Why Sarita Colonia is venerated by the prostitutes of Lima

7 01 2009


Un día la santita iba caminando por una callejuela del Callao, cuando le salieron por delante unos hombres. Querían robarle y le revisaron los bolsillos. No encontrando nada de valor, decidieron violarla. Ella no se resistió; les dejó que rompan su vestido y la tumben al suelo. Pero cuando esos hombres abrieron sus piernitas, no les quedó más remedio que persignarse. El sexo había desaparecido. No tenía nada entre las piernas: era como un codo. Nada.

One day, the young saint was walking through an alleyway of Callao, when a bunch of men surrounded her. They wanted to rob her and they went through her pockets. They found nothing of any worth, so they decided to rape her. She didn’t resist them; she let them tear off her dress and they knocked her to the ground. But when those men opened her legs, they were shocked and made the Sign of the Cross.  Her feminine organ had disappeared. She had nothing between her legs: it was like an elbow. Nothing.

-found on this site

This more than likely never happened, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Sarita Colonia – THE REMIX!!!!!

9 10 2008

As a way of introduction to the post below, a song to the Peruvian folk saint re-worked by the rock group, Los Mojarras. (A version of the original song was posted in this post.)

Sarita Colonia

18 08 2008

On the Birth of a Folk Saint

Not much information exists in English on the Peruvian cult to Sarita Colonia. Outside of Frank Graziano’s book, Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America, information about her in anything other than Spanish is scarce. In the world of folk saints, however, she is one of the heavy hitters, like Jesus Malverde and Gaucho Gil. The main difference between this Peruvian woman and other folk saints is that we know exactly who she is and the circumstances of her life and death. When her cult was far more popular than it is now, her many siblings were still in middle age and some have benefited from the people’s devotion to her. This has not stopped people from making up stories about her to make her appear larger than life. From a poor immigrant girl from the highlands of Peru to the patroness of the lumpen proletariat of Lima, she is a prime example of how people can take a simple story and create an elaborate mythology around it.
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