Laying-on Hands: Santa Teresa Urrea's Curanderismo as Medicine and Refuge at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

This essay examines the ways Teresa Urrea - a curandera or Mexican faith healer - was understood by those she healed as well as the popular presses of the turn of the century as she moved out of the US-Mexico borderlands and into urban centers of San Francisco, New York City, and especially Los Ange...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Studies in religion
Main Author: Seman, Jennifer Koshatka (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage [2018]
In: Studies in religion
Further subjects:B Faith Healing
B Public Health
B Tuberculosis
B Curanderismo
B Teresa Urrea
B Spiritism
B Spiritualism
B internal colonialism
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Summary:This essay examines the ways Teresa Urrea - a curandera or Mexican faith healer - was understood by those she healed as well as the popular presses of the turn of the century as she moved out of the US-Mexico borderlands and into urban centers of San Francisco, New York City, and especially Los Angeles. Santa Teresa's curanderismo was a cultural refuge for ethnic Mexicans who faced an increasingly racialized and antagonistic public health system in Los Angeles. At the same time, her curanderismo - exemplified by the practice of “laying on hands” - shared epistemologies with scientific medicine and other healing modalities, such as Spiritism, allopathic medicine, and indigenous healing arts. For those who lived in the liminal space between two nations and two cultures, Santa Teresa's curanderismo provided both practical and magical medicine for the body and spirit.
ISSN:2042-0587
Contains:Enthalten in: Studies in religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0008429817739462