In the following essay, Trotter and Clavira provide background on curanderismo, or Mexican American folk healing.

At least six major historical influences have shaped the beliefs and practices of curanderismo by Mexican Americans in the Lower Rio Grande Valley: Judeo-Christian religious beliefs, symbols, and rituals; early Arabic medicine and health practices (combined with Greek humoral medicine, revived during the Spanish Renaissance); medieval and later European witchcraft; Native American herbal lore and health practices; modern beliefs about spiritualism and psychic phenomena; and scientific medicine. None of these influences dominates curanderismo, but each has had some impact on its historical development.

Judeo-Christian beliefs and practices provide the basic framework for curanderismo, just as for most Western cultural systems. The Bible and the teachings of the Church have been combined with folk wisdom to produce a foundation for the theories of both illness and healing that make up much of...