The valuations of constructive and harmonious relationships express themselves clearly in the ideas and practices on illness; these are often associated to a troubled relationship between the patient and his surroundings, which may include the people in his household, village, or any other living entity on earth, and also entities from other realms of the
universe which may harm him and make him ill. The origin of this troubled relationship says something about the contracted illness and how to treat it so the patient may be cured[79].
Bonifacio describes one of the origins of disease, namely witchcraft (lines 322-360). Witchcraft is one of Bonifacio’s favorite topics and he had already told me many anecdotes and tales on witches and their deeds. Furthermore, when we were recording, the family was dealing with a probable case of witchcraft, so a depiction of its practice in the village could not be left out of the performance. This topic’s inclusion right after the description of a burial seems rather logical, as witchcraft is seen as one of the main causes of death. Bonifacio knows that witchcraft is delicate topic and that his imaginary interlocutor might not partake in the views he is about to tell. Therefore, he starts out quite cautiously, and says people from his village “still” believe in “what they call witchcraft” and that “they say” people become ill because of it (lines 322-325). During his performance, Bonifacio’s personal standpoint regarding witchcraft is ambivalent. He dissociates himself from this belief, yet he also implicitly recognizes witchcraft’s existence and asks for our understanding when he says people from his village do not always recover with medicines from the clinic whereas they do with traditional medicine (lines 326-332). He mitigates the custom’s significance, alleging there are no traditional doctors practicing in his village anymore (lines 333-336); however, after he describes how a traditional doctor treats a bewitched person (lines 339-356), he admits that this treatment is effective; when a person does not recover after being treated by a traditional doctor, it is because he does not want to (lines 357-360). Bonifacio’s presentation of witchcraft reflects the dilemma he faces while trying to reconcile his more secular outlook on life -- which requires his rejection of witchcraft-- with the undeniable presence and acceptance of witchcraft and counter-witchcraft in village life.
The belief in witchcraft is strong among Huastecan Nahuas (lines 322-325) and when a person cannot be cured with herbal or clinical medicine, the suspicion that this person is bewitched becomes stronger and stronger (lines 325-329). In many instances, only a traditional doctor, called tlamatijketl (lit. “he who is knowledgeable”) or tepajtijketl (lit. “he who medicates”)[80], may cure this person; a physician will not be able to (lines 330-332). The disease does not have a physiological origin, so medical science alone will not help to cure the patient. Nahuas know that ideas on witchcraft and other non- physiological origins of illness do not correspond with those of medical science nor of dominant, urban culture and they are careful about expressing their thoughts on these matters. A traditional healer works in the privacy of a home or in the early morning-hours on the tepeko, the sacred hill; an open manifestation of this practice is avoided. The introduction a couple of
decades ago of federal government health care in the municipalities through medical teams in rural clinics has clearly influenced the once-more open character of traditional healing and ideas on disease.
In a case of witchcraft, a tetlachiuijketl or brujo, witch, asks the help of entities living in other realms to inflict an illness on a person. He does this due to the request made by someone who is envious[81] of the person to be bewitched or who has any kind of unsolved problem with this person. The witch, usually a man though a few woman witches are known, is asked to harm this person in exchange for payment for his services[82]. Off and on, it is believed a witch acts on his own account, bewitching people he himself has a difficult time with. If de does not ask the entities in the other realms for help, he may go around transforming himself into a turkey, gopher, feline or other animal, or even a fireball, and do the harm himself. Witchcraft is a common topic in everyday talk and many anecdotes on witchcraft circulate in the communities. An elderly man of the cabecera said:
I had an aunt there in a rancho, there I had an aunt. And she had her husband. They were already old then. She says that it was a hot day, but very hot, like it is now. “That’s why we went to sit outside”, she says. “My husband and I were sitting outside. And it was around ten o’clock, eleven o’clock at night”, she says. “We were sitting”, she says, when suddenly they see that a ball comes from the sky, she says. “And that ball came DIRECTLY to where we were. When I see it, it COMES and COMES and I GET away from there. I run to one side and I tell the man ‘GET away because it will fall on you’. And it fell”. What do you think it was? A gopher! A gopher! A gopher fell. And so she, since she had a stick in her hand, she says that at the moment it fell she BEATS it. And it appears they killed it, and they threw it into the fire. They burnt it. That fire ball that came was an animal, it was a gopherwho, they say... They asked themselves who it could be, a male or female witch, who appears to have wanted to take
possession of the tonali. That’s the way the witches went
transforming themselves formerly. They went from one place to another in the form of fire. Arriving up high, they fell and could change themselves into a female turkey, something like that. So they... she told me, my aunt: “No,” she says, “that’s what I saw with my own eyes when the FIRE came, a ball, but directly where we are”, she says. “So I told your uncle, I tell him: ‘GET away, get away, because it will fall on you’. She went to one side and he to the other. It fell between the two. And they killed it, they burnt it. Sólo Dios, that’s the story.
In this example the witch tried to snatch the person’s tonali, which would have caused weakness, illness and, if the patient were not treated in time,
even death. The aunt and uncle were able to ward off the danger and kill the intruder. When a case like this happens, it is thought that not only the animal in which the witch has transformed himself, but also the man dies. If the witch lived far away, his death might go unnoticed by the ones who killed his animal disguise. At times, a death in the community or in a neighboring one is related to the killing of an animal thought to be a witch:
They had a sick person, very seriously, very, very seriously. They say that this sick person, no, no, he didn’t die. He was just suffering, suffering. They were preparing water to bathe him, because it appears he needed a bath. They call them plantilla or seated baths. So they had put water in it, and the window was open. So that’s how they were heating the water when suddenly a bird enters, identically like a turkey. And that, well, when it was inside they closed the doors and caught it. They put it in the hot water, they killed it. The following day a witch from here in the village woke up dead. A woman says that there was a man who woke up dead.
-And the sick man?- He recovered, he recovered.
Some people are held to be witches. Bonifacio declares there is one in his community (lines 337-338). Most persons who have died recently in the village are known to have had problems with the assumed witch. When drunk, this person himself boasts about having killed them. It is said he prays for the death of a specific person while lighting a candle, “yet no one has been able to prove anything”. The supposed witch poses a problem in the village, yet is also one of its active and productive members, who “greets well and speaks well”. Witchcraft is an inherent part of society, and as such is an accepted constituent of life.
A patient may also fall ill without witchcraft. In these cases, when the disease has no direct physical cause, a troubled relationship within the family or village may be the cause of it. It is believed that a harmonious bond with the surroundings strengthens one’s tonali and that, if this relationship is somehow damaged, the person may become weak and thus more exposed to attacks of guardians and spirits. On other occasions, the guardians and spirits willingly cause harm because the sick person did not respect their living space or did not thank them for their beneficence with offerings. The water spirits may have been angry about the liquid’s pollution; the earth may be annoyed because of a forsaken offering. The tlamatijketl will have to repair the situation with offerings and prayers in an appeal to undo the harm. The narrator describes how the tlamatijketl determines how he will cure his patients and whether he will take them to a tepeko or sacred hill (see Chapter
4) where offerings are brought to the entities of the other realms in an act called presentation (lines 339-356). A trip to a tepeko is only undertaken when the nature of the disease requires it. When the patient is too seriously ill, a family member may accompany the traditional doctor instead, bringing along the sick person’s piece of clothing (lines 349-352). Once he arrives at the site, the tlamatijketl arranges the things he has brought: first, a white paper is laid out as blanket on which to place the offerings; then, ritual paper images that represent the entities from the other realms who will be prayed to, a few coins, candles, cigarettes, incense, food, uino. After laying out the altar, the
tlamatijketl invokes the beings from the other realms, declaring the reason for his visit and asking for their help to cure the patient. In all his healing, the
tlamatijketl uses a special, formal kind of language. After an hour or two of prayers, in which the patient is ritually cleaned or his clothes are left at the
tepeko, the healing has finished.
The tepeko’s sacredness must be respected; because of it, a trip to the hill is one of the most effective means to cure a patient. Anecdotes about people who have stolen the money left at these sites say these persons irrevocably “fell dead” after the incident. If the sick person dies after all, it is said that this is what he wanted (lines 357-360). The sacred hill’s authority is not disputed.