Brujas and Curanderas: “A Living Spirituality”

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Culture and Spirituality
Mexican America Healing
Beliefs
Feminism
Religions
References

Introduction

Brujas and Curanderas and the Mexican culture are two inseparable entities; brujas simply stands for witches while Curanderas symbolizes healers. In this provocative essay, the author becomes a voice for Mexic-Amerindian women that were repressed for centuries by the dual censorship of being female and brown-skinned. The authors use the Xicansma as a surrogate language for Chicana feminism that incorporates mestiza women on both sides of the border: the working poor, wives, and mothers whose cultural roots have been ignored as completely as have been their desires, dreams, and struggles to be heard.

Culture and Spirituality

The author depicts the conflict between indigenous culture and spirituality and western culture and the catholic religion. The abolishment of the Blesses me Ultima conjures up serious issues about banning books because of controversial issues.

The abolition challenges the very nature of democracy and the tradition of respecting the diversity of religious and political thought in the U.S.

The story of a six-year-old Antonio Marez, who grows up in New Mexico in the 1940s, is highlighted, where Ultima is ushered into their homestead. Ultima is a curandera, a woman that is familiar with herbs and the accompanying cures of the ancients, that is so miraculous in the curing process. The Ultima also dared to lift the curses laid by brujas; she does this by exorcising the evil the witches planted in the people to make them sick. The curandera is consequently misunderstood based on his potential prowess and instead suspected of practicing witchcraft herself.

Mexican America Healing

The native Mexicans are deeply rooted in practicing the Mexican American folk medicine otherwise known as curanderismo, this culture is historically imperative in the health care structure as far as the healing techniques are concerned. The authors present a friendly perspective of not only how curanderismo is practiced but also how it is learned and passed on as a healing tradition. In the cultural setup of the Mexicans, curanderos continue to be in demand despite the lifesaving abilities of modern medicine,

Curanderismo is ingrained in the Catholic culture introduced from Spain much more than it is rooted in anything else, which is rather disappointing to newcomers who would like to correlate divergently, perpetuating a myth that things are rather otherwise. The precepts of sickness and health have been ingrained into a cluster of beliefs that incorporate the elements of classical Greek medicine, and the malevolent power of witches, have highlighted that curanderismo and the contemporary modes namely El Nino Fidencio and Pedrito Jaramillo as the main influencers of curanderismo.

Beliefs

A prologue has been predisposed by the Greek humoral medicine that was invigorated during the Spanish resurgence through a wide-ranging consultation of the Latin translations of Galen and Hippocrates on the art of healing. Myriad beliefs and practices have greatly influenced curanderismo; this includes medieval and European witchcraft, early Arabic medicine and health practices, Judea-Christian religious beliefs (symbols and rituals), Native American herbal lore, and health practices, modern beliefs about spiritualism and psychic phenomena, scientific medicine, and the bible.

Curar means to heal, whereas curanderismo is otherwise known as holistic or folk healing normally administered by a curandero (male healer) or a curandera (female healer). Curanderismo comes out in three levels. The material, the spiritual, and the mental. The material puts more emphasis on objects such as candles oil and herbs. The spiritual cuddles a conduit through which healing takes place. The mental focuses on psychic healing. To accomplish the treatment of various diseases, these three phases require rituals that are patterned. Part of the Curanderismo is the belief that the curandero (a) has been bestowed as a gift (don) to heal others.

Feminism

The feminine, in this case, plays her role as an intuitive, irrational, mad woman to illustrate that the characters which Man defines as Woman’s essence, and which, as a result, he uses to make woman inferior, can indeed be liberating since they allow women to affirm the value of her femininity. Constructionist perspectives have been advanced by women who argue that the liberation of women cannot be realized through an essentialist position that celebrates those characters of women assigned by men, but rather through the celebration of the multiplicity of women’s identities. Two positions are therefore evident as opposites within the feminist politics of liberation and are often pitted against each other with essentialists and constructionists each trying to improve the validity of their positions.

The writer depicts marginalized women in the written context with a close focus on spirituality. Spirituality involves a complex interlock that regards race, gender, and class issues. The binary relationship is depicted when mythical and ritualistic images and ideas in the move to cross boundaries involving institutionalized religions and female spirituality and how women of color participate and create within those spaces.

Religions

Catholicism is a religious structure that ushers divergent and denying credence considering race, gender, and class issues. While many women have struggled with their identities as feminists and Catholics, in this novel Loca does not struggle. Loca enters into space where here spirituality can no longer neatly fit into prescribed and pre-conceived hierarchical categories. Locas’ intimacy with Mary exists in a new space that greatly differs from the Catholic teachings. Christianity on the other hand denies women the experience of seeing themselves as divine beings, as long as they shall endeavor in praying to a male god, hence can never attain divine space on the inside, they will also not be able to empower themselves politically in their public and private worlds. The Mexican American community has been pictured both negatively and positively, in Chicano politics and culture. The catholic has been criticized as an agent of colonization, while Chicana feminists have criticized the Church’s central role in promoting restrictive roles for women. Hispanic neighborhoods are littered with magic all around. Little things, like being touched by strangers to prevent the evil eye; holy water, salt, and various powders and potions that are splotched in and around the house to bless and protect it.

References

Cabral. Facundo (1994). El paraíso no está perdido, sino olvidado. Guadalajara: Emilio Valencia. Castillo, Ana. “Brujas and Curanderas”: A Living Spirituality.”

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