June 12, 2004, Ojinaga, Chihuahua - There is something very distinctive about those who are touched by a higher power, in that they radiate such calm, such compassion, they have such gentle and radiant smiles, and their eyes wrinkle in the corners when they smile. When one meets a person who really has no formal education, who cannot even write his name, and yet he has more wisdom and discernment than you or I, but he has no pretensions, only the desire to quietly help those who are in need of the type of help he can give, then one has really been given a gift, which one hardly deserves but which one has to recognize it for the precious pearl that it is. My words are really not even close to adequate to describe what it is I am trying to say, but I feel that when I met this man, and now getting to know him, it is as if my life is nearing a point of destiny that makes me feel profoundly blessed.
Tarahumara Curandero Antonio Vazquez
I have met and known many Tarahumara Indians, and I must say that they are not all paragons of virtue, by any means. The Mexicans mostly despise them, saying that they are lazy, undependable, dirty, surly, deceptive, unworthy - but I don't think they really know them. I love them, myself. The ones I know, although not all of them are this way, are kind, sharing, noble, and most of all tremendously stoic, because they suffer a lot, and have to endure a very harsh existence. And some of those whom I know especially well are very nurturing, making great sacrifices in order to bring just a modicum of comfort to those who are close to them, or to others who perhaps are not, but they do a lot to preserve their sense of identity, especially when they are away from their sacred homeland, living as refugees in the streets of the cities of Chihuahua, where they beg, they try to sell things that most people are not at all interested in buying, or they take the most menial jobs - like seasonal work in farming operations, orchards, and on ranches.
I feel so fortunate about what happened, yesterday, as I arrived at my little place of business, Fausto's Art Gallery, in Ojinaga, Chihuahua, just across the Rio Grande from Presidio, Texas, nestled in the vast rocky desert region in between El Paso and Big Bend National Park. There was a Tarahumara couple sitting under the awning, as if they were patiently waiting the arrival of someone. The man had the simple sandals that they wear, which are made from car tires. The woman wore a long, very full skirt, made from five meters of material, and the short, blooming blouse that Caveza de Vaca reported them wearing in his descriptions from the early 16th century, when they sewed their clothing together from rabbit pelts.
Alvar Nuņez Cabeza de Vaca
I invited them inside, and they had sacks of artesanias - artisan wares - which they had brought with them from the Sierra Tarahumara - the Copper Canyon region of southwestern Chihuahua State. Even though I can't afford it, and I already own so much of this sort of thing that I don't know what to do with it, I went ahead a bought a lot of their goods: traditional baskets, woven fajas belts, sashes, cloth bracelets, and even a big rag doll, and I gave them some cold water to drink, because that was the only thing that they wanted. But in the process of talking to them, I mentioned my friend Nacho Leon, who is a Tarahumara trader and who is a curandero's apprentice, but who will never become a complete curandero himself, and I asked this man, whose name is Antonio Vasquez, if he was familiar with some of the things that Nacho had told me about Tarahumara curanderos,
especially the ones who can cure in their dreams. After awhile, when I could see how knowledgeable he was on the subject, and from the nature of the smile he was wearing, which seemed to indicate that he was amused, as if he were holding back something about this, it occurred to me to ask him if he, himself, were a curandero, to which he replied that, yes, he was. And next, almost holding my fingers crossed in hope and anticipation, I asked him if he could cure in his dreams, and he said that, yes, he could. I could hardly contain my elation. My only reaction was to tell him that I wanted to be his friend, just as I am with Nacho, and that if there was anything at all I could do for him, to just ask, and that even though things are not going tremendously well for me right now, that once I got my finances in a little better shape, then everything I had was at his disposal, that all I wanted was his friendship. I probably seemed a little silly to him with all of this, but as for me, I was just thanking my good fortune for having such a tremendously valuable and profoundly important event as this to advent upon my life. As I say, my words just are not enough to describe my emotion. I am simply not the writer to express this sort of thing.
Tarahumara woman wearing a traditional, hand sewn dress
Today, Antonio and his wife came back, just to show me some things, and to visit, because he had an appointment at the Presidencia, because he is a licensed promoter of Tarahumara culture and artesanias under the auspices of the sort of state bureau of Indian affairs, such as it is. These are things that he and his wife try to promote and achieve some success with in spite of having no funding or any other resources to speak of. It is really sad, actually, that this sort of resource is not taken more seriously by the authorities. They like to mention the presence of the Tarahumara when it comes to promoting tourism, for instance, but they hardly lift a finger to help them in any concrete ways,
I have read in the handful of anthropology books about the Tarahumara which I have consulted that most Tarahumara are of the group known as the "bautizados" - the baptized ones - which is to say, the ones who consider themselves to be Catholics. The other group are know and the "gentiles" (pronounced "henn-TEEL-ehss"), whose culture is much closer to that of their ancestors, although it is argued that it is, nevertheless, not identical. Many things were either lost or modified since the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th Century. Nevertheless, it is still very much like it was before that. One thing that I found remarkable, however, is that the gentiles were very, very much like the bautizados in almost everything. If there is one thing that was notable for me in all of this, however, it is the fact that the Mother Goddess, who is the Sun, is thought of as the Virgin of Guadalupe, but not in the sense of her being the mother of Jesus. Rather, she is thought of as being the wife of the Father God, which is the moon, and these two are equal, in many ways, except that the Tarahumara have a habit of referring to The One who is Above, from whence comes the power to cure, as if he were male. I have to say, however, that I was not prepared to grill Antonio in depth on this point, because I wanted to move on to other items.
Here are some of the items I questioned him about along with summaries of his responses:
One is the matter of the belief in the Ones Who Walk Above, and if the Mother is the Sun and the Father is the Moon, and of course they were. Another was if men have three souls and women have four, and of course that is the case in both instances.
On the subject of matters concerning curanderos, I asked if they could cure supposedly untreatable diseases by the use of limpias, herbs, and dream curing, and he said yes. However, he said, if the patient were really close to death, it would not be possible. However he did affirm the stories that I had heard that they can cure cancer, lupus, and AIDS, for instance, and he assured me that they did so on a regular basis.
I asked him if they used dances, such as the raspa, for cures, and he said that generally the gentiles did not do that, that this was mostly a practice of the bautizados. I also asked him if they used peyote as a cure, and he, again, stated that among his group of Tarahumara, be it for their being gentiles or that if this was something like a regional thing, did not use peyote. He did talk quite a bit, however, about the use of ocotillo, both for good and bad, and just a little about other herbs. He is very much an expert on herbalism, as he has been trained in Tarahumara medicine from the time he was a child. I think he said he actually began his training when he was only about eight years old.
Another thing is the manner in which the dreaming cures are done, which is a matter of them following a trail to a place where the captured soul is held, and bringing it back.
Whereas bautizados live in terror of the souls of the dead, and they try to get them to go away and not come back around, the gentiles are apparently unaffected by them and indifferent to their presence.
And finally, he did reaffirm some things about those who place spells on people, which he, as a curandero, has to cure. One is that most persons who pay people to place these spells do so out of envy. Envy is the most base emotion, and it is what motivates people most often to do evil. In describing people who are capable of this type of behavior, he used the word "cochino", which is normally translated as meaning "nasty". The most common practitioner of this sort of black magic is the hechicero, and this term refers to those who use traditional Indian black magic, whereas brujos are those who use magic from books (which is to say, magic whose roots are in European culture - or in Spain, to be exact).
After we conducted the main part of the interview, he performed limpias (healing rituals) on all three of us - myself, Christian, and Rocio (my two employees). He used eggs. We bought them from the restaurant across the street for this.
We video taped all of this, by the way, with a digital camera, and I will eventually be publishing segments of this on the internet.
His healing practices are truly remarkable. The way he uses the egg is like this. He first produced a small cross from his shirt pocket, which is carved from ocotillo wood. He had each of us, when it was our turn, place the cross in our left hand, and in the right hand, we held our egg. The, he took a little of some elixir he had in a bottle there, and just put some on his finger tips, and he made the sign of the cross on our foreheads, shoulders, and at the base of the neck. After them he just stood back and watched for several minutes. Then, he would begin just touching, very gently, different part of our bodies, saying that this is where is hurt, and in every case, he would be right about that, and then he would describe an ailment in a completely different part of the body. I can tell you that he was doing something very similar to the practices of acupuncturists with this. It also became apparent to me that when he was standing there watching us as we sat there with our egg in one hand, that he was using his mind to penetrate our bodies and locate the ailments, and he also stated that he was directing the "mal" (evil) to go into the egg.
After that, he went and took the egg and held it up to the light, and from that he gave us our diagnosis. In my case, it was strictly a matter of physical illnesses. In that of Christian, it was a spell that she has suffered the effects of for several years now, and in that or Rocio, it was a combination of physical and spiritual matters. He is going to review Christian's case in his dreams and tell her the exact nature of the problem, and even tell her who was responsible for doing it. In my case, I am scheduled for more limpias and herbal treatments, and so is Rocio.
After seeing the evidence that was to be found in the egg, he did the ritual of passing the egg over our bodies, and then we took the eggs outside and built a small campfire, and he burned them. He watched the smoke to determine if the evil had been drawn out properly and if it were being dispelled by the burning.
Antonio is very soft spoken, and he speaks very rapidly, and I have a hard time understanding his accent, so I am going to have to give Christian a copy of the video in CD, and she is going to transcribe it for me. So this whole project is going to be kind of slow and laborious. But that is okay with me. I am just really grateful for having met him, and I very much want to keep him as close to me as I can, because he is just about one of the most interesting people I have met, and his help is something that I have been looking for now for a very long time.
Click here to see a video of a curing session with Antonio Vazquez, filmed in Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico, on June, 12, 2004.
Bryant "Eduardo" Holman
Fausto's Art Gallery
Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico
http://ojinaga.com