Mortalidad infantil y brujeria: El caso de la etnia Mazahua.

Identifier:  TDX:1471

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX1471

Authors:  Peña Ruiz, Patricia Magdalena

Abstract:
This study focuses on the description and analysis of specific instances of child mortality due to witchcraft and motivated by envy, which, in the area of social knowledge and practices of the Mazahua families, with whom I worked, represents the main cause of death. The study likewise analyses such cases in relation to traditional therapy and biomedicine. The Mazahua population of Amerindian origin undergoes conditions of extreme poverty and subsequently reveals high levels of child mortality (more severe than in any other age group). Given that the majority of these deaths are attributed to evil spells, I stress the fact that the most significant social function arise from the interaction of the structural aspects of a socio-economic and politically ideological order, such as the processes of hegemony and subalternity with biomedicine, together with personal emotional aspects inasmuch as envy is the main motivation of witchcraft. This variable of envy stems from the consideration of its force and recurrence in these families, as a product of the impoverished conditions, both being the main ingredient of the witchcraft symbolism. We are dealing with an envy which parents perceive in neighbors and family members -known as 'brujos' (witches) for specific reasons- , that is, economic possessions such as land ownership and its products. The mothers, on the other hand, attributed this envy to their husbands' infidelity. The acute problem of alcoholism in male members is closely linked to such conflicts. In this sense, a central function of witchcraft is to enable the parents to cover up the structural causes of the death of their young children. With respect to sicknesses defined by biomedicine and suffered by young children dying from witchcraft, these illnesses are mainly related to gastrointestinal, respiratory and severe de-nutritional symptoms. We are dealing with illnesses that are a product of a pathology rooted in poverty. The role of traditional therapies, above all those within the area of biomedicine, and due to the doctor-patient relationships and the resources available in the region, becomes fundamental in explaining the reproduction of witchcraft as the main causes of these deaths.