Healing with Herbs and Rituals

A Mexican Tradition

Eliseo “Cheo” Torres, Timothy L. Sawyer

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780826339621
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Alternative & Complementary Medicine

Healing with Herbs and Rituals is an herbal remedy-based understanding of curanderismo and the practice of yerberas, or herbalists, as found in the American Southwest and northern Mexico.

Part One, "Folk Healers and Folk Healing, " focuses on individual healers and their procedures. Part Two, "Green Medicine: Traditional Mexican-American Herbs and Remedies, " details traditional Mexican-American herbs and cures. These remedies are the product of centuries of experience in Mexico, heavily influenced by the Moors, Judeo-Christians, and Aztecs, and include everyday items such as lemon, egg, fire, aromatic oil, and prepared water. Symbolic objects such as keys, candles, brooms, and Trouble Dolls are also used.

Dedicated, in part, to curanderos throughout Mexico and the American Southwest, Healing with Herbs and Rituals shows us these practitioners are humble, sincere people who have given themselves to improving lives for many decades. Today's holistic health movement has rediscovered the timeless merits of the curanderos' uses of medicinal plants, rituals, and practical advice.

Part One

Folk Healers
and Folk Healing

Figure 1: Candles are used in rituals and the flame, color, and shape of each is significant in healing or in attracting certain powers.

Introduction

Even as a child growing up in a small community, I was fascinated by the practice of curanderismo, or folk healing. I vividly remember the ritual to cure mal de ojo—the evil eye—with its prayers and the use of the egg. There were days that I would have a mild cólico (stomachache) and would get the treatment for that. Also, there were many times that I would experience a bad fright and suffer from susto and have to be spiritually cleansed with a broom, that is, swept with branches of rue, or ruda. Still, though I grew up with it, it is difficult to explain, not so much the rituals of curanderismo, but the love and the faith associated with it.

Nonetheless, I wanted to try. I felt it was very important to keep curanderismo alive, and also to acquaint the general public with its importance in the Mexican and Mexican-American culture. I began to do this while I was still a doctoral student.

At first I concentrated on the herbs. It was natural to begin here, remembering as I did that for every illness and with every ritual there would always be a freshly brewed cup of tea: perhaps chamomile (manzanilla), mint (yerba buena), or aniseed (anís). During visits to relatives or friends, cuttings of different varieties of plants that were used to make the teas were always given to my mother, who quickly got them into the earth once we got home!

With this in mind, I developed a teaching unit on Folk Medicine and Medicinal Herbs of the Southwest and Northern Mexico. I interviewed several curanderos—folk healers—and yerberos—herbalists—in Mexican towns and in towns in the Rio Grande Valley and along the border in the United States. After that, I gave many lectures, in person and on television, about the subject.

It became clear that interest in curanderismo was high, and yet available works on the subject—particularly works aimed at the average person rather than the sociologist or scholar—were few and far between. I felt I had to expand my lecture notes into something more substantial to fill this need.

So that is how my first book, Green Medicine: Traditional Mexican-American Herbal Remedies, came into being. From there, it seemed only natural to go on to describe the practices surrounding the use of those herbs—the same rituals that I recall from my childhood. Thus I was led to prepare a companion volume, Folk Healer: The Mexican-American Tradition of Curanderismo. These two books are now updated and combined into this publication.

Chapter One

A Brief History
of Curanderismo

The term curanderismo may be translated “folk healing.” A curandero or curandera, then, is a healer, with the letter at the end of the word signifying whether male or female. All three words derive from the Spanish verb curar, which means to heal.

The roots of curanderismo are many. The Moors, for instance, brought in Arabic elements, which came to the New World via Spain. The theory of “the humors,” with its emphasis on balance between light and darkness, heat and cold, was introduced this way. Some beliefs associated with curanderismo, particularly the insistence that all power to heal comes from God, are Biblical and therefore Judeo-Christian in origin. And, of course, there are powerful Indian—particularly Aztec—influences, too, most often in the herbal remedies that are used.

Curanderismo has always embraced three levels, though certain curanderos may choose to emphasize one above—or even to the exclusion of—the others. These are the material (the most common, with emphasis on objects such as candles, oils, herbs), the spiritual (here the curandero is often a medium), and the mental (psychic healers, for example). Rituals—formulaic or patterned ways of treating the various illnesses of those who come to see the curandero—are performed on all three levels.

One needn’t be familiar with curanderismo nor believe in it in order for it to work. Evelyne Winter, in Mexico’s Ancient and Native Remedies, collected this story from a woman named Muriel Balfour. Mrs. Balfour’s husband had obviously been treated by a curandero, but—just as obvious—the Balfours had no idea that this was so, nor that the treatment given was pretty much “standard operating procedure” in curanderismo. The point is, though the Balfour’s were not predisposed to believe, the cure worked! Here is Mrs. Balfour’s account:

My late husband one time had a very bad eye and headache. A man came to see him to cure him. This “doctor” asked me for a raw egg which I gave him. While the egg was still in its shell he passed it many times over my husband’s head and face. Then he asked me for a dish and he opened the egg which had become hard boiled. We asked if it had cured him and he said not entirely. The “doctor” came the next day and went through the same procedure with a fresh egg but after the treatment the egg was not hard boiled, only coddled. The “doctor” was not satisfied that the cure had been completed and came the third day. The egg the third day was unchanged by the treatment and the man pronounced him cured. And my husband was cured.

The use of the egg is quite common in curanderismo, perhaps because, as scholars Robert T. Trotter II and Juan Antonio Chavira note in their book, Curanderismo, “The material properties of the egg include its ordinary use as food; its mystical properties, however, include its ability to absorb negative influences (sickness) from a patient.” Still another reason is that many rituals demand a sacrificial object, and according to Trotter and Chavira, “the egg qualifies as an animal cell.”

Figure 2: Aloe vera (zabila) was introduced by Spanish missionaries to Native Americans.

In addition to the egg, the lemon figures in the rituals of curanderismo, as does agua preparada—specially prepared water. Water, especially water that has been blessed (holy water), is considered a physical link with the spiritual world. In fact, it is not uncommon for a curandero to dip the other objects he is using into holy water to enhance their curative powers.

Fire, too, in the form of candles and incense, plays a part in many of the ceremonies, as do many herbs (see Part Two, Green Medicine) and aromatic oils.

But, as with lemon and the egg, curanderismo also relies on items that are very ordinary indeed. Purple onion, for instance, and garlic are often used. These items are said to protect, while the aforementioned egg and lemon are thought to actually absorb negative forces.

Chapter Two

The Curandero

It is the state of consciousness that distinguishes the curandero working on the material level: he is awake rather than in a trance and is himself—that is, has not assumed the being of another.

Curanderos also have specialties. A yerbero is an herbalist, able to prescribe botanical remedies. A partera is a midwife. A sobador or sobadora is a masseuse or masseur. The three levels of curanderismo touching and crossing each other can easily be seen when we use the sobador as an example.

A sobador might work only on the material level, using his hands and perhaps an aromatic oil or a poultice or even a tea. But a sobador might also heal an illness that exists deep beneath the surface of the skin—indeed, perhaps in the nervous system or in the mind. That sobador might be said to operate on the psychic level as well. There are sobadores, for instance, who have been said to cure paralysis.

A señora, however, because she reads cards in order to foretell the future or reveal the influence of the past, can be said to emphasize the mental or psychic level. An espiritista or medium would work entirely on the spiritual level.

While it is true that most curanderos work on the material level, the spiritual mode is growing in popularity. This is particularly due to the Fidencistas, followers of Niño Fidencio, a Mexican healer. These followers are said to assume Niño’s spirit now that he is dead—that is, become him, in order to heal.

Is belief in curanderismo a religious belief, or is it a belief in the supernatural? Well, it is often both. The aforementioned belief that all healing power comes from God makes it religious, as does the very prevalent idea that a curandero can only bring about God’s will. The belief that certain rituals or practices can effect a certain outcome is, however, a belief in the supernatural—that is, a belief that outside forces can be changed, controlled. In this way, curanderismo partakes of both the religious and the supernatural. In fact, a curandero can be a brujo—a witch—capable of casting evil spells! Curanderismo, therefore, is careful to distinguish between white magic and black magic, with most curanderos espousing the former.

How does one become a curandero? Often—as you will see when you read the stories of the most famous healers—it is a matter of recognizing that one has the God-given gift—the don, as it is called. Sometimes, too, it is the result of a long apprenticeship. Many curanderos renounce steady jobs in order to work as healers.

In defining who is and who isn’t a curandero, the amount of time one spends healing is usually considered. While most cities and barrios within cities have someone whom they call upon to prescribe teas and other herbal remedies for minor ills, the curandero handles more serious cases. The curandero does not have another job; healing is the basis of the curandero’s livelihood.

In the past, another consideration when measuring the authenticity of a given person’s claim to being a curandero was whether or not that person charged for his services. The true curandero was said to take what had been offered, and there are many recorded instances, too, of curanderos refusing to accept even small payments when these were offered by the very poor.

Now that is not always the case. When KPRC-TV in Houston did a mini-documentary on two modern curanderos, for instance, they found that the youngest, a woman named María, not only charged for her services, but had an hourly rate. “I charge ten dollars for one hour,” María boasted. “What I really should be charging is a hundred and fifty dollars an hour . . . ’cause I’m damn good!”

Figure 3: A curandero uses a holistic approach to religion and incorporates religion as well as supernatural beliefs.

In many cases, the fact that money is not needed is one reason curanderismo still thrives in Mexican and Mexican-American neighborhoods. Other reasons are that there is no language barrier, no need for an appointment, and, frequently, no necessity to travel great distances. Also, a curandero does not require that his patients have medical insurance or that they fill out complicated forms.

Equally important is the fact that the curandero treats many ailments not even recognized by the formal medical establishment. In many cases, these ailments reflect the patient’s psychological state. As Ari Kiev, an author and psychiatrist, has pointed out, curanderismo is a system of medicine that recognizes the profound effect that the emotions can have on health. It takes into account the physical manifestations of such feelings as anger, sorrow, shame, rejection, fear, desire, and disillusionment. When one considers that the holistic movement is the one arm of formal medicine that has finally begun to recognize this, the centuries-old practice of curanderismo seems advanced indeed.

What is formal medicine’s attitude toward curanderismo? Well, as you might guess, curanderismo was long regarded as superstition or medicine that, at best, treated only imagined ills. Now, however, the medical establishment has become more tolerant. Again, the holistic movement has done much to promote (for the most part, inadvertently) acceptance of this ancient system. In any case, a lot of writing about curanderismo is addressed to health care professionals and urges them to think of curanderismo as either an alternative or a supplement to formal medicine.

Chapter Three

Ailments

The most common ailments treated by curanderismo are mal de ojo (evil eye), sometimes referred to as mal ojo, or just plain ojo; as well as susto (magical fright); caída de mollera (fallen fontanelle); and empacho (stomach blockage).

There are also a number of ailments less frequently encounte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface to Current Edition
• Part One. Folk Healers and Folk Healing
• Part Two. Green Medicine: Traditional Mexican-American Herbs and Remedies
• Appendix: Spanish Language Listing of Plant Names
• Glossary of Herbs
• Index