Page:Popular medicine, customs and superstitions of the Rio Grande, John G. Bourke, 1894.pdf/25

Rh There are not only witches in the world, but a class of people whom she styles "gente de chusma," who seem to be allied to our fairies. They fly about from place to place on the winds. They have sold their souls to the Devil and must never think of God when they die. Their souls fly about from place to place. They will not enter a house where there is mustard. You must take mustard—that in a bottle will do—and make with it a cross upon the wall, alongside of the bed upon which you are to sleep. (M. A.)

To keep away witches, the Italian peasantry "sprinkle mustard-seed on the door-sill." Charles G. Leland, "Roman Etruscan Remains," page 203.

Once there was a man down here (Rio Grande City, Texas), who owed a washerwoman five dollars and refused to pay her. Now this washerwoman was a witch, and she filled this man full of worms, but Maria Antonia was called in just in time and gave him a strong emetic and a strong purge, and then dosed him with a decoction of Yerba de Cancer, Yerba Gonzalez, and Guayuli, and expelled thirteen worms ("gusanos") with green heads and white bodies.

To keep away witches: Smoke, drink, or chew powdered "mariguan" every morning. This herb is also given secretly in the food of admirers who have grown insensible to the charms of cast-off and despairing sweethearts. (M. A.)

To cure a man who has been rendered impotent by witchcraft: Take out from the lamp hanging in front of the Blessed Sacrament a few drops of oil, put upon a clean rag, and anoint the genitalia. Drop a little more of the oil upon a pan of live coals, saying: "I do this in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Then seek the woman who is beloved, and all obstacles will disappear, but the witch who has caused all the trouble will die at once. (M. A.)

"There is another method of using oil, not for divination or warring on witches, but to bewitch, that is, to fascinate men. It consists in stealing from a church some of the oil of baptism, if you can get it; if not, that which is blessed and put into the lamps before the Virgin and saints will do quite as well. And if a girl anoints her lips with it, the man who kisses her

Will be seized with a strange, wild love; He'll heed not the dark world beneath him, He'll heed not the heavens above."

Charles G. Leland, "Roman Etruscan Remains," pages 314, 315.

To cure a man who has fallen violently in love, through witchcraft: Take a shilling's worth of sweet oil, and another of brandy made in Parras (State of Coahuila); mix, and give in doses of a large spoonful until the patient has vomited freely; then give him some beef tea, made hot, but without salt, fat, or tallow. The patient will