HI - WWC here. This is my second diary. I thought I would contribute some of my research papers because I think they're interesting, and because you might find them interesting too. I've mentioned before (briefly, awkwardly), that I am a Chican@/Latin@ Ethnic Studies Major. I should also add that I consider myself to be a Chicana Feminist.
My grandmother was a Curandera which is someone who practices healing through folk medicine. This type of folk medicine is called Curanderismo and is practiced traditionally by women. She most likely learned it from her mother as part of a Mexican tradition where women have historically been identified as the healers within the community. Curanderismo syncretism is a form of resistance used by women healers during the post-conquest period and continues to be practiced today.
There might be errors in this as this is the first time I'm publishing using DK4. You can't use tabs...oops.
I hope some of you find this interesting....
Some scholars recognize Curanderismo folk healing as a form of religious syncretism similar to the veneration of the Virgin of Guadalupe by the Indigenous. The Catholic Church has participated in the appropriation of the Aztec goddess Tonantzin in hopes of coercing the Aztecs to accept Christianization. Curanderismo was repressed by the Catholic Church because they believe it was a form of witchcraft practiced by lower caste women who were at the bottom of the Spanish caste system.
Curanderismo is a form of syncretism but not accepted as part of Catholicism. Curanderismo has its roots in Azteca folk medicine and was practiced by Indigenous people as a form of resistance to forced religious conversion and cultural genocide. Resistance as part of the equation has not received sufficient attention in academic discussions of religious syncretism and I am not sure why.
Curanderismo employs symbolism from both Catholicism and Indigenous practices to perform healing. In the time period following the Spanish conquest and during the colonial period in Mexico, the Catholic Church as part of their efforts to enforce Christianity discovered that the Indigenous population was not truly embracing and practicing Catholicism. Indigenous people were resisting forced conversion by going underground and secretly practicing their spiritual beliefs.
According to Luis D. Leon, “Mexican Curanderismo traces its roots to ancient Nahua practices, which view the body as composed of both hot and cold properties. Wellness is dependent on maintaining these dichotomous energies in equilibrium.” 6. The Azteca believed in maintaining harmony and balance within their cosmogonic vision of the world, which includes the body itself. They believed in the concept of opposites or complementary duality. Examples of duality in the Azteca religion can be found in opposing aspects such as, “female and male, cold and hot, down and up, underworld and heavens, wet and dry, water and fire, and life and death.”6.
Curanderismo has historically been conducted in the seclusion of the Curandera’s home much like it was when my maternal grandmother practiced it during the 1900’s well into the late 1950’s. Today you can now find Botanica shops in neighborhoods throughout the southwest where Curanderas have set up shop.
My maternal grandmother Petra Luna Gutierrez was a Curandera who was born in Ayo El Chico, Jalisco Mexico and came here to the U.S. around 1917. Those who practice Curanderismo have historically been women who have been identified as having received the gift of healing. “Mujeres are the chief transmitters of spiritual practice in the home” 2. My grandmother only treated a small network of family and friends from the local community.
Curanderismo consists of levels or “niveles” of application. Those levels must be combined during the process of healing in order to affect a cure using a holistic approach. “Curanderismo dictates that there are four aspects of what constitutes a person’s life: the physical (material), the mind (mental), the spiritual, and the emotional. It is important to note that the body is constituted of these four aspects” 9.
My grandmother was a successful Curandera and highly respected by those she treated with her healing. I believe she had a strong sense of character and strong sense of spirituality which enhanced her ability to apply remedies so successfully. According to Elizabeth De La Portilla, “all the healers that she consulted in her studies of Curanderismo have shown that they have a strong self-image. In order to be an effective healer one has to have a strong sense of identity and a confident demeanor. Confidence has to be projected onto the patient in order for a cure to be effective” 9.
I remember hearing one of several instances where my grandmother shunned Western medical treatments in preference of her own healing treatments. The experience was a negative experience involving my mother’s youngest brother. When my mother’s youngest brother, my uncle Joe became very sick with dysentery the hospital’s solution was to deny him liquids. She eventually lost her patience with the doctors, and with the help of my grandfather took my uncle home against the doctor’s warnings that if she took him home, he would die and it was going to be her fault.
Once my grandmother got my uncle home, she took care of him by praying for him, giving him plenty of water to drink, and a host of herbs including Yerba Buena which is a mint. He recovered over the next two weeks. In my view it was a gutsy move and an act of resistance on her part to stand up to doctors who came from the upper echelons of society by challenging them over their treatment of her son.
As a descendant of the second generation of immigrants who came from Mexico, I experienced how my grandmother applied several methods of Curanderismo. She was a Sobadora who used massage therapy that includes the cracking of bones. The massage consisted of applying pressure points to the body including the hands, the arms, and the stomach. A painful stomach ache usually indicated that someone was suffering from “empacho” or in simpler terms a clogged intestine.
I learned that “empacho” was caused from eating tortillas which had not been thoroughly cooked. The remedy applied for “empacho” was to administer a pinch of Azarcon with a teaspoon of olive oil. Successful results included pain relief and the removal of the blockage in the colon. Azarcon is lead actually. My grandmother was also a Yerbera and used the plant called ruda for earaches. She used it on me one time by sticking some of the plant into my ears with little cotton balls soaked in olive oil. It might have been Camphor oil, but I don’t remember. She did use olive oil in almost all of her healing applications.
I have another story on concepts of hot and cold properties which my grandmother applied for diagnosing particular illnesses in a member of the family. This story involved my mom’s older brother who I believe contracted Bell ’s Palsy one time. Both my mother and my aunt believed that the paralysis on the right side of his face was due to his eating a hot meal that morning. He followed that hot meal with a drive somewhere with the window rolled down allowing the paralyzed part of his face to get too cold. They called it “mal aire” or bad air. Eventually his paralysis went away over a period of a few months.
The concept of “hot and cold properties” are directly related to Azteca beliefs in ‘duality. Elizabeth de la Portilla explains the following, “in Mexican American tradition the notion of an unexpected breeze is sometimes associated with the appearance of a supernatural being. Mal aire (bad air) coupled with early morning or night dew can sometimes cause paralysis” 9 .
When I began this research, I had several questions about my grandmother’s life trying to construct a timeline where I recall her practicing Curanderismo. I also wanted to find out why she stopped practicing Curanderismo. During the late 1940’s, she did convert from Catholicism to Protestant Pentecostalism which most likely caused her to modify how she applied Curanderismo. I have no way of proving this but I suspect that the introduction to Pentecostalism might have caused her to modify and eventually influence her to stop practicing Curanderismo.
Curanderas have blended folk medicine with aspects of Catholicism while conducting healing practices. Those elements can include but are not limited to prayers to the Virgin of Guadalupe and various other saints, and the burning of candles. The Catholic Church does not openly accept Curanderismo in conjunction with Catholicism as part of its religious practices the way that the Virgin of Guadalupe has seemingly been accepted.
In the book "Chicana Traditions" Yolanda Broyles-Gonzales discusses borderland culture and how people who are critical of it only see “the abstract concepts of mestizaje, hybridity, or syncretism and because they only see the publicly visible hybridity without regard to the contexts of cultural genocide, resistance, and self-affirmation that produce it”2 .
Guillermo Bonfil-Batalla also discusses the concept of two separate Mexican identities. Those two identities that he identifies are the Indigenous and the Mestizo. The Mestizo has replaced the Indigenous identity when they stopped practicing many of their traditions through assimilation and acculturation. He has definite opinions regarding the idea of syncretism and argues that, “syncretism should not be understood as a mechanical blending but as a tactic of native resistance” 1 . He claims that the Indigenous people were forced to conduct their Curanderismo healings behind closed doors because of the Catholic Church’s disapproval and out of fear of punishment.
I suspect that although both religions most likely discouraged my grandmother from practicing Curanderismo, I theorize that there were several reasons why she resisted and continued to practice Curanderismo. Some of those reasons included social, gender, and economic status and never having been challenged with serious illnesses before 1950 within her family.
Many times throughout her life, she was left alone with her eleven children so that my grandfather could seek work. She had to take care of herself and her children sometimes with the support of my great aunts who spoke very little English themselves. They lived in several places from what I understand, including a tent on a beach somewhere in the state, I have photos. If she could not communicate in English very well, I imagine that it was very intimidating for her and my great aunts to seek help from a doctor who could not understand them.
My grandparents were farm workers and took their children with them to the fields as part of their labor force. They needed to bring income into the household in order to survive the difficult economic situation they were experiencing. The services of a doctor I imagine were also just too expensive for them. They used Curanderismo which was readily available to them and was the most accessible and affordable option.
I also believe that they were mistreated by the medical community because they were immigrants who could not communicate in English very well. I say this because I am also conducting a research paper on health disparities due to inadequate access to care and substandard quality of care for people of color – but that’s another diary.
After the conquest which occurred over time in different places in the Americas, Indigenous people were in no position to argue with those who came in and completely destroyed their way of life. But they did through uprisings and rebellions. They must have been in a state of shock to see the power and destruction of all that they ever knew being systematically erased.
Those who study theology and then proceed to write about it, tend to overlook how many of the Indigenous people experienced and reacted to a forced conversion. “We can view the resulting syncretism as a result of this coercion or the persistence of indigenous elements as a form of resistance to Catholic doctrine” 9 .
Isabel de Montoya was a Mexican Curandera who lived in Mexico City during the 17th century. She was born a Mestiza and was relegated to the bottom of the Spanish caste system due to her mixed ancestry. Life was difficult for those of mixed heritage in the post-conquest period as miscegenation took place throughout the Spanish colonies.
Many of the families, who were identified as anything but pure Spanish stock, were discriminated against in many areas of society. As such they found it difficult to live in existence under Spanish colonialism. The only solution for them was to marry “upwards” into a family that was Spanish or lighter skinned.
Most women born to the lower rungs of the caste system were prepared at a very young age to become concubines. The healing-magical profession in seventeenth-century Mexico was especially prominent among those of the lower castas-mestizas, blacks, mulattas and castizas who lived under conditions of constant oppression due to their racial identity, gender, and inferior social and economic status. They were identified by the Spanish colonists as women of an ‘impure race’, belonging to lower classes of Spanish colonial society, living very close to the edge of seventeenth-century colonial moral codes and ethics. 8
Isabel de Montoya continued resisting church demands that she stop practicing what they claimed was mysticism and worship of the devil. The church especially did not like that a woman should have such “power” in the community. The clerics felt that healing was part of the realm of the church. In addition, “in the eyes of the church, magical remedies not only competed with clerical ones, but competed unfairly, for their format was invariably syncretic, putting familiar Christian devices to purposes not approved by the church” 8. The church believed that the Curanderas led the parishioners astray from them. They believed that it was heresy and witchcraft, and usurped their perceived supremacy and authority which included the power to heal.
Eventually Isabel de Montoya was punished several times and she was brought before the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico for crimes of witchcraft and heresy against the church. The church had at first seemed to overlook Isabel’s activities. She had become secretly popular with many of the clerics and many of the “upper crust” within the community who sought her healing powers. The church turned a blind eye for a period of time but eventually placed her under arrest time after time accusing her of witchcraft and heresy. The torture and beatings took their toll on Isabel. After her last trial and after another round of torture by the Spanish Inquisition, she passed away in a convent.
My grandmother stopped practicing Curanderismo around the late 1960’s. It may have been due to pressure from her church and from my great aunt who was a Pentecostal minister in a small church in Fullerton, California. This was an important historical marker in my family’s timeline regarding religious conversion. I remember as a child who was brought up under a branch of the Pentecostals called the Assemblies of God ministries, how women were not allowed to wear lipstick, makeup or even pants in church. This is what leads me to partially believe that my grandmother was urged to stop practicing Curanderismo.
There is a very interesting history in East Los Angeles involving the Latino Pentecostal Charismatic movement and its association with the Assemblies of God organization in the early 1900’s. This movement was spearheaded by a charismatic Mexican-American preacher by the name of Francisco Olazábal. He is responsible for introducing the concept of divine healing and the laying of hands on an individual to affect healing. That concept is still in practice today and is one of the main reasons that “adherents of these faiths make up 64% of the nation’s Latino Protestants” 4.
Francisco Olazábal was instrumental in converting thousands of Mexican-Americans in urban barrios and rural colonias throughout the U.S. to Protestant Evangelicalism.
Many of these people held a strong belief in divine healing and were economically disadvantaged here in the U.S. Francisco Olazábal was able to “tap into the pre-existing belief in divine healing because of the direct connection between health and economic survival, and because of the high cost of medical treatment” 4 .
I have asked my mother whether my grandmother was discouraged from practicing Curanderismo because I assumed from reading about other Curandera’s experiences, that she was pressured to stop. As evidenced by my own research into both Catholicism and Protestant Pentecostalism, I would say that this would only be part of the reason.
I believe that my grandmother eventually stopped practicing Curanderismo because her life evolved in many ways. Her children never continued to practice or apply what they had learned from her that I am aware of. They did share some medicinal plants like Yerba Buena. It was probably inevitable that my grandmother Petra and her family would adapt and transform themselves under the pressure of assimilation.
According to Douglas Monroy, “Mexican immigrants outside of the important realm of work, underwent varying degrees of cultural transformation, the effects of which Mexican families felt so profoundly. They began the usually confusing and painful course of cultural syncretization by which a new and distinct Mexican-American culture began to emerge in the barrios of southern California” 9 .
I view Curanderismo as a tactic of resistance practiced by marginalized women beginning during Mexican colonial times. The people who sought their healing powers were also those who came from a colonial society that marginalized them as well. The women who took on the roles as healers of the community were well respected by their patrons now as they did back then.
As with other immigrants who came from Mexico, my grandmother began to assimilate and become part of the middle class, Curanderismo was no longer part of her life. New found dedication to her Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church left her with no time to practice her healings. My aunts and even 1st cousins did share many of the plants from my grandmother’s backyard.
The practice of Curanderismo itself began to evolve over time to include such famous men such as “El Nino” Fidencio Constantino of Espinazo, Nuevo Leon, Mexico and Don Pedrito Jaramillo, a Curandero who practiced in Texas in the late 1800’s.
Curanderismo syncretism is a form of resistance used by women healers during the post-conquest period and continues to be practiced today in many communities throughout the Southwest. Curanderismo syncretism was not looked upon historically with approval by the Catholic Church as they believed that it usurped their authority over healing.
The women who lived under a harsh Spanish caste system during post conquest period, were judged based upon their mixed heritage and observable characteristics. The Spanish caste system placed women of mixed raced (mestizas, mulattas) in the lower classes of society forcing them to seek whatever means they could in order to survive. Theologians and scholars tend to overlook the role of resistance when studying religious forms of syncretism. My grandmother eventually stopped practicing Curanderismo for several reasons including assimilation into American culture, and religious conversion.
I regret very much that I laughed or was amused that my mother and her sister believed in such things as “mal aire”. I was the one who was ignorant, not them. I feel as though I am vindicating what they believed by documenting it in an academic paper. I was a little girl of 5 when I lived next door to my grandmother in East L.A.. I remember going out into her backyard with her where she had many plants in order to help her pick some Yerba Buena leaves so that she could make tea for my stomach ache.
I was 40 years of age when I decided to record mothers, my aunts, and uncles’ narratives, and discovered how rich my family history is. As I begin to place my family history within a historical context as a Chican@/Latino@ Ethnic Studies major, I find myself giving more meaning my family’s narrative. I am fascinated by what I am discovering and continue to wonder how much more that I missed now that many of the elders in my family are gone or have lost their memory.