How Phoenix curanderas connect to the earth to heal their community
Orangutan self-medicates wound with medicinal plant in world first
An orangutan named Rakus was seen self-medicating a wound with medicinal plants in what is believed to be a world-first occurrence.
unbranded – Newsworthy
Among the most vivid memories of my childhood is that one afternoon at my grandma Margarita Preciado’s home in Hermosillo, Sonora, when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Sitting on one of the couches in her living room, I remember telling her, “Nana, my throat hurts.”
She strolled over to her kitchen, opened one of the cabinets and took out a huge jar filled with organic honey. After placing the container on the table, we walked out the back door to her plant-filled patio and stood in front of her lime tree. We stared at it until I was able to pick the juiciest one.
Back in the kitchen, she took a spoon and filled it with honey, squeezed some lime juice on it, and, before I knew it, she was feeding it to me, ensuring the concoction began to work its magic. Minutes later, that sore throat was gone.
I grew up with many home remedies of this sort. How can I forget the day I cut myself on a piece of glass in my nana’s home and she ran to the kitchen for the coffee can, took a pinch of the powder, placed it on my blood-dripping finger and suddenly, the blood had curdled; or the aroma of a bowl filled to the brim with “caldo de pollo” (chicken and vegetable broth); or the sweet, floral taste of chamomile tea they brought me in bed when I was sick.
My home pantry is stocked with essentials like a jar of organic honey, as well as chamomile, mint, and valerian herbs. And yes, my grandmother is also responsible for these latest additions. Thanks to her, I’ve learned that chamomile helps with inflammation, relaxation, and menstrual cramps; mint aids digestion; and valerian will make you sleep like a baby.
‘The potpourri of Mesoamerican medicine’
Traditional medicine, also known as folk medicine, is the healing practice in which herbal medicine, spirituality and physical therapy intersect to treat ailments or illnesses. Other names used to describe this type of medicine today include “holistic” and “alternative” medicine.
According to the World Health Organization, at least 170 different countries have reported the use of traditional medicine, and this practice is considered to have African, Aztec, Mayan, Inca, Sephardic, Catholic and magical-religious influences.
In Mesoamerica, for civilizations such as the Mexica (Aztecs), Mayans and Incas, health was seen as the result of a balance between physical condition, nature and the cosmos. These cultures, along with European colonization, gave rise to the ancestral medicine of that region, which is now popularly known as curanderismo.
“I call it the potpourri of Mesoamerican medicine. There’s been times when I call it capirotada,” Patricia Federico, a healer from Phoenix, told me with a laugh, implying with that last term that, to her, curanderismo can be a mix of a little bit of everything.
A curandero, curandera or curandere is a person who has the skill and gift to perform these healing practices. During the colonization of Mesoamerica, most people from Europe spoke Spanish and Portuguese, so they referred to those who were responsible for healing others as curanderos.
Curandero originates from the term “curar,” which means to heal.
When I asked my 87-year-old grandmother if curanderismo was a common practice during her childhood or if she ever went to a curandera for treatment, she wasn’t very familiar with the word. The term became popular in the 1970s, while my nana’s childhood and adolescence were spent in the 1940s and 1950s. As I explained the term’s significance, she slowly caught on.
“Oh, ‘natural remedies’? Yes, that’s how we were treated at home,” she assured me. “My mom made us cinnamon and lemon tea for our throats, or sometimes ginger tea, and before giving us the tea, she would rub VapoRub on our chests and the soles of our feet.”
Within curanderismo, there are subcategories, some of which are: sobadoras or hueseros, who work with the body through massage therapy or chiropractic methods; yerberos, who focus on the benefits of herbal medicine or plants for healing; oracionistas, who heal ailments through words; and parteras, who accompany women throughout their pregnancy, guiding them until the day they give birth.
My nana was the third of seven children and one of six welcomed into the world with the help of a partera. She and her family lived in the small rural area of Pilares, just outside of Hermosillo, and going to the hospital for an emergency was out of the question. Doña Andrea was the well-known and reliable partera among the community whom my great-grandmother trusted with six of her seven children.
Some of the ailments that curanderos often treat — and that are deeply connected to Mesoamerican culture — are susto, mal de ojo (the negative effects caused by someone’s envy), empacho (indigestion), mollera (a depression in the anterior fontanelle), witchcraft and muscle strains.
‘It is the spirit of the land that embodies this energy’
Much of the United States, specifically the Southwest, was once part of Mexico until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in 1848, ceded that territory to the U.S. effectively ending the war between the two countries.
According to Federico, it is because of this historic event that Arizona is one of the states with the highest concentration of curanderismo practitioners.
“It is the spirit of the land that embodies this energy,” Federico affirmed. “I always say it is handed down like a chain of love.”
When it comes to medicinal plants used by practitioners of traditional medicine, the Sonoran Desert — an ecosystem that encompasses both the state of Sonora in Mexico and Arizona in the United States — is home to countless plants.
According to the Yaqui Museum in Sonora, Mexico, some of the popular medicinal plants found along the Sonoran Desert are chicura, ocotillo, choya fruit, cenizo branch, cibiri fruit, and batamote. My grandmother learned about the latter as a child, as it was used in many remedies.
“They gave me batamote for stomach pain,” she told me. “You take the branches and boil them with water to make a tea.”
Batamote, along with muilcle, another medicinal plant widely grown in Mexico and Central American countries, are some of the plants my nana grows in her patio in Hermosillo. — a magical place that, for me, embodies the spirit of the desert with the presence of dozens of plant species.
New Mexico and California are also home to many practitioners. The University of New Mexico has incorporated a curanderismo course, which Federico took during her training to become a curandera.
Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz, also a curandera in Phoenix, told me that the largest concentration of curanderas in Arizona is in the Valley and in the south, near Tucson.
The gift, ‘a spiritual and cultural privilege’
Federico is a native Arizonan living in Phoenix and has been helping others via her curanderismo practice, Mi Tierra Healing Arts, for 30 years. Federico is of Mexican and Indigenous descent, where these ancient forms of healing have always been present. Federico spent much of her childhood with her grandmother and one of her aunts, who was a sobadora.
“That’s how I was first introduced to curanderismo, although at the time I didn’t know it was called curanderismo. I always thought it was just ‘la sobadora,’” Federico said.
At an early age she realized she could sense energies and spirits around her.
“I always had what my aunt referred to as ‘el don,’ (the gift)” Federico said. “She always said that I had ‘el don’ because I could perceive beyond the five physical senses.”
But Federico put off developing that gift well into adulthood. She was working as an accounting executive before a traumatic experience changed her worldview.
When her son was 19, Federico had a vision in which he was shot. Federico’s nightmare came true days later when her son was attacked at gunpoint. Two weeks later, Federico had a very similar vision. Once again, it became a reality, only this time, her son was shot six times.
“I was sitting at the foot of my son’s bed when I sensed an angelic presence with us. The presence inspired me to have hope and faith… and to have hope and faith into changing my life and to use my gift, because I was hiding it at that point because I wanted to fit in with everybody else,” Federico said. “That’s when I made my commitment to myself, to God, to the Creator, to my son, who laid on the bed with the ventilator hooked up to him, not knowing if he was going to pull through. But he did.”
Following his recovery in 1994, Federico began helping others using her gift, starting as a “natural holistic healer” and later evolving to the title of curandera.
Her initiation ceremony as a curandera took place in 2005 with the Kalpulli Teocalli Ollin group of curanderismo practitioners, Native traditional healing, shamanism and rituals in New Mexico after studying for four years each summer at the University of New Mexico.
“It was a very interesting way to transition from a business to being a curandera,” Federico said. “But the most important thing in my perspective that I, a curandera, must remember is that this is a cultural and spiritual privilege.”
Cultivating el don
Cocotzin is another Phoenix curandera who, like Federico, has been practicing since 1994. Cocotzin says her family has Mexican and Indigenous roots, however, her arrival in the United States dates back several generations to New Mexico.
When I asked Cocotzin how she got involved in the world of curanderismo, she told me that her mother was cared for and educated by her great-grandmother, who was well-known in the Old Town neighborhood of Albuquerque, New Mexico, as a curandera and partera. This woman was Cocotzin’s first exposure to curanderismo. She described her great-grandmother as a very Catholic woman, but one who possessed the essence of healing people through energy, using her hands and prayer.
“Today, I think many people would call those practices a type of Reiki (energy healing), but back then it was just putting your hands on people and praying for them,” Cocotzin said. “I think she worked with energies, but she probably didn’t have the vocabulary to explain what was even happening.”
Since she was little, she had the gift of sensing how her energy was affected depending on the environment she was surrounded by, such as feeling disruption in noisy places and peace outside as she connected with nature.
“It naturally evolved into me going into what people might say is holistic wellness,” Cocotzin said. “So, it really found me (‘el don’), and I cultivated it.”
Federico and Cocotzin met while studying body physiology for massage therapy in Phoenix.
One of Cocotzin’s passions is cooking, and she says food is one of the main medicines for human beings. Food as a vehicle for healing came to her long after Cocotzin began her journey into the world of curanderismo and has become what distinguishes her most today. Her practice is called Kitchen Curandera.
Her knowledge of both folk medicine and cooking has resulted in two published books: her semi-biography, fused with recipes, remedies and rituals, “Earth Medicines,” published in 2021 and winner of two awards; and the children’s book “Nana Lupita and the Magic Sopita,” published in 2024.
Cocotzin said that in the past, it wasn’t very common to go to the doctor, especially among marginalized communities due to fear and lack of trust in Western medicine.
“I never call it ‘alternative therapy’ because for many people, like myself, this was their first and primary medicine,” Cocotzin asserted. “It was not alternative; going to the doctor was the alternative.”
My grandmother agreed with her, saying that natural remedies were like community medicine, as neighbors would support each other by sharing plants or other ingredients to cure their ailments.
WHO has a traditional medicine program that was integrated in 1976. Today, the organization “recognizes the diversity of traditional, complementary, and integrative medicine practices in all countries of the world and their contribution to health, well-being, people-centered health care, and universal health coverage. This medicine, when properly integrated, can improve health outcomes by increasing the availability of services, especially at the primary health care level.”
However, the WHO has also communicated that folk medicine should not replace modern medicine, which is based on science and research, but should complement it. There are conditions that go beyond the ailments that can develop as a result of someone’s daily habits or the environment that surrounds them every day, such as cancer or tumors. This is something that practitioners of curanderismo, like Cocotzin, recognize.
“Sometimes I am the bridge for them to see a doctor,” she said.
‘Medicine is for everybody’
In recent years, the term “cultural appropriation” has become very popular thanks to social media. It is used to describe when someone who is not part of a specific culture takes elements of that culture, which can range from traditional or religious practices to clothing, and makes them part of their persona or routine.
When I asked Cocotzin if this could or has played a negative role within curanderismo, she replied, “I was always taught that the medicine is for everybody.”
Cocotzin has helped people from all walks of life.
“I see people who are extremely well-educated with master’s and PhDs. But they remember their grandmas giving them ‘limpias’ (cleanses) when they were feeling a certain way during their childhood, so now they come to see me,” Cocotzin said. “A limpia is for everyone.”
Both Cocotzin and Federico believe that approaching the practice with respect is essential, but both agreed on an even more key factor: lineage.
“Perhaps you are naturally gifted at certain things, and perhaps you are on the healer’s path, but maybe this one isn’t the right one for you, (Mesoamerican healing),” Cocotzin said. “Maybe this is the door that opens to what could really be for you.”
According to Cocotzin and Federico, researching one’s ancestors is key, as ancestral medicine is present all over the world and every region has its own “ways of healing.”
“I really feel like people should look into their own culture, their own medicine, their own ancestors and the way they can connect, because their medicine can be so much more powerful if they connect it to their DNA and their ancestry,” Federico said.
A matter of the heart
From childhood to adulthood, I had always heard the word “curandera,” with an “a” at the end. And having only ever received this kind of healing from my grandmother, it’s easy for me to assume that most practitioners are female.
However, Cocotzin assured me that there are no rules regarding which gender can practice; there are curanderas, curanderos, and, more recently, curanderas.
Federico agreed with Cocotzin, but added that it is more common to see female curanderas. She also said she has noticed that men who work in this field of practice tend to have better skills in the management of bone or muscle tears (hueseros).
But in the end, Federico added one last point that encapsulates this healing practice.
“It’s not so much about gender, but it’s the heart of the person,” Federico asserted. “That’s what matters.”
Have story tips on Latino communities in the Valley? Reach La Voz reporter Paula Soria at [email protected].
link
