figure who has great power. As it is explained on one website:

Who was John the Conqueror and what is the root named after him? Ethnographers, especially those influenced by Zora Neale Hurston, say that he was a black slave whose life — perhaps a real life that was embellished in the telling, perhaps a fictional life entirely imagined — was an inspiration to slaves who wanted to rebel against their masters but could not do so openly. John, said to be the son of an African king, was in captivity, but he never became subservient, and his cleverness at tricking his master supplied many a story with a pointed moral. If he was a real being, he soon acquired some of the characteristics of mythical trickster figures like the Native American Coyote, the African-American Bre’r Rabbit, and the West African deity known variously as Elegua, Legba, and Eshu. He gave — only to take away. He bet — and never lost. He played dumb — but he was never outsmarted. The reputation of High John is so great that, as recorded by the folklorist Harry Middleton Hyatt in the 1930s, just reciting the words “John over John” and “John the Conqueror” is a powerful spell of magical protection against being hoodooed.

Like the Catholic binding prayer above, one of the uses of “John the Conqueror root” is for love spells. The blues musician Muddy Waters even wrote a song about it, an excerpt of which you can hear by clicking on this link.

How this tradition got to Mexico and ended up on a “prayer card” sold in a botanica is an interesting question, perhaps one we will never be able to answer. But if it is indeed an African tradition, it is interesting to see how it was incorporated into the Catholic ethos in Mexico and how it evolved in the Hoodoo tradition.

Tomasito Herrera

Spirit of an unknown child curandero. Image found on this site.