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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 5 



guinea pig dies, the master grinds white corn kernels 

 on a table with a bottle used Hke a rolling pin and 

 sprinkles powder over the viscera. Those portions 

 where the white powder darkens are, analogously, 

 the sick portions of the patient's viscera. After this, 

 the animal is buried on its back in a hidden place. 

 First dirt is placed over it, then kitchen ashes, then 

 dirt. If anyone or any animal digs it up, harm is 

 done to the patient. 



No ahadorcs or sniffing of alcohol appear in this 

 type of diagnosis. 



The work of Valdizan and Maldonado (1922, 

 vol. 1) contains an extensive, although somewhat 

 diffuse, discussion of brujeria in various parts of 

 Peru. Miiiano, 1942, has reported some interesting 

 laymen's accounts recorded in the town of Chicama, 

 near Chiclin. 



The most vivid and detailed account of brujeria 

 seances of which I know, occurs in fictionalized form 

 by Camino Calderon (1942, pp. 179-185). I have 

 the pleasure of Senor Camino Calderon's personal 

 acquaintance and I have his word for it that the 

 background material pertaining to brujeria in his 

 very successful novel "El Daho" was obtained by 

 him at first hand during a period of a year and a 

 half, during which he lived in Salas and became 

 intimately acquainted with the leading inaestrus of 

 this center of north coast curing. Since his book 

 is practically unknown to readers of the English 

 language, I quote, in translation, several passages 

 bearing upon the subject at hand, with permission 

 of the author, in order to round out the background 

 of the present material recorded in Moche. The 

 brujeria of Moche of which I know lacks several 

 features mentioned by Camino Calderon. This may 

 be because it is a somewhat pale and "provincial" 

 reflection of the center of this art described by him 

 or because this account represents a literary syn- 

 thesis of the work of a number of different brujos. 



Speaking of a certain practitioner, he says: 



In addition to Spanish — which he spoke somewhat masti- 

 cated, in truth — he spoke in "lenguaraz," or the Quechua 

 brought from the Sierra by the warriors which Tupac 

 Ypanqui sent to restrain the fierce men of Chota. (P. 175.) 



Personality : 



Narciso was very educated, very suave in his manners, and 

 belonged to a family in which the practice of the "limpia- 

 dura" dated from the ancestors and was practiced as a true 

 profession, with absolute orthodo.\y, and with a spirit full of 

 charity and disinterestedness. (P. 176.) 



Profession : 



A "limpiador" not born in Salas is like a bullfighter not 

 born in Spain. Salas is the matrix of the brujos, the cradle 

 of the diviners, the mastic tree (alindciijo) of the love 

 magicians, the Lourdes of Peruvian curandismo, the Monte- 

 sinos cave of everything grand and supernatural. 



Whoever does not know Salas, does not knov^ the North. 

 Everything that is most fantastic and marvelous, takes place 

 in Salas. . . The mountains and the lakes, bewitched, pro- 

 vide miraculous pajas upon demand if one sings to the 

 rhythm of the chungana : 



Ccrrito encanldu 

 da la 'medicina 

 que la neccsita 

 tanto desgracidu 



Taita San Ctpriano 

 con que Dios trabajas 

 giiiame la inano 

 pa sacar las pajas . . . 



. . . Every year Narciso Piscoya . . . went up to purify 

 liimself and to receive new training at the Gran Guaringa 

 de Huancabamba where Quintin Namuche lived, an almost 

 mythological person who was the Pope of witchcraft and 

 the owner and distributor of the paias which originated 

 there : the mLslia rey, the siniora, the huachuma . . . divine 

 plants whose alcoloids awoke supernatural spiritual powers 

 and with which the curandero acquires a double sight which 

 extends beyond all scientific notions of time and space. In 

 this chilly paramo whither he had had to flee from the 

 Guardia Civil, Quintin Namuche — the repository of the 

 therapeutic tradition of the Incas — uncontaminated by 

 Dialer OS and humbugs, led a life of an anchorite, receiving 

 the homage of the neophites, initiating them in the secrets of 

 the paias [herbs] which must be employed for the welfare 

 of mankind and exercising an absolute power over the brujos 

 for 100 leagues around. (P. 177.) 



To bring rain, a curandero goes to the sea to fill 



jar.s with sea water, which is sprinkled on the fields. 



"Mai de hombre, the finest brujo cures, mal de Dios, no 

 one," said Narciso Piscoya, drawing near to the bed of Don 

 Jose Miguel. There was no time to lose. This same night 

 he would diagnose (rastrear) the patient with a cui ruco, in 

 order to find out which organs were affected and what type 

 of daiio was involved : bad wind, shadow cut with a dagger, 

 or soul lost. Late at night, Piscoya took out of his bag an 

 enormous cui ruco [red guinea pig], and whispering mysteri- 

 ous words, began to pass it over the back of the neck 

 and the head of Don Jose Miguel. Then he passed it over 

 the back, the ribs, and the lumbar region. Then the thorax, 

 and upon being placed over the heart, the animal let out a 

 squeak. "Pain. Pain. The seiior has pain in his soul," 

 said Piscoya lowering the cui to the abdomen. Upon scraping 

 the knees of the patient, the poor ruco had convulsions and 

 died. 



.\s all grave and solemn facts which a limpiador has to 

 announce, this also was announced in lenguaraz : Huaiiolonna, 

 Huanolonna . . . 



