ARTICLES
DECEMBER 2004 ARTICLES
Contents © 2004
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
I Don't Do Black Magic
Mysterious World of Botanicas
BY JOSÉ MADERO
Some see them as places of the divine. Others as dens for folk remedies. Still, others as havens for practicing witchcraft. They are "botanicas," where Catholicism, spiritism, occultism and folk healing meet and merge. They are also home to one of the fastest-growing spiritual movements in California.
Sound exotic? Too foreign?
It shouldn't. There are anywhere from 400 to 1,000 botanicas in Southern California, experts say. They believe that Southern California is the world capital for botanicas. Most botanica customers are immigrant Latinos, but botanica appeal is making converts among mainstream customers from different ethnic groups.
Beliefs like Santeria, which originated in the Caribbean in countries like Cuba and Puerto Rico, are attracting customers from all walks of life to some West Los Angeles botanicas, experts say.
Not just immigrant Latinos, but Hollywood stars and actors are a common sight in botanicas like El Congo Manuel in Oxnard, where a striking, life-size statue of an African Orisha -- a spirit -- greets incoming customers.
However, at the heart of botanicas in Los Angeles are small operators like Maria, an espiritista or spiritual practitioner who reads the Tarot cards from her modest, one-bedroom home in East Los Angeles. There, on a makeshift altar lined with a white cloth, lies a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe and at one of the corners, a girthy Buddha. Colored candles burn; the air smells like incense.
"People come seeking help from all types of problems. Whether love problems, health problems or immigration problems," said Maria, a 67-year-old Mexican national from the state of Jalisco. "They come in all shapes and sizes. Poor and rich. Straight and gay."
The vast majority of botanica practitioners and customers are Catholic, said Patrick Polk, a botanica expert and curator for the Fowler Museum's exhibition, Botanica Los Angeles. He added many Catholics are initially attracted to botanicas because they can find sacramentals there that they can't find anywhere else.
"In botanicas you find representations of folk saints, which are the ones that are not officially recognized by the Church," Polk said. "The botanica is a site that supports and enacts religiosity of the everyday. So if you have a little altar at home, where do you get the materials? At a botanica."
Polk said that after the Church removed saints like St. Christopher from the calendar, used sacramentals like incense less and less, and downplayed the general belief in the saints, Catholic Latinos began to seek for these things elsewhere -- in botanicas. Polk believes that the Second Vatican Council modernized the Church at the expense of popular beliefs. "Well, you can't kick St. Christopher out of a botanica," he said. "People know what St. Christopher is good for -- regardless of whether or not somebody can prove his legend. The fact is that the folks at a botanica know that if you are going on a trip or if you are crossing the border, you get a St. Christopher medal."
Polk believes that after Vatican II, the Church's antiseptic view towards the sacraments drove many Latino Catholics eager for more mysterious, mystical experiences into other churches. He adds that botanicas are filling some of those needs. "The Catholic Church tried to become more sterile, maybe more scientific in its approach to the mysteries of spirit and faith," said Polk. "And that's really the opposite of what the botanica is. It's a place where people are looking for new mystical traditions. As the Church became less ritualized, people started looking for ritual in other places."
Some experts say that the rituals of botanicas stem from many folk practices that derive from curanderismo, a mix of folk healing, white magic, and folk Catholicism. Such beliefs are popular in Mexico and some countries in Latin America. E. Bryant Holman, a writer who has studied curanderismo for over a decade, said that originally most of these beliefs came from Spain.
At first, spiritualist practitioners in Mexico and in most parts of Latin America would practice their beliefs from their homes, said Polk. From there, the local curandera would receive customers to heal them or to do limpias, which are a form of cleansing away of evil spirits. Herb shops called yerberias would offer, along with medicinal plants like epazote (wormseed) and yerba buena (spearmint), veladoras (votive candles), bath preparations, and incense with names like "Strong luck," "Make lover return," and "Just Judge."
By the 1970s yerberias had become botanicas in New York, catering to Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean immigrants. Botanicas quickly made their way west. Now there are botanicas all over the world, said Polk.
Though most botanicas are mom-and-pop stores that operate from storefronts, other botanica practitioners like Indio Amazonico advertise in Spanish papers from New York to Los Angeles. Amazonico is perhaps the most well-known espiritista today.
"He's the man," said Maria, who for over a decade read the tarot cards and made spiritual cleansings for customers at El Mercadito of East Los Angeles. "Indio Amazonico charges too much. I get many of his clients who can't pay what he is asking them for."
Holman believes that most of the magical beliefs in curanderismo stem from occult books like El Libro de San Cipriano (The Book of St. Cyprian), which claims that the saint was originally a medieval sorcerer before converting to Catholicism. The book was published in the early 1600s and is still very popular among curanderos in Latin America. Other popular curandero books are La Magia Blanca (White Magic) and La Magia Verde, (Green Magic).
Most curanderos like Maria say they are practicing Catholics. Like many practitioners, she believes in a more old-school, folk Catholicism which views priestly powers as a form of magic -- sometimes as the highest form of magic. In fact, Maria said that she first got involved in curanderismo after being counseled by a priest. A priest allegedly liberated her from a hex. "He prayed over me," said Maria. "Priests are the ones that are the most proficient in magic."
Polk, who has studied botanicas for over 20 years, even has a section in the Fowlers' botanica exhibition called "folk Catholicism." Crucifixes, statues, and images of the Virgin and St. Michael intermingle with smiling Buddhas or saints that are not recognized by the Church, such as the popular Guatemalan San Simon -- or the darker patroness of Mexican drug lords, La Santa Muerte (The Holy Death).
Black-clad, bony, and with a skull emerging from a hood, La Santa Muerte has recently been a subject of controversy in Mexico, where devotions to her have given way to an independent church calling itself La Iglesia Católica Tradicionalista Mexicana Estadounidense(The Traditionalist Mexican-American Catholic Church), which encourages devotions to the grim-reaper saint. The bishop of León, Guanajuato, where La Santa Muerte is growing in popularity, asked the Mexican government to reconsider giving a permit to the "Traditionalist" church to operate, because, the bishop said, it was fraudulently using the name "Catholic".
"That group is more than a church; it tends to go toward Satanism," said Bishop José Guadalupe Martín Rabago.
The Traditionalist Church countered by suing the bishop and two journalists who wrote about it. The church claimed that it was not "satanic" and had a right to promote devotions to La Santa Muerte.
La Santa Muerte's popularity is growing in Southern California as well, said Polk. It has become, along with San Simon, an object of devotion by people who go to botanicas. On the other hand, practices, like Santeria, which have a more Afro-Caribbean influence, are also growing in popularity among Mexican and Central-American botanica customers, said Polk. Most Santeria practitioners believe in Orishas -- mostly African or Native American spirits.
Horacio Trujillo, a Tucson-based Catholic lay preacher who is one of the Charismatic Renewal's most well-known figures, seconds Bishop Rabago's concerns regarding the growing influence of botanicas. He -- like most followers of the Charismatic Renewal -- believes that regardless of what kind of magic or spiritualist practices botanica practitioners claim to follow, it all stems from an evil influence.
"The root of it is satanic," Trujillo said.
However, Maria, the East Los Angeles espiritista, said that though some botanica owners do practice black magic and do hechizos (hexes) -- if the price is right -- most curanderos don't.
"I don't do black magic. That's evil," said Maria. "I only try to help people. I believe in God."