My Favorite Curandera... Tía Luz

With my Mexican health class this week, Rachael and I got to experience a limpia, which means cleaning. Our professor, Dr. Javier Mendez, took us to a nearby town called Mitla, and we met with a curandera named Tía Luz. (Aunt Light). Basically, she is a traditional medicine practitioner, similar to what we would think of as a shaman. Medicina tradicional is very important here, as you could note from my brief write up on parteras(widwives), which are also a part of this tradition.
So off we go to meet this curandera, not really knowing what to expect. We ended up meeting one of the cutest ladies I have ever seen, ever. Tía Luz, is a almost 90 year old lady, under 5 feet tall, with a tiny wrinkled face and big sunglasses from the 90's to protect her eyes following a cataract surgery a few months ago. (i will be posting a picture of her next week sometime.) Her laugh is just incredible, a huge toothless grin making her eyes almost non-existant, and cackles, usually grabbing her face in an adorable way.
Tía Luz is specialized in Espanto or Fright. She does a ceremony to discover your fright, which is an event in which you were traumatized in life, then she will do a limpia and clease you of that frightful event because the belief is that even pyschological things can affect your physical health. The ceremony starts with her sitting you in a chair and lighting a ball of wax on fire with sand and other things in it, this is burning in a bowl of water at your feet so that when it has burned completely there is a pattern left in the bottom of the bowl. while your fire burns she take a black pottery pot and calls for your spirit to come and cleansing the room by going into each of the 4 corners of the room repeating the call. At some point during each other you call out to her, "ya voy, ya voy" meaning "i´m coming", all the while you are supposed to be staring at the fire at your feet. Then when this is completed, she waits for your fire to burn up before removing the leftovers and interpreting it.
My friend, Rachael, had the whole cleaning done first and her espanto was a big fear of an animal when she was younger, but its passed now. Tía Luz said it was probably a snake. My Espanto, when it was my turn, involves people, lots of people, have frightened me, and there are lots of people around when i am frightened. Rachael didnt think it was acurrate, but still a little curious because she lived in Arizona as a kid so she's been around snakes as a child. Mine, i think is fairly accurate because there have been a few incidents in my life when a friend or someone has really terrified me because of something they said or did.
Once the fright is interpreted, Tía Luz begins the limpia (cleaning). This process starts by sitting you in the chair again, and then she calls your name out again before taking a big clear bottle of mescal and tips her head back and appears to chug it. As a bit of a shock, she spits out the mescal at your feet where the fire used to be. For those not well versed in Mexican alcohols, Mescal is similar to tequila but is made from a different type of cactus plant called Manguey, personally, I think it smells and tastes like rubbing alcohol. Tía Luz takes another big swig of this mescal and spits it out on your feet and lower legs, then on your outstretched forearms, then down your shirt in the front, down your shirt in the back, then you have to stand up and she spits more mescal out on the back of your knees. Once this is done, and you've somehow managed not to laugh while it was happening, she takes a certain type of palms and beats the floor at your feet before hitting you in all the places she spit mescal all over you. When this is done, you're clean, and free of your frightful event!
We had a good chat with Tía Luz afterwards, as well. We found out that she learned from people in her family and started practicing around 40, before that she sold fruit and other things. We're still not sure we should believe them, but she said that one of her grandparents lived to be 122 years old so her 90 years is not that out of the ordinary for her family. She was incredibly full of life, and her laugh was infectious to say the least. She was hard to leave, but maybe we'll get back to visit her someday, if you ever end up in Mexico and want to be cleaned or learn how to do cleanings, look up Tía Luz in Mitla, Oaxaca State. She doesn´t have an apprentice, because no young people in the area want to learn, the old ways are starting to slip away. She's very friendly, and will only charge you a small fee of around 100 pesos for a cleaning, which is about 11$Can. I definitely recommend it!
Mitla is a gorgeous town of artisans and ancient ruins in the middle of the town as well. Its not big compared to Oaxaca but its beautiful and full of life. Again, I find myself recommending a trip to Oaxaca to any and all. If you ever consider it please ask me about it! My professors wife is a tour guide here and i could get you in touch with her! (she's american and therefore language is not an issue!)