Metaphor, magic, and mental disorder: Poetics and ontology in Mexican (Purépecha) curanderismo

Abstract

This article offers an epistemological, poetic, and ontological reading of the ways of knowing regarding mental disorders that are characteristic of the traditional healers ( curanderas and curanderos) of an Indigenous group in Mexico. The study is based on ethnographic interviews with traditional Purépecha (Tarascan) healers in rural Michoacan. Interviews focused on local conceptions of emotional and mental illness, especially Nervios, Susto, and Locura (nerves, fright, and madness). We discuss the conceptual structure of these Indigenous illness notions, the nature of the associated imagery and notions of the soul, as well as the general sense of meaningfulness and reality implicit in Purépecha curanderismo. The highly metaphorical modes of understanding characteristic of these healers defy analysis in purely structuralist terms. They do, however, have strong affinities with the Renaissance “episteme” or implicit framework of understanding described in The Order of Things, Michel Foucault's classic study of modes of knowing and experiences of reality in Western thought—a work profoundly influenced by Heidegger's interest in the historical and cultural constitution of what Heidegger termed “Being.” After examining the individual illness concepts, we explore both the poetic and the ontological dimension (the foundational sense of reality or of Being) that they involve, with special emphasis on supernatural concerns.