Jesús Malverde

[[File:Malverde2.jpg|thumb|right|165px|A shrine to Malverde.]]{{religion}}{{hatnote|No, not [[Jesus|that Jesus]].}}

'''Jesús Malverde''' (lit. "Jesús Bad-green"; also '''El Narcosantón''' or the '''Narcosaint''') is a great example of how mythical, fictional people can emerge from real history and people. Malverde is, depending on who's asked, an [[angel]] of the [[poor]], the patron saint for drug dealers, or a legendary but nonexistent hero.<ref name=Huff>R. Andrew Chestnut [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jesus-malverde_b_4567114 Jesus Malverde: Not Just a Narcosaint] ''[[Huffington Post]]'', January 9 2014</ref>

There's very little evidence Malverde existed.

==Life story==
{{hatnote|Please mentally insert "allegedly" after every verb in this section. Thank you.}}
<!-- Please don't edit the word "allegedly" into this section -->
Malverde's life has many, varied, and contradictory paths, all of which share in compassion for the poor. Kinda like [[Jesus|some other guy]].

===Birth===
Malverde was born on 24 December 1870 as "Jesús Juarez Mazo" near Morocito.<ref name=Huff /><ref name=PBS /><ref name=Dry /> His nickname "Malverde" (bad-green) was given by his wealthy victims, deriving from an association between the color green and misfortune.<ref name=Dry />

===First job===
At first, Malverde was employed as (pick one):

*a tailor.<ref name=Huff /><ref name=PBS />
*a construction worker.<ref name=PBS />
*a carpenter.<ref name=Huff />
*a railroad worker.<ref name=Huff /><ref name=PBS />

===Bandit time===
The 1870s were, for Sinaloa, [[Mexico]], a period of industrialization and great inequality. The rich made even more money; the poor were just as bad or even worse off. Policing was corrupt, as ever, and legitimate ways to advance in the world were few.<ref name=Huff /><ref name=PBS />

Malverde began a life of crime after his parents (pick one):

*starved to [[death]].<ref name=Huff /><ref name=PBS />
*died of a curable disease.<ref name=Huff />

Malverde was ''el bandido generoso'' (the generous bandit), who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.<ref name=Huff /><ref name=PBS /><ref name=Dry >Patricia L. Price, ''Dry Place: Landscapes of Belonging and Exclusion'', pp.153-157.</ref><ref name=Laits />

===Pissing off the governor===
At some time, Malverde (pick applicable):

*(while a [[#First job|construction worker]]) slipped into the governor's mansion, stole his sword, and wrote "Jesus M. was here." on a wall, before escaping unscathed.<ref name=Huff /><ref name=PBS />
*(while a [[#First job|bandit]]) was promised a full pardon by the governor, Francisco Cañedo if he could steal his sword; Malverde did so. The governor promptly had Malverde hanged.<ref name=Huff /><ref name=Dry />
*(while a bandit) was promised a full pardon by the governor if he could steal his daughter; Malverde did so.<ref name=Dry />

===Death===
Malverde was successful until he was (pick one):

*betrayed by a friend<ref name=Dry />
*betrayed by a friend, who cut off his feet and dragged him to the [[police]] to collect a 10,000 peso reward.<ref name=PBS />
*betrayed by a friend and shot to death; his betrayer died 3 days later, and the governor died 33 days later from a cold.<ref name=PBS />
*shot in the leg with a bow and arrow by rural police; dying of gangrene, he told his friend to turn him for the reward, and his friend dutifully followed through.<ref name=PBS />
*caught by police and hanged by the governor.<ref name=PBS /><ref name=Dry /><ref name=Laits />
*caught by police and hanged by the governor; the governor let the body sit there until its bones fell onto the ground. His body would be buried over years as peasants threw stones onto his bones, covering them.<ref name=Huff /><ref name=Dry />

==Miracles performed==
{{main|Miracle}}
{{cquote|People say Malverde helped me do this or that; mostly it’s people into [[drugs]] who think he'll shield them from the police. It’s the power of the mind, you know. They believe it, so they take chances and get away with it, but they will eventually get caught.|||Raul Gonzalez<ref name=NYT />}}
{{cquote|We send squads out to local hotel and motel parking lots looking for cars with Malverde symbols on the windshield or hanging from the rearview mirror. It gives us a clue that something is probably going on.|||Sgt. Rico Garcia, Houston Police Department, narcotics division<ref name=NYT />}}

Malverde's shrine, in the drug-cartel-heavy city of Culiacán, maintains a constant stream of visitors (many from hours away) bringing candles, photographs of loved ones, and [[music]], each hoping for his [[supernatural]] assistance. There, worshipers rub concrete busts of his face and buy ballads written to him.<ref name=Laits> [https://laits.utexas.edu/jaime/jnicolopulos/cwp3/ncg/jesus_malverde.htm El Narco-Santon The (Big) Narco-Saint]</ref>

Malverde's miracles include (pick applicable):
*healing the blind and crippled<ref name=Laits />
*"His first miracle was for a friend who lost some mules loaded with [[gold]] and silver. He asked the bones of Malverde, which were still hanging from the tree, to find his mules again. He found them."<ref name=PBS />
*returning lost cattle (potentially after petition by [[prayer]])<ref name=Laits />
*returning lost property<ref name=Qui />
*saving a drowning man<ref name=Laits /> named Florentino Ventura<ref name=Qui/>{{rp|225}}
*returning a stack of important legal documents, after petitioning by prayer<ref>David Agren [https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/893/the-legend-of-jesus-malverde-patron-saint-of-narco-traffickers-grows-in-mexico The Legend of Jesus Malverde, Patron ‘Saint’ of Narco Traffickers, Grows in Mexico] ''World Politics Review'' 28 June 2007</ref>
*[[Illegal immigration|getting people safely into the U.S.]]<ref name=NYT> Kate Murphy [https://web.archive.org/web/20170930184429/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/us/08narcosaint.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Mexican Robin Hood Figure Gains a Kind of Notoriety in U.S.] ''New York Times'' 8 February 2008</ref>
*keeping the police away from illegal activity<ref name=NYT />
*tipping the police off to illegal activity<ref name=NYT />

===Gravesite miracles===
Malverde's grave was supposedly going to be bulldozed. Yet his supernatural powers prevented any such action:<ref name=PBS /><ref name=Laits />

{{quotebox|They say all of Culiacán turned out to see the demolition of the pile of pebbles that supposedly marked the place where Malverde was buried. They say, too, that the pebbles began to jump like popcorn and that the bulldozer operator had to get drunk to have the guts to roll over it, and that finally, the machine broke down when it touched the grave.}}

In reality, no such bulldozing was ever attempted:<ref name=PBS />
{{quotebox|José Carlos Aguilar, the lot's owner, says he wants to build a high-rise hotel or office building on the sight{{sic}}, but hasn't been able to find funding or a suitable partner. Still, if he did build on the site, Aguilar says he'd leave aside a corner of the building, or maybe a section of the hotel lobby, for the bandit's tomb. "You can't be inflaming people's sensibilities," he says.}}

Furthermore, in the original days, when Malverde's gravesite was merely a pile of pebbles, throwing a pebble onto the pile was said to grant the right to petition him for assistance.<ref name=Dry />

==Why Malverde is important==

===Martyrs prove Jesus was a god!===
{{main|Martyr}}
Early Christians were [[Zeal of the convert|convinced deeply enough]] that [[Jesus]] was a [[god]] that they martyred themselves for him. Why would they do this, [[Argumentum ad martyrdom|unless he was a god]]?

Maybe because people get emotional about stuff like this:<ref name=PBS>Sam Quinone [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/business/malverde.html Jesus Malverde] ''PBS'' circa 2000</ref>

{{quotebox|Every third night Florentino Ventura can be found sleeping outdoors, guarding the large blue shrine that honors the belief in a lawless man. His faith keeps him there. … He'd been on track for what would have been at least a minor political career. He had been a PRI youth leader and won a scholarship to study [[political science]] in Mexico City. He was taking a break from studying law when the diving accident happened. But he gave it all up and, now 36, he's been here ever since. "The Mexican political system is useless. It was false, pure lies," he says. Florentino found more truth in Malverde.

…

"Thanks to God and Malverde there's something for everyone," [Eligio Gonzalez, "The Apostle of Malverde"] says. "Not much, but something. Little by little we've built this. Before it was just tiny. People have put in a lot of [[faith]]. If there's no faith, there are no miracles."}}

===God has appeared to me!===
[[File:Malverde.jpg|thumb|right|Praying to 
Jesus
 Jes''ú''s.]]

Some people point to personal theistic experiences as proof of god. Yet such experiences also ''prove'' Mr. Malverde:<ref name=PBS />

{{quotebox|The summer when Florentino was 23, he was working as an oyster diver in Mazatlan. One day he became tangled in his rope underwater. He wrestled with the cord and began to drown. Then suddenly the face of the bandit Jesus Malverde appeared to him. Florentino finally freed himself. He rose to the surface and came immediately to Malverde's shrine to give thanks. From the way Florentino describes it, the experience led to the kind of spiritual catharsis that makes people change their lives.}}

===Miracles===
Surely if Jesus's miracles prove Jesus, then Malverde's miracles prove Malverde? 
And Ganesha's miracles prove Ganesha?


===Corruption of the true religion===
Malverde worship, even though it's less than a century old, has 
been corrupted
 shifted significantly. For example, the shrine in Culiacán is quite different from that in Mexico City's Colonia Doctores district, below:<ref>Manuel Roig-Franzia [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/21/AR2007072101366_pf.html In the Eerie Twilight, Frenetic Homage To a Potent Symbol] ''Washington Post'' 22 July 2007</ref>

{{quotebox|[A] younger woman, dressed in black, flashes out of a doorway. She balances two fake skulls in her right hand and clasps a skull-topped walking stick in her left. It's 7:55 p.m. in Colonia Doctores — time to pay homage to Jesús Malverde, the patron saint of Mexico's narco-traffickers. … [M]ore than two dozen worshipers gather, some drifting away from Pulido's sidewalk kitchen to kneel before the shrine her family built. It stands more than 10 feet tall, a glass box the size of a large outhouse. Lantern-style lights illuminate the life-size statues inside. Worshipers gaze on the plastic portrayals of Malverde, a blue bandanna peeking out from beneath a cowboy hat jauntily perched on his head, and La Santísima Muerte, the skeletal patron saint of death.}}

The Mexican religious traditions surrounding La Santísima Muerte and Malverde have become intertwined. It's not hard to imagine such a thing occurring elsewhere.

===Whitewashing drug trafficking===
People have also managed to use 
Jesus
 Jesús for their ends, especially narcotraffickers. Patrica Price:<ref name=Dry />

{{quotebox|Narcotrafickers have strategically used Malverde's image as a 'generous bandit' to spin their images as Robin Hoods of sorts, merely stealing from rich drug-addicted gringos and giving some of their wealth back to their Sinaloa hometowns, in the form of schools, road improvements, community celebrations.}}

==(Lack of) evidence of existence==
[[File:Heraclio Bernal dead.jpg|thumb|right|165px|The body of Heraclio Bernal]]
Strangely, despite all this attention, there's very little evidence that a Malverde of these exploits existed.<ref name=PBS /><ref name=Laits /><ref name=Dry /><ref name=Qui>Quinones, Sam, ''True Tales from Another Mexico: The Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino, and the Bronx'', UNM Press, 2001, p.225-232</ref>{{rp|227}}

Instead, according to historians, he was probably an amalgam of two bandits, {{wpl|Heraclio Bernal}} {{lived|1855|1888}} and Felipe Bachomo {{lived|1883|1916}}, both from Malverde's home state of Sinaloa.<ref name=PBS /><ref name=Qui />{{rp|227}}

*Bernal was a thief from southern Sinaloa who became an anti-government rebel. The governor offered a reward for his capture; he was betrayed and killed by former colleagues.<ref name=Qui />{{rp|227}}
*Bachomo was an indigenous [[Native American|Indian]] rebel from northern Sinaloa who was captured and executed.<ref name=Qui />{{rp|227}}

Interestingly, both Bernal and Bachomo contain elements of different stories of Malverde's life.

People have believed [[faith|despite this lack of evidence]] for nearly a century. 

==See also==
*[[John Frum]]

==External links==
*{{wpa|Jesús Malverde}}
*[https://laits.utexas.edu/jaime/jnicolopulos/cwp3/ncg/corrido_de_jesus_malverde.htm Corridos de Jesús Malverde] (Spanish ballad to Malverde)

==Further reading==
*"Without God or Law: Narcoculture and belief in Jesús Malverde." James H. Creechan and Jorge de la Herran-Garcia. 2005. ''Religious Studies and Theology'' 24:53.
*Esquivel, Manuel; ''Jesús Malverde'' (Jus Ed., Mexico, 2008) {{isbn|9786074120103}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}
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[[Category:Drugs]]
[[Category:Mexico]]

Categories: Drugs, Mexico