Revival in Mexico : Poor Fall Under Spell of Witches

The squat women in their homely, flower-pattern aprons lined up to be “cleansed” in an ancient, superstitious rite.

A self-styled witch doused each with fragrant water and chanted unintelligible prayers. She then slapped one of the women with the leaves of a bitter plant and murmured something about God giving the patient strength and light.

Without explanation, the witch started an alcohol fire on the floor. Then she took an egg--turkey eggs are preferred but chicken eggs will do--and rubbed it, unbroken, over the first client’s body. Finally, she cracked the egg into a glass of water in order to read the patterns formed by the floating whites.

Cursed With Heartburn

The diagnosis: The client was the victim of some unspoken envy. Someone, perhaps a neighbor or co-worker, had fixed a curse on the woman and was causing her chronic heartburn.

In the United States, the cure might have been a strong antacid. Instead, the witch prescribed a blend of rare herbs and told the client to come back for another cleansing a month later. For now, the egg had supposedly drawn out “evil air” that was irritating the patient.

It was a scene played, with variations, all over Mexico. Despite years of government educational efforts and frowning disapproval from the Roman Catholic Church, such rituals, said to date from pre-Hispanic times, are practiced in remote pueblos and large cities.

Now, there is a new impetus behind the age-old practice of witchcraft in Mexico. The country’s economic crisis, which for six years has pinched the already tight pocketbooks of Mexico’s poor, is fueling a revival of shamanism and the occult that, in any case, had never fully disappeared.

Predicting Presidency

The government, rather than fighting the trend, is trying merely to keep watch over the practices and even to bring witch doctors together with medical doctors to discuss neighborhood health problems and distinguish between useful herbal cures and pure superstition. So boldly public are some witches that they have taken to predicting who will be the next president of Mexico.

In Texcoco, a dusty city chockablock with concrete low-rises separated from Mexico City by a dry lake bed, health officials are busily trying to persuade local shamans to refer ill clients to government clinics and hospitals.

Officials in the health department in Mexico state, where Texcoco is located, became alarmed when reports reached them that shamans were taking part in childbirths and performing rituals meant to overcome shyness in children.

The health workers have been able to persuade seven curanderos , or witch doctors, to register with the government. The curanderos, in turn, promised not to make their diagnoses through divination or to suggest that cures can be obtained by throwing curses on one’s enemies.

Too Poor to Go Elsewhere

“The people go for these treatments because they lack economic resources to go elsewhere,” said Jose Carmen Sanchez, a public health worker in Texcoco. “The best we can do is try to get the curanderos to have some contact with regular hospitals so that the patients can get normal care, too.”

Alfredo Morfin, a registered curandero, contends that many Mexicans feel at home with traditional treatments and obtain solace from the more supernatural treatments, such as ritual cleansing.

“They have faith and that is important in any cure,” Morfin said.

Morfin inherited his practice from his father, who learned supposed herbal cures in far southern Mexico. Unlike his father, however, Morfin does not try to “read” an illness by just looking at patients; he interviews them. About 20 a day come to his office in Alcoman, a suburb of Texcoco.

In Mexico, primitive ways are never very distant, even in the biggest of cities. Not far from the wide, Frenchified boulevards of central Mexico City, hosts of curanderos sell herbal potions at the Sonora market, a traditional center of ancient and occult traffic.

Exotic Roots, Powders

In the market, stall after stall contains large bags of exotic roots, leaves, wood chips, fungi and powders, all supposedly imbued with healing power. There are cactus leaves for the stomach, teas for the nerves and flower petals to cure hysterics--an illness that, according to a book on sale, usually afflicts women.

The suggestion of supernatural power is clearly a component of the cures. Displays of stuffed cats and monkeys, all said to hold the spirits of ancient deities, adorn racks of armadillo tails, horseshoes and copies of Chinese figurines sold for good luck.

“More and more people are coming to us because buying herbs is cheaper than going to a doctor,” said Manuel Lozano, 30, a 15-year veteran of herbal sales at Sonora market.

Vendors take their clients behind partitions to diagnose ills or give on-the-spot cleansing and egg readings. Tuesdays and Fridays are the indicated days for cleansings. Supplies of turkey eggs and the proper plants and flowers are abundant at Sonora.

“Physicians can cure you of many things, but herbs and cleansing cure you of everything,” Lozano said.

Aerosols for Success

Technology has even invaded the market. Several vendors offer aerosols that promise, if sprayed about one’s home, a variety of happy results: success, money or the return of a lover.

Labels on bags of black salt guarantee that “bad neighbors” will never darken your doorstep.

Farther from the capital, witchery is more widespread and forms a part of the daily fabric and lore of rural life.

In Sinaloa, residents have all but made a saint of Jesus Malverde, a turn-of-the-century bandit said to have stolen from the rich and given to the poor. He was hanged by police for his efforts.

Hundreds of the sick, as well as drug traffickers in search of good luck, frequent his shrine, which happens to sit across the street from Sinaloa’s statehouse. The spectacle of pilgrim gangsters is especially embarrassing to a Sinaloa government currently engaged in a drug crackdown.

Also up north, residents of Nuevo Leon state have made a cult figure of the late Fidencio S. Constantino, a cook and midwife who was said to have performed miracles by dunking his ailing believers in ponds and blending special teas for them. Pilgrims still visit his shrine in Nuevo Leon, often carrying heavy crosses as penance for some sin or flagellating themselves before asking Fidencio for a favor. Water from “Boy Fidencio’s” special pond, in aerosol form, is on sale at Sonora market.

Linked to Ancient Faiths

Elsewhere in Mexico, magical practice is closely tied to ancient, indigenous religions.

In Oaxaca, about 250 miles southeast of the capital, it is based on the eating of hallucinogenic mushrooms administered by witches. The mushrooms, sometimes called the “children of God,” are supposed to ease contact with the dead and other spirits but have also attracted lots of Californians seeking to enhance the sounds of rock music.

Members of the Mazatec tribe, who have long used mushrooms in their religious services, recently complained that the presence of foreigners is profaning their religion.

In more remote southern Mexico, where descendants of the Mayas still refer to outsiders as Spaniards, local inhabitants mix Catholic ritual with Mayan rites. In Catholic churches, the Mayans burn candles arranged in special configurations meant to bless the worshipers with special favors: fertility, safe journey, health or wealth.

The opposition to such practices in Mexico includes a Catholic lay organization called United Christian Catholics. They picketed a convention of witches held in Oaxaca, calling the gathering a “thing of Satan.”

$15 to ‘Dispel Curses’

The witches had invited the public to attend, and for the equivalent of $15, to receive various magical treatments guaranteed to “dispel curses.”

The sorcerers also dabbled in politics. At least one witch claimed to be the spiritual adviser of past Mexican presidents. By supernatural consensus, the assembled witches predicted that the successor to current Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid will be Interior Secretary Manuel Bartlett Diaz. De la Madrid, in keeping with Mexican political tradition, is expected to choose his successor later this year.

The witches’ prediction may have been more politic than preternatural. Bartlett is responsible for internal security and could conceivably crack down on shamanism anywhere he deemed it harmful to public safety.