Celebrating 100 Years of the Texas Folklore Society, 1909-2009 Page: 294
xi, 420 p. : col. ill.View a full description of this book.
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294 THE FOLK: WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE'VE DONE
arrived at the house of a woman believed to be bewitched, the
woman greeted her by saying "Buenas tardes Dofia Manuela." This
was enough for Dofia Lupe to know who was responsible for caus-
ing the embrujo: Dofia Manuela, the neighbor.
Dofia Lupe went to work. "In the patient's stomach she
located-so she says-something like an iron bar. This she grasped
with both hands and, with what must have been a Samson-like
twist, broke it in two. The patient recovered."10 From Dodson's
descriptions such as "so she says" and "Samson-like twist," we can
infer that Dodson does not personally believe in the concept of
bewitching. Maybe neither did Dofia Lupe.
If so, they are not alone. Elena Avila, a registered nurse with a
master's degree in psychiatric nursing and a practicing holistic
healer for over thirty years, does not believe in people being
cursed. She goes to the extent to suggest that most of what we
read about black witchcraft is a result of academic misunderstand-
ings of basic human psychology. Physical and emotional illnesses
generally accepted as a result of embrujo come from the human fol-
lies of envy, greed, revenge, and jealousy, known in Mexican folk-
lore discourse as mal de ojo (evil eye), malpuesto (a hex or curse) or
mala suerte (bad luck). "When we send negative thoughts to
someone, it does harm to [such person] and it comes back on
us."11 People's evil attempts to harm others are consequences of
negative intentions. If the attempts are effective, it is because of the
recipient's own low self-esteem and fragile soul.
Respect for elders and for nature shaped Dofia Lupe's life as a
healer, and it helped her nourish a strong soul. In indigenous tradi-
tions, the elders are seen as the wise members of the community, as
the abuelas and abuelos (the grandparents) who embody ancestral
knowledge. Dodson acknowledges this principle by stating that if
four women of different generations are gathered, and they all
know a remedy for a particular illness, the younger will always
defer to the older out of respect. Knowing nature is a way of
respecting it. Dodson states that to "the unmodernized Mexicans,
especially the women, every tree, shrub, and plant in their environs
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Texas Folklore Society. Celebrating 100 Years of the Texas Folklore Society, 1909-2009, book, December 15, 2009; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc271470/m1/307/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.