How is Mexico coping with the recent surge in drug-related violence, you’d like to know? The answer involves art made of blood-soaked blankets and the rise to fame of a patron saint named La Santa Muerte. It also involves the close bonds of family and the development of the idea of “the new narcocultura” as The New Yorker magazine terms it. In short, the answer is complex.

One reason cited for the explosion of violence is the May ‘08 murder of Edgar Guzmán, son of drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Before that murder, drug traffickers had tended to leave each others’ families alone but since Edgar’s death all bets are off. The violence permeates all types of communities, from the drug traffickers to the government officials who may or may not work for them, to the regular citizens who get caught up in it one way or another. The result is the formulation of a “narcocultura,” a sense of culture predicated on living life in the midst of drug trafficking and violence.

Some, like Rosa María Robles, use their art to protest the rampant violence. Robles has put on several controversial exhibits in Culiacán, the most notorious being her “Alfombra Roja.” In that exhibit she displayed blood-stained blankets that had originally been found wrapping the corpses of murder victims. Predictably, police decided that the blankets were evidence and that they would be taking those now, thanks very much, but the exhibit brought attention to the desperate situation in Sinaloa state.

Enriqueta Romero Romero (“Queta”) is responsible for making her family’s saint, “La Santa Muerte” a famous cult icon to masses of Mexicans, although she publicly denies that it’s a cult for drug traffickers. Instead, she says, they don’t discriminate- anyone can come to La Santa Muerte for help or absolution, no matter what occupation they’re in or what they’ve done.

Queta cackled in answer to a question. Yes, it was true that the Catholic Church disapproved of her “Little Skinny One,” she said. “But have you noticed how empty their churches are?”

The whole Narcocultura phenomenon seems to stem out of the stress and fear of living amidst drug wars- no matter what side you’re on. What is most striking is how differently people respond; do you try to fight the current of violence, or do you simply immerse yourself in it to inure yourself to fear?

Days of the Dead-The new narcocultura. [The New Yorker]