Word: curandera
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...remind us of her latent existence. Remedios provides a superficial and irritating Great Earth Mother feel to A Place Where the Sea Remembers, the blurb on the book's jacket waxes fulsome over the "secret dreams and desires known only to the omniscient sea and to the curandera Remedios' a healer who hears them all." Remedios' chants sound like the most simplistic of goddess workshop: "I am she who knows. I am bone woman. I am bird woman. I am she-woman. He-woman. I am moon woman. Sun woman. Star woman. I am she who weeps. She who bleeds...
...that case was exceptional; most of the magic practiced nowadays is not black (evil) but the white magic of healing. Despite laws against witchcraft, hundreds of curanderas (healers) compete with Mexico's doctors, offering cures for everything from bellyache to heartache. In treating mal de toloache (an intestinal disorder), the curandera (see cut) wraps a snakeskin around the patient's head, opens the doors and windows so that the evil spirits can escape, and then chases the spirits by making crosses with crow feathers...
...other red flowers-are floating. When the child's attention is caught by the flowers, a relative squirts a mouthful of alcohol on the back of the child's neck, and the bruja claps a red cloth over its head. The treatment for clubfoot is simpler: the curandera rubs the afflicted foot with gourds filled with "magical" water containing wine and vinegar...
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