Devotion in the Graves of Caracas

By Indira Guerrero

Caracas (Venezuela).– They could pray to the Virgin Mary, but a group of men in a Caracas cemetery prefer to drink aguardiente and smoke tobacco while making their petitions at the grave of Ismael. He is the leader of a spiritual court made up of a dozen criminals, now worshipped as saints in Venezuela.

This worship flourished in a city that, at the time, was ranked as the most violent in the world outside of a war zone. In a Caracas where justice was often absent and the sound of gunfire was the nightly soundtrack, the line between the law and the outlaw blurred completely.

The Corte Malandra—the Criminal or Thug Court—is a local legend that retells the story of Robin Hood and his archers, raising them to the altars with revolvers and knives. It is the lowest rung of the spiritual hierarchy of Queen María Lionza, a powerful syncretic cult unique to this country that blends indigenous, African, and Catholic beliefs.

The most popular figure of the Court is Ismael Sánchez. According to his most famous story, he was a thief who lived in a populous area of Caracas and dedicated his life to robbing the rich to help the poor. Upon his death, he was called to the spiritual kingdom of the indigenous goddess María Lionza to do good.

“Many label you a thug, but those of us who believe in you know of your good faith,” reads a giant poster hanging over the tomb of Ismaelito, as he is affectionately called.

Devotees are drawn by a desperate need for survival, those who fear being robbed in the streets come to seek his protection, as do police officers who, overwhelmed by the firepower of street gangs, seek spiritual shelter from the dangers of their trade. Women assaulted by their husbands, families searching for the missing, and criminals looking to come out of their crimes unscathed also gather here.

Omaira Centeno comes every Sunday to the General Cemetery of the South—a sprawling and often dangerous necropolis that mirrors the chaos of the city outside its walls—and over the tomb of the “holy thug,” she cries for the life of her son. He is currently held in one of Venezuela’s notorious prisons for several crimes that, according to his mother, he “never” committed.

“I didn’t know who to ask until I came here. I ask him, I cry with Ismaelito, so that he takes care of him, so that they don’t hurt him in jail,” Centeno says while fitting a cigarette into the mouth of the plaster statuette. “When you call Ismael, you can’t let the cigar go out. He smokes too much, one after another.”

The history of Ismael, his eternal love Isabelita, the “Ratón” (Mouse), the “Pez Gordo” (Big Fish), “Tomasito,” “El Chamo Machera,” and the many members of this court are lost between myth, reality, and the richness of popular syncretism.

Cruz Crescenio Mejía, dark-skinned, was another criminal who, according to legend, lived in the early 1940s. He was in prison at least four times and escaped the same number of times thanks to his “pact with the Devil.”

Crescenio is also very popular in the Court, where he is better known as “Petróleo Crudo” (Crude Oil).

“He died of 132 shots—without counting the bullets that passed through the same hole—during a failed bank robbery. His accomplices, whom he thought were his friends, left him alone when the police arrived,” reads the story of Tomasito, another holy thug, on his Facebook page.

Signs of gratitude abound around these figures, sold in informal shops as prayer cards or plaster statuettes in all sizes, even life-size.

The stories of their believers blur the line between reality and magic.

“Coya” moved to the cemetery eight years ago to pay a promise to Ismael, convinced that the spirit saved his life when he was being chased by criminals. He assures he will be the guardian of the court’s niches for 20 years.

“Some thugs shot me where I lived, and I stayed there on the floor. No one helped me because I was already dead, but suddenly I woke up,” he says.

Since then, he has lived in an abandoned chapel in the cemetery, among beer vendors, the forgotten dead, profaned sarcophagi, martyrs, former presidents, and even the famous writer Rómulo Gallegos, all buried in this old graveyard.

Spiritists who follow the cult of María Lionza frequently practice private ceremonies to “bring down” or channel spirits from one of the indigenous deity’s courts, allowing them to ask favors of their saints “personally.”

In a hacienda about a hundred kilometers from Caracas, Víctor Romero prepares himself in the center of a small group of men and women waiting for the “descent” of Ismael’s spirit.

While he twists on his tiptoes, a woman spits aguardiente on him to cleanse his energy. Víctor babbles some senseless words and everyone around him waits for the holy thug, for whom they carry a list of requests.

After screams and moans, the young materia—the vessel, as mediums are known in this practice—sits up, asks for a cap, cigarettes, and liquor, and prepares to listen.

“Everything is in the faith you put into it,” says the spiritist in the middle of the trance.

It is a phrase that unleashes this way of understanding life. As in illusionism, even if the strings and the trick are visible, no one sees them because everyone prefers to believe there is magic. EFE