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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 



daiiando a Don Miguel." Piscoya continued to ask, "Ticne 

 contra?" "Si tiene. Pero no pucdo ver tuuvia." Piscoya 

 took up the dance again and the song. But this time, the 

 verses were more emotional and plaintive : 



Taitito San Cipriano, 



caballerito, 



con Idgrimas le ruego 



CSC tu ycrbita milagrosa. 



Finally, San Cipriano was moved; and the sorbcdor Miguel 

 Peche, amid hiccups and sobs, communicated to the maestro 

 the happy news : "Yd vide la yerbita. Yd la vide. . ." "Onde 

 estd?" shouted Piscoya. "En cl montoncito, junto a mi 

 Seiiora del Carmen. . ." 



Rapidly, Piscoya extended his arm toward the indicated 

 place. There were the pajas and ycrbas mas apreciadas: 

 the liuachumas, the hornamos, and the condores of Yana- 

 huanga; the huaUnis, the huamingas, and the simoras of the 

 Gran Guaringa de Huancabamba. He took the first which 

 came to his hand ; a small branch musty and spiny, covered 

 with the varnish common to the bushes of the puna. Don 

 Jose Miguel was saved. The medicine which would cure him 

 had been found; it was only necessary to apply it immedi- 

 ately. (P. 185.) 



Love magic is practiced by briijos, according to 

 my sources. Tlie brujo with whom I worked sells 

 love potions to unrequited lovers. This business 

 involves no seance. If a husband has left his wife 

 for another woman, the brujo can bring him back, 

 provided the other woman has not been "scgtirado" 

 by another brujo. The brujo desiring to reunite 

 the spouses works with hairs of the wandering hus- 

 band. My brujo told me one case in which he brought 

 the man back simply by writing him a letter, unknown 

 to the wife, of course. The magical discovery of the 

 whereabouts of a missing lover consists of setting 

 up a mesa, but without alcadorcs. Directly under the 

 saints' pictures on the mesa is some of the hair or 

 other intimate property of the missing man. After 

 imbibing jasmine perfume and spraying it over the 

 vicsa and the token of the man, the brujo proceeds 

 to work with his rattle, asking the mesa a series of 

 place names where the man might be. If the answer 

 is negative, a road appears in the saints' pictures. 

 When the brujo says the naine of the right place, 

 the road disappears and the face of the man appears. 



A cure recommended for female infertility is the 

 powdered flowers of a plant named pacra infused in 

 water from boiled potatoes, to be taken each morn- 

 ing after breakfast. Nothing can be done about in- 

 fertility unless menstruation is natural. 



EVIL WITCHCRAFT 

 Whether "good brujos" also practice evil witch- 

 craft and the casting of spells I am unable to say 



w'ith certainty. The brujos themselves say they do 

 not. Many laymen think they do, or that some do. 

 My data on their operations are all second-hand. 

 It is said that they cause harm to a person by making 

 a doll (murieca) representing the person. Then a 

 stake, a nail, or a pin is stuck through the part of 

 the doll which represents the part of the body of the 

 person which is to become sick. The doll is then 

 buried or hidden away where it cannot be found. 

 Couittervailing magic consists of the procedures 

 previously described. In Moche itself I have heard 

 of no systematic procedure for discovering these 

 dolls and destroying them, other than through reve- 

 lation to the curing brujo in the seance. This does 

 not often occur, however. 



The shapingos are believed to be the evil spirits 

 at the command of the evil brujos. In Moche they 

 are visualized in the form of the European devil, with 

 horns and tail. They are the shadowy shapes which 

 try to break up the curing seances, and are sent out 

 by their "master," the evil brujo, to do his bidding. 

 They are said to appear to women now and then, 

 nude, and with the intention of having sexual inter- 

 course. If a woman is once conqtiered by one of 

 these spirits, she becomes the servant or dupe of the 

 evil master ; if she resists, there is danger that the 

 evil brujo will cast a spell upon her, and cause her 

 to fall sick. 



It is not entirely clear in some informants' minds 

 whether or not the shapingos are the same beings as 

 the "messengers of the devil." Properly speaking, 

 the latter apparently represent another concept stein- 

 ming from medieval Europe. It is they who per- 

 suade men to sell their souls for money. 



Evil brujos are believed to have the power to 

 change themselves into animals and birds. Thus 

 disguised, they are able to visit farms and houses to 

 work their evil without the knowledge of the resi- 

 dents. 



One account, illustrating the supposed power of 

 evil brujos to change themselves into animals, has 

 been given in the section "Sustenance and Basic 

 Economy." Following is another. 



C. was renting a piece of his chacra to another man and 

 one night about sundown he stopped by to ask his tenant 

 how things were going. The tenant said that everything was 

 all right, except that for the last hour a large hawk had 

 been making a noise in the chacra, hopping about, flapping 

 its wings, and that he was on the point of going out to chase 

 it away or kill it. The two of them went out to the field, 

 the tenant with a stick, and they saw a large hawk hopping 

 about and making a commotion. The tenant sneaked around 



