Page:Popular medicine, customs and superstitions of the Rio Grande, John G. Bourke, 1894.pdf/20

138 Numbers.—If three men light their cigarritos from the same match, bad luck will surely overtake one of them soon. (Alberto Leal.)

Omens.—It means good luck for a family when a she-cat comes to the house.

To have your path crossed by a coyote is a bad sign. It is a sign of sudden death. My informant knew a soldier who was en route to catch up with his regiment, and who saw a coyote crossing his path. He laughingly told about it, but had n't been with the column more than an hour when the rifle of a comrade went off accidentally and killed him.

When a hen crows, look out for a sudden death in the family to which the hen belongs.

Paralysis.—There is a singular berry growing in the Rio Grande valley, the fruit itself pleasant to the taste and harmless, but the seed poisonous and bringing on paralysis of the lower limbs. This plant is called the coyotillo, because the coyote is too cunning to be deceived by it; the coyote will eat the berry, but reject the seeds. The infant (six year old) son of Manuel Guerra was treated for this kind of paralysis by Surgeon Theodore DeWitt, U. S. Army, at Fort Ringgold, in 1891.

Mr. MacAllan informs me that he has experimented upon sheep, goats, dogs, and cats, and that the seeds do paralyze the hindquarters. A similar property is possessed by the hydrocyanic acid in kernels of peaches and almonds, and the same effect might be produced were there enough of it.

Remedy: Bathe frequently in a tepid infusion of tepocate weed.

To cure Paralysis.—Take the herb called "poléo," boil it, flower, leaf, root, and all, to make a hot bath, into which put the patient. Take a separate jugful of the above, add brown sugar, and administer as a drink while patient is in bath. He'll break out into a profuse perspiration. If this be done at time of new moon, and at eleven o'clock at night, the patient will be cured in eleven days. (M. A.)

Pilgrimages.—Pilgrimages are resorted to for the cure or alleviation of various physical ailments.

There is the chapel of San Ramon Non-nato, near San Luis Potosi, the chapel on the mountain outside of Monterey (not now much used), and the more famous "Vigen Sudanda of Agualeguas," and "Nuestra Señora del Chorro," south of Linares. This last is a stalactitic statue, in a cave high up the flank of a mountain, from which gushes a powerful spring, or "chorro," whence the name. It is an Aztec idol consecrated to new uses and venerated to-day, as it has been perhaps for thousands of years.