Page:Popular medicine, customs and superstitions of the Rio Grande, John G. Bourke, 1894.pdf/11

Rh stepped into a "charco," or puddle of cold water, and was soon after seized with excruciating pains in the leg, which compelled him to take to his bed and remain there for eight days; that little "things," in shape and size not unlike the seeds of the Chili pepper, kept coming out of his skin, in each case leaving a slight cicatrix. Dr. DeWitt thought that the trouble bore some resemblance to the African Guinea worm, and was caused by a parasite.

To cure Hæmorrhoids.—Make an ointment out of the fat of a "tejon" (this word properly means badger, but locally, along the Rio Grande, it signifies a raccoon) and the plant called "oreja de raton" (mouse's ear); add five well-burned bottle corks. Apply locally on a rag. At the same time make a tea by boiling a piece of armadillo shell in hot water. (M. A.)

Harvest.—Mr. George Lewis described a procession of Mexican women in Rio Grande City during a great drought, about 1880.

They marched around the parched fields praying for rain. Sure enough, the rain came, but in such torrents that it washed all the crops away. One of the women explained, in all seriousness, that they must have inadvertently made the rounds of the field once too often!

I have personally marched in just such a procession at the pueblo of Taos, New Mexico, in 1881.

The Heavens.—The Mexicans have a folk-lore of the heavens, as well as of the earth. The milky way is the road of Santiago, guarded by three sentinels—the belt of Orion.

If a woman bear triplets, they are put under the protection of the three stars known as the Three Kings; if girls, under that of the three called the Three Marys.

There are two stars close together, called the Eyes of Saint Lucy. (M. A.)

Horseshoes.—Nailed over door of a house, to bring good luck; over door of a store, to bring custom. But some people nail them under their beds, and not over their doors. (M. A.)

Leland says of the horseshoe, among the Italian peasantry, that to insure good luck "it is to be kept always in the bed." "Roman Etruscan Remains," page 367.

Sweating Images.—In a recent number of "Scribner's Magazine," I gave a brief description of the sweating Madonna of Agualeguas ("La Virgen suadanda"), whose sacred shrine I visited several years ago. In a little pamphlet, "La Novena de San Ramon," Mexico, 1889, there are references to sacred images which sweated—"han sudado tres imagenes, estando ellos afligidos" (p. 10). This belief in sweating images must be very ancient; it exists in Asia among the Buddhists. A Chicago paper, last summer, describing