Indigenous medicine and childhood illnesses among Texcoco Nahuas: loss of guidance, pate falling, tiricia, and evil eye

Abstract

The paper describes and analyzes concisely four of the most frequent infant illnesses among the Nahuas in the Sierra de Texcoco (Mexico), placing them in the general frame of the characteristic pathologies –“physical or material”, and “spiritual”– characteristic of the region. These are genuine “cultural” diseases that can only be treated by experienced relatives or ritual specialists. In the article the basic characteristics are analyzed in detail by etiology, course and respective therapeutic methods, showing how the illnesses are perceived by the Nahuas through the information collected during the ethnographic research carried out in the region. At the same time, the article reflects about the complex relationship between the Western and the Nahua medical systems that coexist in the Sierra and points out the existen-ce of an intermediate field of therapy, distinctive and camouflaged, that offers answers to the childhood diseases: the family medicine or domestic medicine.