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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 2 



The witch or the person who wishes to accomplish 

 the result secures excrement of the person who is to be 

 hated. The excrement is dried in the sun from 12 

 until 3, being careful not to expose it at other hours. 

 When dry, the excrement is ground to a powder. Each 

 day at sundown a little of the powder is burned and 

 clothing of the person who is to hate the other is passed 

 through the smoke. Thus a witch who wished another 

 woman's husband secured some of the woman's excre- 

 ment and passed a pair of trousers and shirt of the 

 man through the smoke. The very next day the man 

 left his wife and came to live with the witch (and is 

 now her husband). The deserted wife immediately 

 went with another man and her first husband "danced 

 with pleasure." 



3. To make mischief so that something goes 

 badly with a person — so that his animals will 

 die, so his harvest will fail, so he will fall in 

 jail, so he and all his family will weaken and 

 catch diseases : 



Take about a quarter-liter bottle of alcohol. Mix 

 this with earth taken from a spot where there was a 

 quarrel to the death, or where someone had an accident 

 and died, or where there is a burial of a person who 

 did not die in Christian fashion, or from the illegal 

 grave of some recently born child whose parents did 

 not notify the authorities and buried it surreptitiously. 

 If no serious injury is to be caused it will be sufficient 

 to take earth where there has been a quarrel and 

 bloodshed, even though there was no death. This 

 earth, after mixing with alcohol, is allowed to dry 

 thoroughly and is kept in a bottle until it is needed. 

 When the opportunity offers, a little of the earth is 

 sprinkled on the back of the person it is desired to 

 injure, at the same time saying in one's mind the kind 

 of injury one wishes will occur. 



4. To cause suppurating sores on the genitals 

 of a person one hates : 



Buy oil for lamps and let it burn several days before 

 a holy image. Take what is left and mix it with a bit 

 of earth recently stepped on by the person it is desired 

 to injure, or put in the oil something of the victim, 

 such as hair, fingernails, or some piece of used clothing, 

 and burn the oil, saying "So and so, you must have 

 sores on such and such a part of the body." In addi- 

 tion, if the person is a man, he must be given a glass 

 of aguardiente in which an herb from the hot country 

 has infused a number of days; and if the person is a 

 woman, a gorda made from maize dough or nixtamal in 

 which the same herb is mixed. (The informant refused 

 to name the herb, claiming she identified it only by 

 sight when the herb sellers came around.) 



5. So that a man or woman will "become 

 tame" and do what one wishes, including mak- 

 ing a husband permit his wife sexual relations 

 with another man or a wife permit her husband 



sexual relations with another woman, and, in 

 addition, aiding the adulterers to meet: 



Buy a new small pottery vessel (oUita) ; it is best 

 to buy it direct from the kiln to make sure it has not 

 been used for anything else. Fill the vessel with holy 

 water, first fastening a new 20. centavo piece to the 

 bottom, inside, with campeche wax. Into the water put 

 a large paraffin candle which has been cut into many 

 small pieces. Each piece represents part of the 

 strength (fuerza) of the individual while the holy water 

 signifies that the strength is broken. In order that the 

 results will be "good," put in a piece of cane from the 

 mountains known as otale del lean and a very resinous 

 splinter of pitch pine. Then cover the top of the vessel 

 with a thick cap of campeche wax so that no air may 

 enter. The vessel is then buried beneath the spot 

 where the person to be bewitched sleeps, if this person 

 is a spouse. If not, the vessel is buried in the patio 

 of the house of the person. 



6. To make a man lose his sexual vigor so 

 that he will recover it only with the woman who 

 has had the magic done : 



The witch must first seek a small grass known as 

 pito de toro and place it in aguardiente to infuse. The 

 man should drink a little of this aguardiente every day 

 for 8 days. If he is not a drinking man, then it must 

 be given in coffee or atole or in some other manner so 

 that he will not be aware that he is being given some- 

 thing. After 8 days the woman spies on the man until 

 he goes to urinate, when she must recover a bit of the 

 moist earth or, if he has not urinated on the earth, 

 place earth in the receptacle. The urine-moistened 

 earth is placed inside a ehilc ancho of the largest size it 

 is possible to secure. The ehile is then sewed up with 

 needle and thread so none of the earth can escape and 

 placed below the spot where the man sleeps with some- 

 one, or, if he is unmarried, it is buried in his patio as 

 close as possible to the place where he sleeps. With 

 this, the man remains incapacitated from having sexual 

 relations with any woman except the one who has per- 

 formed the rite. 



7. To make a person suffer so that he will 

 be sad and feel sick, although it will be imagina- 

 tion and not in reality ; so that he will feel he is 

 going to die; so that everything is revolting; 

 and so that he will be unable to find tranquillity 

 at any moment because it will seem something 

 is about to happen : 



Make a small doll resembling the human figure out of 

 campeche wax and clothing used by the person. It is 

 important that the clothing used should not have been 

 washed, but be soiled from wearing. When the doll is 

 made, stick pins in it all along the part of the spinal 

 column, one in the crown of the head, two in the tem- 

 ples, two in the throat on each side, two in the nape 

 of the neck, two in the umbilicus, and seven on the 



