Page:Popular medicine, customs and superstitions of the Rio Grande, John G. Bourke, 1894.pdf/1

Rh POPULAR MEDICINE, CUSTOMS, AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THE RIO GRANDE.

The following material, collected by me during the time I was in command of the post of Fort Ringgold, Texas, may be of interest from the light it throws upon the character of the Mexican population of our extreme southern border, but it is not to be accepted as exhausting the subject of the folklore of that region, which is simply interminable. Other notes, equally extensive, were gathered at the same time in regard to the theatres, ballads, games, and traditions of the people, but it is impossible, on account of their bulk, to present them here. As many of these Mexicans were engaged in armed attacks upon the Mexican territory, and in armed resistance to the American troops sent to suppress them, it became my duty to make as earnest a study of their character and condition as means would permit.

In making these examinations, care was taken to preserve each statement in the words of the witness, but it is believed that what has been lost in elegance of diction has been more than counterbalanced by a faithful representation of the mode of thought of these descendants of Spaniard and Aztec.

In very many cases the full name or the initials of my informant will be found attached to the "cure." The first authority consulted was a most singular personage. Maria Antonia Cavazo de Garza, born in Rio Grande City, had the reputation of being a "bruja," or witch, but she modestly laid claim to being nothing more than a "curandera" (healer), who knew a great deal about "medicinas" which could effect wonderful results—"con el poder de Dios" (with the power of God). She was at the date of my first meeting with her (1891) about sixty-five or seventy years old, had been married four times and borne seventeen children, the youngest of whom, a good-looking boy of nine or ten, and the last husband, always came with her. She had snappy, black eyes, and a varicose, bottle nose, which, in a moment of unguarded enthusiasm, she had attempted to embellish by an application of tincture of iodine.

Alferecia.—To cure "alferecia," or epilepsy, in children, which is due to the moon's influence. Take a newly born pig and rub the naked baby with this (live) pig from head to foot. The baby will break out into a copious perspiration, and the pig will die. But the fact that epilepsy is a brain trouble seems to be dimly recognized. Maria Antonia says that the child's skull breaks in four pieces (in form of a cross +), and the child then dies.

The pig being an animal introduced from Europe, it would be