The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-02-07
voODoo WORK. IN MEXICO.
An AMERICAN WOMAN TELLS A
STORY As SHE HEARD 1T.
The Donna Geronimo HoodOOed by n
jealous Rival and Strangely Cured
by Command Os a Magistrate
Characteristic Superstition of the



Characteristic Superstition of the
Simple Folk.
From the st. Louis Globe-Democrat.
San Luis Potosi Mex.-I am an Ameri-
can woman living in Mexico. For TIE
past four years my home has been thirty
fve kilometres from the city of San Luis
Potosi on the Tampico division of the
Mexican Central railroad. Ours is the
only American family at that point. 1t
has been a lonely life for me, and 1 have
made companions Of my native servants.
They in return. serve me faithfully,
watch over my children day and night, lie
to and cheat their fellow countrymen in
my interest and do not rob me over much.
[ love old Evarista, who has been with
me ever since I came in from the United
States She is a short, thick-set woman,
as ugly as any Chinese idol But when I
tell her of piece Of good fortune that has
come to US her black Indian-looking face
shines with sympathy, and when my baby
girl died 1 cried on 'Varistas shoulder and
she comforted me.
Being on such terms with a woman Of
the peon class, I have picked up many
queer tale of enchanted virgins held cap
tive in hidden caves of babies whose
veins had been drained Of blood overnight
by witches; Of animals, people. ana even
inanmate objects, harmed by the evil eye;
of ghosts whose uneasy shades could find
no rest, not because of murder done or of
nameless crime committed, but because
OF hidden treasure, the knowledge of
whose whereabouts the apparition vainly
tried TO give to the fear-struck people
whom it CHANGED to meet abroad after
nightfall; and of mysterious illnesses
brought about by the "hechiseras," or
witches having this power from the evil
one. The witches who suck a babe blood
are 'brujas," and belong to quite a diff
ferent class of cousins to Satan. The
"brujas' fly by night not on broomstlck,
but in the guise of a great bird. They
sometimes pounce down on an unlucky
traveller who has foolishly ventured out
after dark and beat him almost TO death;
but they cannot cause sickness. This the
hechiseras alone can do. The latter can
not fly, and have no liking for children's
blood. They correspond to the Noodoo
doctors among the negroes. However,
the Mexican hoodoo practitioners are al
ways women, while their African-descend-
ed counterparts are usually men.
The story which l am about to relate
is more interesting than most tales of
voodooism, in that it shows that witch
craft is recognized as a crime by Mexican
law. 1 give it as it was told to me by
Florentia, one of my servants, and she
had been an eye witness to the Incidents,
and knew the people concerned intimately.
In 1871 one Juan Maleno lived with his
wife, Geronimo, in San Juan de Guada-
lupe, a western suburb of the city of San
Luis POtosi Juan was a mason, and his
earnings kept their humble artisans home
in comfort. In the little room fronting
on the street there was the most gaudy
collection of saints pictures to be found
in all of San Juan de Guadalupe. Be
sides, there was great doll, representing
the Virgin Mary, which was actually
dressed in white silk, with a lace veil.
There was no curtain at the single iron
barred window, and the red tiled floor
had not even a square of mating in the
center. The plastered walls needed patch
ing and embarrassing. The clumsy chest,
the table that served as an altar, and the
four rush-bottomed chairs, were all rick
ETY., but that was nothing. Did not Gero-
nina pay dollar month to a dirty slip
of girl who ground the corn for tortillas
in the smoke-begrimed kitchen in the
rear? And when she went to mass on
Sunday mornings Geronimo wore a pair
of tiny high-heeded boots, a skirt of cheap
blue WOOL stuff trimmed, with band of
coarse yellow lace, while on her modestly
bowed head was the gayest striped six
reboza to be seen in all San Luis Potosi.
Juan sometimes had a devotional streak
and accompanied her. on such occasions
he slipped off his comfortable kuaratches
(sandals) and put on in their stead a pair
of pointed toed red shoes, skin tight
trousers of dressed sheepskin, a stifHy
starched shirt of gay calico, and a wool
| hat with high sugar-loaf crown, whose
weight was much increased by the addi-
ton of ornaments made of silver cord and
braid. Around his waist he twisted a red
woollen scarf, being careful to let the en-
broidered ends hang down, and on his
shoulder he carried a fringed blanket WOW
| en- in zigzag check pattern of red, yellow,
| green, pink and purple yarns. This bank
ct had cost him $40 in the Pueblo de San
/ Nicholas, a town fifty miles back, famed
for the skill of it's weavers.
! You can see that Don Juan Maleno was
a very respectable man, and his sonora,
! Donna Geronimo, was a woman to be en-
We'd. There was, however, one drawback
| to the Sonora Maleno's happiness. She
| knew that she had a rival In the affections
| Of her husband a certain woman named
Eugenia. Such things are quite common
! in Mexico, and rather than bring upon
! herself a beating from quick-tempered
! Juan, Geronimo philosophically accepted
| ms more and more imprisoned as time
went on, resolved to make away with the
wife, that she might herself wed Juan
Maleno. To that end, she called upon eco
madre of hers to help her. What means
the two plotters used no one knows, but
the results were as follows:
'When a woman becomes the godmother
OF child, she and the little ones natural
mother are ''co-madres,' and this tie is a
closer bond than blood kinship. Between
men It is the same, and each man is a
compare" Of the other.
One bright Sunday afternoon Juan took
his wife out for a stroll. Geronimo would
have preferred to go to the bull fight that
day, for the bulls provided for the occa-
sion were of the fierce Tinaja breed, wiry.
vicious, devilish brutes, quite likely to kill
man or two before the close of the sport.
The bun fight was quite impossible for
that time, as Juan had lost his last quar-
tilla the evening before at the cock fights.
So Geronimo consoled herself with the
thought that Eugenia would see her out
with Juan and would be made miserably
| Ia. H. f.rHN k..s aga.lst