44

Niño Dios, the statuette of the Child Jesus, is at the core of popular religiosities in Mexico. In this article, we discuss the “home version” of Niño Dios as part of a larger pantheon of Niño Dios in churches, chapels and public places. Niño Dios shares protective and propitiatory virtues with other figures embodying a saint or deity. The statuette drawss guardians, either adults or children, who worship him and tend to him thoroughly (clothing, fosterage, care, interactions, spiritual kinship, kinship…). Based on a multi-situated ethnographic fieldwork, carried out in Mexico City, we aim to understand the specificities of Niño Dios both in the intimacy of homes and during Candlemas. We also focus on how children are involved in the ordinary and ritual practices surrounding Niño Dios. We examine these complementary issues in three ways: Niño Dios firstly as a generic child, and then as a unique child (“infantification”); and the participation of children in his care, kinship, and their way of “believing”. In order to grasp the complexity of this figure and the attachment people develop towards it, we must first explore the rationale behind the embodiment of Niño Dios: what does this specific personification reveal about the ontology of Niño Dios? To answer this question, we address his ontogenesis as a unique child, and explore the cultural and social coming up of Niño Dios, which unfolds at the crossroads of spiritual and affective relationships, thus questioning his status and agency. The case study of Niño Dios makes it possible to revisit issues relating to personification, sacred objects, agency and childhood.