Anthropology Archive

Magical Malevolence as Causes of Illness in Mexican American Culture

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Mexican ethnomedical beliefs involving a person causing illness to another through magical means—mal ojo ("evil eye"), mal puesto, hechiceria, and embrujameinto (witchcraft and sorcery)—are found in cultures around the world. These illness beliefs share a sociopsychological dimension in attributing the cause of an individual's illness to others with whom the person has strained social relations. Mal ojo occurs when someone who has "strong vision" looks on one with an evil eye. Strong stares of envy, a lot of attention, and looking at or praising (without touching) a child are thought to cause mal ojo. The consequences come from the emotional desire and may occur inadvertently through the power of envy. Mal ojo may be treated with "cleansing" with an egg, crossing the body, and saying prayers or removed if the person with strong vision touches the person they admired. Mal puesto, a sorcery or hex, has more severe implications, attributing illness to peoples' deliberate action, the intentional placing of a spell or curse on another. This may involve hechiceria and brujeria (sorcery), ritual acts carried out alone or with the help of a magical practitioner (brujo, hechicero).

Therapeutic approaches taken by Leininger (1973) with Mexican American witchcraft illness involve an initial interaction with the family of the victim, assessing their history and talking about extended social relations and past occurrences of witchcraft. This typically results in the expression of concerns that reveal unresolved problems within the extended family, resulting from acculturation conflict regarding sexual behavior, social roles, and mother-daughter relationships. The dynamics underlying witchcraft reflect conflicts within the extended family, with the witchcraft

(1980) suggests that sorcery is widely available in societies that have widespread access to supernatural power, where everyone can access supernatural power (e.g., see discussion of the guardian spirit complex in Chapter Ten).

Sorcery and witchcraft constitute complementary explanations of illness due to human malevolent magic. Sorcery is actually practiced whereas witchcraft is an attribution where the actual practices are likely absent. An earlier cross-cultural study (Winkelman, (1992a) found beliefs about specialized sorcerer or witch practitioners that were significantly correlated with political integration beyond the level of the local community. The social characteristics and psychodynamic attributes of illness attributed to sorcery and witchcraft reveal that they reflect social tensions, frustrations, and anxieties and function in social control (Middleton and Winter, 1963; Marwick, 1970). Walker (1970) illustrates how sorcery and witchcraft serve adjustive functions (explanatory, instructive, and ameliorative) and adaptive functions (social control, unification, and governance); they also have dysfunctional aspects in disrupting social relations (Finkler, 1985a). The psychosocial dynamics of witchcraft beliefs are illustrated in the special victims involving those who were accused of flagrant violations of traditional norms. The family is generally unaware of the displacement obvious in discussion of the witchcraft problem. As therapy resolves family conflicts, anger and displacement subside, as do witchcraft symptoms.

The out-group members accused of being witches often accept their designation but see their role as one of protecting their own family from the violations committed by the victim. Their denunciations of the witchcraft victim state the unacceptable behavior for their own families. In the context of diagnoses of witchcraft-induced illness, the projection of blame on extended family members enhances in-group cohesion within the immediate family.

Witchcraft beliefs play important roles in coping with problems generated by acculturative changes and expressing disapproval of new behavioral norms adopted by the younger generations. Expressive therapy allows a focus on social and family problems and assistance with acculturation changes, enabling the family to function as a viable cohesive social unit. In the process of therapy, the belief in witchcraft is not challenged nor is it interpreted as psychotic or delusional behavior. Rather, it is recognized as culturally normative and part of the intercultural adjustment process.

Cultural perspectives emphasize the actions causing the illness, whereas anthropological explanations tend to focus on intragroup or intergroup dynamics. Witchcraft accusations reflect group tensions and in-group and out-group attributions of blame and culpability. The causes of the attribution are found in many psychological and social interaction dynamics: tensions and stress, beliefs and practices, intergroup conflict, distrust, scapegoating, cultural and value conflict, and cultural change. Witchcraft accusations can displace the in-group's responsibility for causing stress-induced emotional illness in one of its own members by blaming the cause of the sorcery or witchcraft on the out-group.

feature "Biocultural Interactions: Magical Malevolence as Causes of Illness in Mexican American Culture." In Chapter Nine, we discuss the psychophysical consequences of hex death and nocebo effects—or negative placebos.

Impersonal Supernatural Punishment Significant features of supernatural theories involve punishment for misbehavior, what Murdock (1980) called "mystical illnesses": the "automatic consequence of some act or experience of the victim mediated by putative impersonal causal relationships rather than by the intervention of a human or supernatural being" (p. 17). An impersonal supernatural power, rather than the deliberate actions of supernatural beings, is considered to be the cause. Four major categories of mystical causation considered by Murdock include

■ Mystical retribution, the automatic consequences of violating taboos (forbidden acts) or moral injunctions; while perhaps mediated by supernatural beings, mystical retribution emphasizes automatic consequences (like touching an electrical wire) rather than supernatural judgment. The major categories of taboos are concerned with