"According to the times of the saint": requests, punishments and rationalizations in the slow normalization of a stigmatized devotion

ALEJANDRO FRIGERIO

Madrid

Simposio; Colloque Ex-voto: creátion, subversion et transgression; 2022

Ecole des hautes etudes hispaniques et iberiques (Casa de Velázquez, Madrid)

Devotion to San La Muerte spreads throughout Argentina, dragged along by the explosive spread of the cult of the Gauchito Gil, a social bandit who in life is said to have been his devotee. As the cult spreads and becomes institutionalised - with several public shrines in the Greater Buenos Aires whose owners function as privileged mediators with the saint - some of its most fearsome facets are redefined. The idea that he is "the most equitable" of the saints grows, hand in hand with the popularity of a legend that affirms that in life he was a pious monk who cured the poor - somewhat diluting the fearful and univocal association with "death". Social networks become an arena of debate and instruction for new devotees. The traditional plaques of thanksgiving lose popularity and new forms of votive offerings become visible: tattoos, construction of domestic and public altars, pilgrimages to famous shrines for the annual feast - all neatly photographed and later posted as testimony in groups of devotees on Facebook. In these same groups, ways of relating regularly and daily to the saint are discussed: the leftovers of cigarettes and candles offered to the saint are monitored in search of clues as to whether he will fulfil the request made. If the saint´s help is not forthcoming, possible reasons are considered. The contemporary idea that "Lord Saint Just" (Señor San Justo) knows what is in the devotees´ best interest, as well as at what point in their lives, softens earlier, more linear notions of promise-fulfilment or non-fulfilment and punishment, replacing them with a more complex interpretative process that defuses fear and cognitive dissonance. The growing devotional reflexivity that moves away from more punitive traditional conceptions and the new modalities of offerings that make their presence visible in public space help a stigmatized devotion to grow daily in urban social environments very different from those in which it developed.