Curanderismo Soul Retrieval: Ancient Shamanic Wisdom to Restore the Sacred Energy of the Soul - Erika Buenaflor M.A. J.D. 2019

Footnotes

*1 Curanderismo is a dynamic and eclectic Latin American shamanic practice that has incorporated Judeo-Christian (especially Catholic), Native American, Caribbean, Spanish, Moorish, and African practices and beliefs. Its core roots—beliefs, practices, and methodologies—however, are from the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

*2 The terms Mexica and Nahua have often been used interchangeably to talk about the same group of people within the Aztec empire. Since I am principally focusing on the dominant Mexica tribe of the Aztec empire in this book, I use the term Mexica, rather than Aztec or Nahua.

†3 I decided to follow the trend of progressive Latinx communities, who are using “x” in the place of “a/o” and “as/os” at the end of gendered words. The use of the “x” is intended to transcend static gender binaries.

*4 Although in the Feast of Toxcatl the spaces were honored by starting with East, then moving West, North, and then South, the painted directional codices of the Mexica almost always referred to the four directions in the following particular order: East, North, South, and West. (Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning, 113.)

*5 The time required for the same day name and number to recur was 18,980 days, or 52 years.

*6 For the ancient Mesoamerican, the days were not intrinsically good or bad. They were a combination of positive and negative features. A day with forces advantageous for one activity might be less helpful for another task. Contemporary diviners in highland Guatemala also do not uniformly designate some days as good and others as bad (Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning, 87; Tedlock, Time and the Highland Maya, 98—99, 127, 175). These symbols were not static; they were dynamic, influenced by actions.

*7 Stelae were slabs of stone that were placed in front of ceremonial centers and political buildings. They were generally carved with hieroglyphic inscriptions accompanying historical portraits.

*8 Scholar Marc Zender argues that the artistic representation of the ruler as a shaman may have been more allegorical than actual. The depiction of the ruler as a shaman-king may have been a precondition to rule, showing that he could indeed act as the people’s advocate and intermediary between the worlds (Zender, “Study of Classic Maya Priesthood,” 76—78). Whether the ruler actually acted as a shaman that could traverse into other realms is another issue. But the ethnohistorical record reveals a story in which one of the last rulers of the K’iché’ Maya in Guatemala shape-shifts into his animal coessence, which suggests that there may have been some rulers who also acted as shamans (Velásquez García, “Nuevas ideas,” 561).

*9 Omeyocan is frequently identified with Tamoanchan. “Tamoanchan was not only defined with the highest part of the universe, but with the world of the dead, because it was all a process of the marvelous crossing of the celestial and earthly currents, the place of creation.” (Maffie, Aztec Philosophy, 365; López-Austin, Tamoanchan, 108.)

*10 The word nahual, often written and pronounced nagual, derives from the Nahuatl term nahualli. This word was widely used before the Spaniards arrived in the Americas. It was later adopted by many indigenous groups who did not speak Nahuatl, and even by mestizos. It is principally identified with a shaman who is able to shape-shift into animals or other spirits. (Gossen, “Animal Souls,” 83; and López-Austin, “Cuarenta clases,” 98—99.)

*11 Some of the beings in these scenes are hieroglyphically tagged with richly descriptive names, such as “One Death,” “Fire Center Death,” “Red Bile Death,” and “Stinking Death.” (Scherer, Mortuary Landscapes, 46.)

*12 Tlaloc also presided over the East as the deity of rain, whereas his relation to the South was as a deity of the rain of fire. (Aguilar-Moreno, Handbook to Life, 295.)

*13 The Maya Year Bearer signs differed in the Classic and Postclassic period. In my discussion, I will rely on the Postclassic Yucatec Maya application as recorded by Diego de Landa.

*14 Head variants were Maya glyphs that encompassed logograms, “meaning signs” that stood for whole words or word stems or possibly syllabograms, and “phonetic signs” representing syllables as well as pure vowels.

*15 K’in corresponded to a day and referred to the sun. Its meaning also embodied the sun’s horizontal movement from East to West and the sun’s vertical movement between up (North) and down (South). It was a signifier both of time and space. This hieroglyph with four petal-like lobes also represents the four world directions. (Foster, Handbook to Life, 256).

*16 While quantum clearings are outside the scope of this book, I will discuss the most pertinent things to ask for, on behalf of the person or you, while in the sacred heart, connected to the I Am presence. To ensure a clearing throughout times, worlds, dimensions, and realities, I bring the person into the sacred heart of God, of oneness, and then I offer to the person’s I Am presence everywhere they exist, have existed, and will exist—this includes all dimensions, lives, realities, and spaces—the affirmation, “to transmute and clear with and by the sacred fires of God’s Love and Light everything and anything that could attract, support, assist an allowance of . . . ” After this gift has been offered to the I Am presence, I ask the person to silently speak their choice of whether they choose to accept and activate this gift. The I Am presence always chooses ideal gifts and circumstances for us.