In a country that abounds with nuggets of quasi-religious lore, none can outdo the mysterious cult of Jesús Malverde — El Santo de los Narcos (saint of the drug traffickers).
Take a stroll through the vast and overwhelming San Juan de Dios market in downtown Guadalajara, head for the esoteric stalls selling herbs, spells and B-grade devotional articles, and there you will find images of Malverde peeking out from between his brethren cult figures, such as that Grim Reaper twin known as Santa Muerte (Saint Death) and the less fanciful San Judas Tadeo (St. Jude), the patron of impossible causes — all of whom tend to appeal to those on the fringes of the law, the Church and most any institution you can think of.
Being on the fringe does not lend itself to people doing doctoral theses about you or proposing you for canonization. (In fact, Malverde is not recognized as a saint by the Catholic church and some even claim religious authorities have prohibited sales of Malverde paraphernalia and persecuted stores selling it.)The result is that there is no widespread agreement as to who Malverde was, or even if he really existed. The latter suspicion is bolstered by fact that the name Jesús Malverde — with its too-perfect juxtaposition of the holy and the unholy — sounds as if it were the product of a Hollywood screenwriter and popular statues of Malverde bear a strong resemblance to the legendary star Pedro Infante.
What is certain is that in some quarters — Culiacan, Sinaloa, to be precise — many people, such as those who throng Malverde’s festivals near a chapel named after him, have no doubt that the dapper, mustachioed, and very unofficial saint really existed. During festivities, a statue of him in his white ranchero shirt and bandana tie may be paraded through the streets, exciting great fervor and media frenzy, while prayers for money, love or health are offered to him.
But here in staid Guadalajara, one San Juan de Dios merchant yawns and says hardly anybody wants to buy his busts of Malverde, which go for $150 pesos. However, a few feet away in stall number 1250, Monica Vega says there is plenty of interest in her larger, full-body statue of the trim Santo de los Narcos, which sells for $500 pesos. (Merchants also sell scapulars and holy cards bearing Malverde’s image and/or special prayers.)
Other, local evidence of interest in Malverde is Jalisco’s Minerva brewery, producers of “Malverde” beer, not to mention journalists and artists who hone in on the cult of the elusive saint, such as the Di Paola gallery in Ajijic with its 2011 exhibit of photos by Ivan Stephens Silvestre depicting devotion to the narco-saint.
However, local interest in the saint pales beside the festivities every May in Culiacan, near a chapel named after him, Capiila Jesús Malverde.
With all this hype, is it possible to get to the bottom of Jesús Malverde and figure out if he really existed? No. The long-standing legends about him date to 1909, when the construction worker — or was he a railway worker? — shot up a slew of federal police in Sinaloa — or was that the date he was killed by them? Or was he hung?
Despite all the uncertainty, it is safe to say that the sometimes creepy Malverde cult, which now extends south of Sinaloa and north to Mexican communities in the United States, is in line with that of other Mexican, Robin-Hood-style figures, such as Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, whom many here view as noble rebels who resorted to crime to counteract the repressive and corrupt system that makes people miserable.
In the United States, drug police reportedly view a Malverde altar in a house or his symbol dangling from a rearview mirror as evidence, similar to certain tattoos, that a suspect is involved in drugs.
But in the San Juan de Dios market, Jesús Malverde, narco-saint, seems merely one of the dubious yet colorful and entertaining items that hint at some bizarre reality that most of us do not take that seriously.