Our Neighbor, La Curandera

I was born in 1951. The first few years of my life I traveled with my dad and mom while my dad was in the Army, but after they split up I went to live with my grandmother, my Memo (pronounced Meh-mo) on a street named Nancy Place, in the west-central area of San Antonio, Texas.

Our house was the third on the left of the second block, three houses away from the intersection with San Jacinto. Our block was dead-ended by railroad tracks, about 6 or 7 houses away.

In the first house, the corner house on our block -one house away from ours- lived an old Mexican woman, a widow named Juanita Lofton (Lofton being her married name). She was a curandera, a "witch doctor, or shaman" for you who don't know what that means. If we were sick, either physically, mentally or spiritually, we went to her.

From the back yard of our house you could see the side of her house. She had an outdoor "waiting area" with benches underneath a large grape vine where her "patients" would wait their turn to see her. Inside her house there was a breeze-way that separated the main part of her house, where she lived, from the business side. There was another small waiting area inside and then the "consultation" room.

My grandmother and I went many times to see Juanita. Whenever she needed an herb or tonic, or felt that I did, off we went to sit for what seemed an eternity to get Juanita's advice.

Once inside the consultation room, there were two chairs facing Juanita, who sat at a small round desk with a pad and pencil. After you told her your troubles, she would stare ahead while she scribbled on the pad. To me it felt as if the pencil in her hand moved on its own.

When she was done she would look at the pad and tell you what needed to be done. Many a time she would push up on my nose and deduce that I was suffering from "susto, " or shock. In our culture, if something frightens you or if you face a tragedy such as an accident or the sudden death of a loved one, it is believed you suffer "susto." You must be cured of it or it can lead to bad health or even death.

Juanita's remedy for "susto" was to put you up against a wall in her consultation room and have you spread your arms out and legs wide. Then she would take a knife, tap three times above your head and trace the outline of your body with it three times, stopping at the top of your head each time and doing the three tap thing again. Believe me, that experience is indelibly inscribed in my brain! My most vivid memory of this was of having to endure several of those "treatments" after waking up in the middle of the night (what woke me up - a noise or a scent? - I don't remember) and saw a very beautiful young woman standing at my window, just staring at me. But that's another story, one my grandma refused to discuss even when we frequently found cigarette butts with red lipstick on them outside my window.

After that Juanita would go to her back yard and pick a handful of herbs, give them to my grandma with instructions to boil them and have me drink some of the tea, and also bathe with it. I don't remember what the herb was, but it tasted good with sugar, which was the only way my grandma could get me to drink it.

There were other aspects to the curandera that went beyond the herbal prescriptions. She also consulted spirits for those who had spiritual issues. My grandmother went to her several times and left me sitting in the waiting area while she consulted with Juanita about something. I can't imagine what spiritual issues my grandma could have had, but apparently she thought she did.

Afterwards, at night after her regular prayers, my Grandma turned to a corner of the bedroom and said a prayer or chant to someone named Hermano Castolo. When she finished the prayer or request, there would be a loud knock up in the ceiling of that corner. Apparently, this signified that he heard her prayer.

We lived without air conditioning, so our windows and doors were always open. I can remember many nights looking over to Juanita's house and seeing people (or shadows) walking around in her breezeway, and there was always smoke coming out of the chimney late at night, filling the air with a sweet incense-like smell. My grandma would tell me not to look over there, but she never told me why.

Years later my mother told me that they were not people, but spirits. She told me that when she was about thirteen, she and her best friend decided to go to one of Juanita's nighttime "meetings." She recalled sitting with a large group of people in the consultation room. Juanita sat in front of them and told them to close their eyes and despite what they heard they were not to open them. My mom said that at that point Juanita covered her head and began chanting. As Juanita spoke, her voice became a deep, growling voice, a voice my mom said she would never forget, "demon-like." My mom recalled that all of a sudden a woman screamed and she was pushed, so she opened her eyes. She saw a woman on the floor, writhing and foaming at the mouth, and people scrambling to leave the room. Juanita seemed to have been knocked back but appeared to be in a trance. My mom grabbed her friend and they ran out of there and never looked back! She remembered that police went to Juanita's house but she didn't know what happened with that.

Another story I heard was one that was told to my grandma by Juanita herself. She told the story of a knock on her door late one night. When she opened the door a man pushed past her and went into her house. He pushed her into her kitchen threatened her with a large knife (his, hers - ?) and told her he was going to rob, then kill her. Juanita said that she calmly told him that he would not rob or kill her and then, apparently one of her spirits entered the room and frightened him so much that he ran out screaming, calling out for God's help.

Many years later, when I lived in my grandma's house with my boys, we would see strange things going on at Juanita's house at night. Late one autumn or winter night, looking from the window of our kitchen door, we were mesmerized by the sight of colorful balls or globes of light floating around in the breezeway of Juanita's house. They were pink, blue, yellow, and seemed to float around aimlessly. It was both exciting and frightening to watch.

I went back to the old neighborhood many years later and heard that Juanita had died, which of course wasn't surprising as she had been old when I was little. What was surprising was that a great big, beautiful tree that stood in front of her house had died when she did. I heard that it dried up and collapsed.

That's my story of our neighbor, the curandera, as I recall.