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Curandero: A Life in Mexico Folk Healing. Eliseo "Cheo" Torres with Timothy L. Sawyer Jr. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005 (paperback). 170 pp.
Curandero: A Life in Mexican Folk Healing describes the Mexican healing system of curanderismo, in an ethnography that illuminates both the practice and the people. The subject is familiar and close to the author's heart because he was raised near the TexasMexican border in a rural Mexican American community, and traditional medicine was a part of his family life as a child. As a boy, he heard many stories of curanderismo. Stories of the legendary healers (curanderos) left an impression that he would later explore as an adult and would become the basis for this book. In Curandero, Torres takes us through his personal journey to the town of Espinazo, a Mexican village located in the desert on a high plateau in the state of Nuevo León to connect to his roots and record a healing system that is slowly dying out. In so doing, he gains a better understanding of himself. During this process, he learns more about the practices that he witnesses and incorporates these beliefs into his own worldview.
Torres traces the origins of curanderismo to indigenous people such as the Mayas and Aztecs and to...