Talk:Witchcraft in Latin America

message: I updated the etymology section with more accurate information on the word.
Robskin (talk) 18:47, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Etymology

message: Brujería per the standard rules of Spanish seplling has always "tilde" (stress mark) on the "i", I believe - else (brujeria) it makes a diphtong, transfers the stress to the -je- syllabe and sounds really odd. I have standarized the spellings along the article but even the title should carry it. 
"Brujaría" may exist in some dialect but it is the first time I ever read it. 
The article claims:
:Although bruja/o is used by Spanish-speakers to refer to a witch from any culture, to call onself a brujo/a to non-Spanish speakers is to indicate that you are of Spanish descent. Brujaria is therefore a Spanish witchcraft.
Is it really that way? The article states that Native Americans are also called brujos/as. How "Spanish" are they? Is their witchcraft really "Spanish"? Or is it Native American (or hybrid)? What is "Spanish"? Does it mean loosely "Hispanic" or it means strictly "Spaniard"? The article seems to point to the first sense but it's quite confuse. 
The article says:
:The word bruja is believed to derive from bruxa, which is from the Celto-Iberian dialect in Spain evolving to what is known today as Gallego. It shares its roots with Portuguese. The present day Portuguese use the term bruxsa.
What about the meigas? It's widely know that Galicians call witches that way (they surely use bruxas too). Not a single mention is made about that. 
The article says:
:The female witch is considered the most powerful, and traditional brujos believe that the female passes down the sacred bloodline or spiritual bloodline (matriarchal lineage). This means that the line is inherited from a female but ends with a male.
Sources? I doubt there's such a well estabilished "doctrine" and much less that it is universal for all regions of Spain and all countries and ethnicities of Latin America. 
Enjoy, --Sugaar 09:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Questions and remarks

message: The article starts with incorrects ideas, and follow with the same and a lack of sources of any kind.
First, "Brujería" is the spanish word for Witchcraft. It does nothing to do with a kind of "spanish witchcraft". In traslated terms,  Witchcraft = Brujería. Witch = brujo (male witch) / bruja (female witch). I changed the initial phrase.
Second, the roots of this word are still difficult from a scholar point of view. The bruj- root is supposed to be descendant from a pre-roman word (maybe an indigenous language). The -ería suffix means Craft in general. Example: panadería (bakery), herrería (iron-works), fontanería (plumbing). Also, "brujaria" is the first time I read. The article say no word about other terms: meiga (Galician), bruxa (Catalan) and sorgin (Basque).
Third, there is a huge difference between the traditions of witchcraft in the Iberian Peninsula (similars to other branches of Traditional European Witchcraft) and Center-South American witchcraft (american shamans, nahuals) though the word used is sometimes the same (brujería). 
Too superficial, without any sources or serious research.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.8.72.164 (talk) 01:08, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: More remarks

message: It's rather poorly written, and I see no reason for it to be separate from witchcraft since it's just the Spanish word for the same thing. I'm pretty sure this warrants a nomination for deletion, especially since both of the other items on the talk page seem to express dissatisfaction with the article. I'm a new user though, so if I'm being over-zealous, feel free to reject my nomination. Namaps (talk) 22:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Is this page even really necessary?

message: reading this article an english speaker is being led to believe that somehow argentinian people are responsible for the term brujeria.
this is absolutely incorrect. it is a word used by millions of people in dozens of countries. there is a systematic attempt by people of argentina to hijack all sorts of wikipedia articles by somehow attempting to claim authorship, or ownership, or creation of all sorts of ideas and terminlogies.
don't fall for it.
what they are doing is practicing cultural cyber war.
everyone in the spanish speaking world uses this word.
and it did not originate in argentina.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.211.161.74 (talk) 06:41, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  once again argentinian peolpe trying to hijack wikipedia 

message: I came to this topic trying to find information about Bruja and found it very informative moreso than it would have been as part of a more general Witchcraft topic because in the US, the word is used or understood differently. While we know it connotes Wichcraft, the word here is meant more as an insult when applied to a woman. Rather than meaning "witch", it takes on similar meaning to the word "bitch" in practical application. In generic slang, it is often used this way even by people who don't know it means witch. 
I regards to complaints I read in this Talk section, I don't see where it's necessary to include the word Meagas as that could be added as a Stub to this article. However, since more than one person brought it up and the topic is about Brujeria, maybe it should be included since to document the possible root origin of the word it would require looking at similar words which may contribute to it. 
In regard to it being claimed as originating in Argentina, it could be that the author is indicating where it begins to take on a separate meaning from our traditional understanding of the word witch much as Voodoo differs and took on a new direction separate and apart from it's African origins as Vodu. This is the way I understood the author as speaking. Maybe, to satisfy critics, the author could do a bit more research on the origins of Brujeria in Europe and separate it into two parts addressing first how it is the same as European witchcraft and then second, how it evolved into something different combining with Native American beliefs which the author does point to as making Brujeria different in the America's than elsewhere.
Overall, I think this article falls within Wikipedia's rules regarding source material, quality standards and neutrality when it is read with understanding of the authors views. If it needs changes, then let's see the changes made and remove the warnings relating to the topics truthfulness and integrity. 
I needed the information this article provided and it verifies some of the meanings / history I found elsewhere but needed an single source to link to.
My own contribution is just to add the meaning of the word Bruja in slang as a general insult. 
Thank you for posting this article.
(Armorbeast (talk) 13:45, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance 

message: I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
::This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
::#There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
::#It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
::#In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.
Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  removing POV tag with no active discussion per [[Template:POV]] 

message: This article states, "Brujería also refers to witch-healers" though neither of these links directly address Brujería in the context as it's presented here. Also, of the three citations given they all are incomplete, for example, where can I find, "sunt mulieres plusciae, sunt nocturnae",63.9? Is it even a book? Under the Etymology section, we see OR lines like, "The word may be inherited from ..." though I can't find any reference (or page numbers) backing this claim up in the Oxford Latin Dictionary. The trivia section (which makes up half of this article) indeed seems trivial. So a character on a TV show who practices Santeria gets called a witch in Spanish? That's noteworthy? The link to La Llorona doesn't actually refer to her as a witch, she is a ghost. There is a difference. Likewise, the article on Curandero are about shamans, not witches. The claim that "Both men and women can be witches; brujos and brujas respectively" might be true grammatically but there is no citations backing this claim up so, once again, it is OR. I don't mind trying to fix this but of the research material on Latin American witches that I have none of it will back up the claims presented here. Xenomorph erotica (talk) 15:14, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Witch-Healers? This article needs more citations and less OR

message: As previous discussions on this talk page demonstrate, the article is still a mess of original research and original thought. The lede is supposed to be a summary of what is address later in the article with proper references. But such history is not addressed and so it remains in the lede, just a series of unreferenced claims about history. The etymology is referenced but everything else is unreferenced. 
The "see also" links are indeed relevant - an example of a significant and notable Brujería and Catalan history of whichcraft from which these traditions come and on which the etymology is based. Removing the popular culture section was silly - that's a common inclusion and is among the only content in the article which can be easily verified. St★lwart111 04:25, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I will address the WP:OR issue soon by finding sources; witchcraft in Europe is different from witchcraft in the Americas. As for La Llorena, it is of no relevance from what I can tell (editor whom issued tags also agrees) so I will be removing that; Catalan witchcraft is fine because the historical connection is noted. Also, the "in popular culture" is rather unnecessary (editor also agrees) so I will be removing that as well unless multiple users object. Omo Obatalá (talk) 12:59, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Which "editor also agrees"? You can remove things once you have established a consensus for doing so. St★lwart111 14:13, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

text: You don't get to decide the content of articles based on your POV and the lack of multiple objectors to that POV. An editor has objected so you come here to discuss it per WP:BRD. Issuing ultimatums and edicts is not the same things as "discussion". St★lwart111 14:17, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you even read the post above from Xenomorph erotica? Omo Obatalá (talk) 14:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course, and the article has been edited extensively since then. Some of the sections referenced don't even exist. The original research concerns remain a concern, yet that is the tag you are seeking to remove, without addressing the issues in that thread, this thread or in the article. There is nothing wrong with an "in popular culture" section (note all the other articles that have them) and you don't resolve a concern about one particular entry by section-blanking anyway. Instead of blindly reverting, how about you actually read what has been written and take a look at the article edit history? St★lwart111 14:29, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest edits 

message: I see nothing here describing witchcraft from the Spanish context, and how it would function separately or uniquely as a practice throughout history.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.58.179.196 (talk) 04:27, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  No Historical Context 

message: As a native Spanish speaker, I was surprised there was an English-language page for this term and reading it only made me more confused. I'm glad there is an active discussion about deleting it. It makes no sense that there is a separate article talking about Brujería as if it were something different from Witchcraft. In 99% of cases when a Hispanic person uses the term "brujería", they are talking about "witchcraft" and nothing else. Redirecting to the Witchcraft page in English would make more sense because otherwise it leads to the wrong assumption that there is one specific kind of witchcraft for the entire Spanish speaking world (400 million people) called Brujería. 
A more accurate way to portray witchcraft in Latin America and the Caribbean would be to have a list of individual practices separated by country or region. Brujería is a very broad term and general statements don't really work, for example "Brujería doesn't participate in community, hierarchical, or initiation-based practice or membership". That may be true of one kind of "brujería", but not all of it. 
Also, there is already a page for Brujería in the Spanish version of Wikipedia but it's not linked to this one. I guess that's because the English word "brujería" somehow means something different than the same word in Spanish? Then how is this page ever going to be translated into Spanish? "Anglocentric perception of Hispanic witchcraft"? 
 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fs2338 (talk • contribs) 20:25, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion in 2020? 

message: Firstly, why is there no mention throughout this article of a key Latin American alternative spiritual and medicinal practice?: Curanderismo. Secondly, this article needs major revision in terms of the usage of the term "Brujería" as it is being used as though it is its own unique religion or spiritual practice. While this can be - and often is - the case, it is ALSO and more significantly used as an umbrella term for the forms of spiritual practices detailed in the "Concept" section. In addition, "Brujería", "Bruja", or "Brujo" are all commonly used as pejoratives - backed by hundreds of years of superstition and Roman Catholic-influenced persecution -  against individuals who follow non-traditional forms of belief or are, in general, nonconformist. This is all extremely necessary information to include as the cultural, spiritual, and sociological/anthropological understanding of the term has shaped its usage and influence to this day.Aravoir (talk) 02:14, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evaluation of "Witchcraft in Latin America"  

message: Bruxa redirects here but the article doesn't define it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.61.180.106 (talk) 07:21, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bruxa 

message: Some traditions are from areas of Africa but other from native, some from Europe.
~~Ed~~ 2607:FEA8:4A2:4100:21D2:54F6:19BC:D682 (talk) 09:41, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Many traditions