And Horns on the Toads Page: 34
238 p. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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AND HORNS ON THE TOADS
curative powers of herbs of the Southwest and the Central
Plateau of Mexico. But no matter where the cult was practiced
or is practiced today, one ingredient has remained unchanged
as a vital element, and that is the absolute, inflexible faith of
the people who seek such remedies for their ailments. In her
book about South Texas, El Mesquite, Elena Zamora O'Shea
says:
Curanderismo is as old.., .as 'La Golondrina,' and 'La Golondrina' is
pretty old. It's about some Moorish king who had been run out of Spain,
and who on leaving the shores of Spain, shed tears as he watched the
swallows returning to summer in Spain... how the king's mother told him
to cry like a woman for what he had not been able to defend like a man.
Curanderismo is still as much alive today as it was in the
Middle Ages. It exists in abundance among the people of Mexi-
can origin in South Texas. It would be very convenient to think
that it exists solely among the ignorant and uneducated, and
there is no doubt that this group is inclined to seek out the aid
of the healer more frequently than others, but there are numer-
ous instances of college graduates, supposedly trained to
approach all phenomena with the attitude of the scientist,
seeking out the services of the curandero when afflicted with
some ailment.
For many years, the leading figure among the practitioners
of curanderismo of South Texas, one whom we might call el
mero jefe (the real chief) of the curanderos, was Don Pedro
Jaramillo, who lived at Los Olmos, a small community in
Brooks County. Some two or three miles from the city of Fal-
furrias is a small graveyard in which rest the remains of Don
Pedro. His grave is distinguished from the others by a small
adobe hut that was constructed by the legions of his believers.
It has become a shrine to which some pay daily visits. They
approach it reverently, enter the hut with the same look of
humility with which one would visit the shrine of a saint.
They kneel, pray for a while, light a candle and retire, feeling
that they have paid their respects to one who surely must have34
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And Horns on the Toads (Book)
Volume of folk stories and tall tales about the horned toad and other Texas folklore. The index begins on page 235.
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Boatright, Mody Coggin. And Horns on the Toads, book, 1959; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38856/m1/47/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.