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Perfume de Siete Machos
I want to be very clear and thorough in explaining exactly what "Perfume de Siete Machos" is. It happens that I have been around it for years, in a sense, and only recently were my eyes to what this is really all about. The person who told me is a curandera whom I know, who is a devotee of a particularly unusual Mexican "Saint", the Santísima Muerte, who is like an image of the Virgin Mary only she is a skeleton.
This sort of priestess of this skeleton goddess, because that is what she really is, was explaining to me a lot of details about her sect, and what she does, specifically, for her clients, which is, mainly, a matter of helping women get their men back when they have gone astray. It is a very involved affair, but "Perfume de Siete Machos" is part of the formula.
She told me where to buy it, and I went by there right away and asked for it - at a hierbería - a place where they sell medicinal herbs, along with little tracts with esoteric prayers which curanderos use, and other esoteric paraphernalia - and I immediately recognized it as the same perfume that another curandero whom I have known for years, don Martín Martínez uses as part of his cleansing ritual. I went by to see still another curandera I know, Paty, and she had some sitting on her little altar there. It turns out that there are number of things that are done with it, including mixing it with holy water and offering it to shrines of San Martín Caballero.
Manuela, the curandera who is really a priestess of the Santísima Muerte - the sort of "Mexican Kali", whose roots are firmly planted in mesoamerican culture - explained to me that the number seven is connected with the Siete Poderes Africanos, a Santería motif, which is, in turn, associated with the seven gods of the Yoruba tribe of West Africa. Paty, however, disagreed with that notion, so I would not be too sure that this were true, but it is an interesting concept.
The number seven refers, in very ancient texts, to two sets of gods - one set are the "gods of the earth" of the Sumerians who were invoked to protect humanity from the seven demons of the sven days.
A Spanish grimorio (grimoire), atributed to the Jewish King Soloman, known as the Clavicula de Salomon, mentions "the seven gods" (that's right - *gods*) as Michael, Gabriel, Rafael, Zabaoth, Zachariel, Adonai, and Eloim. Each one of these can be called on, in the same order, respectively, to "retire" (to run off, in other words) seven other spirits, who are identified elsewhere as the "infernal spirits", these being: Chavajoth, Belial, Sachabiel, Adramelech, Samgabiel, Lilit, and Moloch. (Note the implication that the Jews were not always monotheistic, and that includes their great king, Soloman.)
This particular mention of the "seven gods" is part of an invocation in order to bless a talisman, which contained the pentagram - a five sided star - known as the "talisman of Soloman". It is directly in this tradition that Perfume de Siete Machos is often used, because curanderos and curanderas - and I have watched them do this - when they first recieve an object that they are going to emply in their work, rub that object with Perfume de Siete Machos. For instance, I watched Manuela Porras do so with a set of rosaries she had recently acquired that she was going to hang on her three Santisima Muerte idols.
Specifically, the main purpose of this stuff is to offer protection from evil spirits, because they allegedly don’t like the smell of it. This is considered necessary because, in curanderismo, it is believed that all supernatural connections, be they divining or anything else, involve conjuring, which is dangerous business.
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This bottle contains 110 milliliters of Siete Machos.
From Fausto’s Art Gallery in Ojinaga, Chihuahua.
(Shipped from Presidio, Texas)
$12.00 dollars plus $5.00 shipping and handling
