G'evening my nervous buddy, Coffee and a few tales to keep you occupied and less worried?

From my notes for the book.

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Your post on witch doctors reminded me of an incident some years ago while I was livng with the Yaqui Indians.

My mentor was Don Juan Bacasewa Valencia. The illiterate, chief of the Yaqui Company in the Mexican army aux.

He was very overweight, constantly coughing, but a very good friend. When he was dying, he told his wife Rosita, to tell me good bye for him and that he would be at the all saints day to have the meal with me.

The all saints day is on Halloween, where the family and friends take lots of food to the grave site and lay it out for a fiesta, where we could enjoy each other's company eating and drinking once again.

While Rosita was telling me this, she was clinging to me and crying, - so much for Indians having no demonstrable feelings.

Juan, as I mentioned, had a chronic cough. One day when I was visiting him I noticed that his cough was much better. When I mentioned this, he gave a bit of a laugh and told me that he had hired a witch Doctor to find why he had the cough.

The witch doctor had gone through his usual spells, then crouched over Juan's chest and tummy , mumbling and sweeping the area over and over, He suddenly stood up, spit out leaves, pebbles and a few small twigs. He then said in a deep voice ,"This is what was bothering you Don Juan, It was placed in there by someone casting a spell on you."

Juan then asked just who would do this,where upon the witch doctor appeared to go into a trance, then as he came out of it, pointed to an old widow woman nearby and said "Her".

A day or so later she was found dead.

I asked Juan how did she die? He merely grinned and said that she had it coming to her for what she had done to him. She had just stopped breathing because her mouth was found to be full of leaves, twigs, and dirt. she had choked to death.

I asked Juan "did he have anything to do with it?" He just grinned

In any event, this took place about the same time that Carlos Castaneda was writing about Don Juan in his series on a Yaqui medicine Man and his teachings..

I asked Juan about this, he said that there were basically three different types. One took care of sicknesses due to normal reasons, another took care of casting and removing spells, and a third took care of spiritual matters. The last two were secretive, since people turned up dead and the Mexican gov't was a bit unhappy about this.
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More later on Carlos Castaneda and his successful series on 'Don Juan, the teaching of a Yaqui medicine Man'.

Don Jose de La Mancha