This story begins not as a find from today but from a find a couple of weeks ago. I went to a park and had the whole thing to myself except for this guy hitting golf balls. Of course he was hitting right across the area I was interested in detecting, so I bided my time by looking under an oleander bush on the fringe of the park. While there, I hit a good signal and dug up a red cloth bag. Inside were two medallions. The first is a small San Judas (St. Jude) religious medallion and the second was a silver dollar size medallion with a hummingbird on the front. The lettering around the coin is a Spanish phrase that says, “La Poderosa Chuparosa” which, loosely translated, means the helping hummingbird. Centered on the back of the medallion is a 4 leaf clover ringed by the symbols of the zodiac. I tried to find a medallion similar to the Hummingbird but failed. I also assumed that someone had pinned this bag inside a jacket and had simply lost it as the rusted remains of a safety pin accompanied the bag. Well, the golfer finished hitting and left shortly after this find so I ventured out to hunt my preferred area and, though I found some clad, I found nothing else of interest.
Fast forward a couple of weeks to today when my mother-in-law called me up to look at her finds from the same park. To my astonishment, she tells me that she was hunting under the next oleander bush down from where I ended up and dug a red cloth bag with a medallion in it. Her medallion is even more interesting than mine. Upon close inspection, we determined that hers is a modified 1962 Silver Peso coin. On one side, a figure of Santa Muerte (Saint Death, or the Grim Reaper) has been attached (?soldered?). On the obverse, a dove, a pyramid, and a cross have been added. It almost appears that an attempt was made to then plate the coin/medallion with some other metal, as it now retains a coppery color. The mixture of Catholic and non-Catholic symbols associated with these medallions leads me to believe that these are indicative of Santeria which is a “folk religion” (for lack of a better term) that is in fact not uncommon here on the Texas-Mexican border.
A Google search for Santeria, Hummingbirds, Saint Jude, and Death have resulted in the following information:
Santeria originated as a mixture of African religion and ritual with Catholicism. I believe that in my neck of the woods, it apparently has a good measure of Mesoamerican belief thrown in. Within Santeria, the hummingbird is used primarily to acquire and keep Love. Saint Jude is the patron saint for lost causes. Finally, Death serves many functions including being the unofficial saint (I use the term saint in very loose terms here as the Catholic church apparently does NOT recognize Santa Muerte as a saint) to which one appeals for miracles in addition to many other causes. According to Wikipedia, though, Death or Santa Muerte is appealed to for help in relationships and for marital fidelity. I realize that my knowledge of these subjects is limited and therefore my research could be faulty, so I will certainly defer to anyone who has knowledge of these symbols within Santeria.
In all, though, this info leads me to develop a hypothesis that someone was utilizing these medallions in these cloth bags and purposely burying them to conduct some ritual geared toward keeping a lover or husband /wife faithful or bringing love to them. All in all, I think my mother-in-law and I stumbled on the evidence of a modern magical ritual.
Of course I welcome alternate views on this and would love to see someone with a better knowledge of Santeria give me a “truer” picture of what went on here. Thanks for looking.
Fast forward a couple of weeks to today when my mother-in-law called me up to look at her finds from the same park. To my astonishment, she tells me that she was hunting under the next oleander bush down from where I ended up and dug a red cloth bag with a medallion in it. Her medallion is even more interesting than mine. Upon close inspection, we determined that hers is a modified 1962 Silver Peso coin. On one side, a figure of Santa Muerte (Saint Death, or the Grim Reaper) has been attached (?soldered?). On the obverse, a dove, a pyramid, and a cross have been added. It almost appears that an attempt was made to then plate the coin/medallion with some other metal, as it now retains a coppery color. The mixture of Catholic and non-Catholic symbols associated with these medallions leads me to believe that these are indicative of Santeria which is a “folk religion” (for lack of a better term) that is in fact not uncommon here on the Texas-Mexican border.
A Google search for Santeria, Hummingbirds, Saint Jude, and Death have resulted in the following information:
Santeria originated as a mixture of African religion and ritual with Catholicism. I believe that in my neck of the woods, it apparently has a good measure of Mesoamerican belief thrown in. Within Santeria, the hummingbird is used primarily to acquire and keep Love. Saint Jude is the patron saint for lost causes. Finally, Death serves many functions including being the unofficial saint (I use the term saint in very loose terms here as the Catholic church apparently does NOT recognize Santa Muerte as a saint) to which one appeals for miracles in addition to many other causes. According to Wikipedia, though, Death or Santa Muerte is appealed to for help in relationships and for marital fidelity. I realize that my knowledge of these subjects is limited and therefore my research could be faulty, so I will certainly defer to anyone who has knowledge of these symbols within Santeria.
In all, though, this info leads me to develop a hypothesis that someone was utilizing these medallions in these cloth bags and purposely burying them to conduct some ritual geared toward keeping a lover or husband /wife faithful or bringing love to them. All in all, I think my mother-in-law and I stumbled on the evidence of a modern magical ritual.
Of course I welcome alternate views on this and would love to see someone with a better knowledge of Santeria give me a “truer” picture of what went on here. Thanks for looking.
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