Medicinal Magic

MEXICO Medicinal Magic Though losing ground year by year, old Indian beliefs about the magical powers of brujas (witches) are still widespread in Mexico. Awaiting trial in Zaragoza last week were two women and a man who had killed a 19-year-old girl they suspected of casting an evil spell on their house; they had burned her body and scattered the ashes "so that the spirit of witchery would go away."

But that case was exceptional; most of the magic practiced nowadays is not black (evil) but the white magic of healing. Despite laws against witchcraft, hundreds of curanderas (healers) compete with Mexico's doctors, offering cures for everything from bellyache to heartache. In treating mal de toloache (an intestinal disorder), the curandera (see cut) wraps a snakeskin around the patient's head, opens the doors and windows so that the evil spirits can escape, and then chases the spirits by making crosses with crow feathers.

To cure children of espanto (nightmares caused by fright), the bruja uses a kind of primitive shock treatment. The child is set in front of a container of water in which bougainvillea blossoms--or some other red flowers--are floating. When the child's attention is caught by the flowers, a relative squirts a mouthful of alcohol on the back of the child's neck, and the bruja claps a red cloth over its head. The treatment for clubfoot is simpler: the curandera rubs the afflicted foot with gourds filled with "magical" water containing wine and vinegar.

One reason curanderas are popular is that they charge less than doctors. Furthermore, they treat ailments that doctors cannot touch. Only brujas can cure children of the evil-eye sickness (one way is to rub the child's forehead with an herb called tronadora). Doctors can do little for the pangs of unlucky love, but any bruja worth her fee knows that a dried hummingbird pinned inside a girl's dress will usually bring back a strayed lover.

Belief in medicinal magic is not confined to remote hamlets; in the heart of Mexico City is a shop that does a thriving business in the stuff brujas prescribe, including dried toads and bits of amber. And not all the clients of brujas are unlettered Indians. A U.S. woman living in Taxco went to a bruja recently to get something to cure her little granddaughter's chronic car sickness. The prescription: a copper coin plastered to the child's navel. According to the grandmother, the charm worked like a charm.

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