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Healing with Herbs and Rituals: A Mexican Tradition. Eliseo "Cheo" Torres, with Timothy L. Sawyer Jr. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque 2006, 20 line illustrations + 168 pp. (paperback)
Luci Latina Fernandes
Department of Anthropology
University of Connecticut
This work combines analyses from the authors' earlier volumes Folk Healer and Green Medicine into a single edition. It is a descriptive text that presents the tradition of healing with medicinal plants, and the practitioners of this method with value and respect. The work legitimizes centuries-old traditions and demonstrates the usefulness of herbal remedies.
In part one of the book, the author gives brief life histories of three historically well-known curanderos, the Folk Saint healers Don Pedrito Jaramillo, El Niño Fedencio, and Teresita the Saint of Cabora, who are widely recognized as saints in their communities. Take, for example, El Niño, who was known to combine traditional faith-healing techniques with surgery and was believed to have the power to channel spirits for healing. El Niño was considered very powerful in the villages. Modern day curanderos attend fiestas and other centers of energy like shrines in order to receive powers from powerful healers and saints such as...