PERSISTENCE AND CHANGE IN THE HEALTH BELIEFS AND PRACTICES OF AN ARIZONA YAQUI COMMUNITY Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Shutler, Mary Elizabeth, 1929- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 07/10/2021 21:23:03 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/284836 This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 67-8811 SHUTLER, Mary Elizabeth, 1929- PERSISTENCE AND CHANGE IN THE HEALTH BELIEFS AND PRACTICES OF AN ARIZONA YAQUI COMMUNITY. University of Arizona, Ph.D., 1967 Anthropology University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan PERSISTENCE AND CHANGE IN THE HEALTH BELIEFS AND PRACTICES OF AN ARIZONA YAQUI COMMUNITY by Mary Elizabeth Shutler A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 6 7 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my Mary Elizabeth Shutler direction by entitled Insistence and Change in the Health Beliefs and Practices of an Arizona Yaqui Community. be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy *7*A. /£{ u Dissertation Diredubr Date 7 After inspection of the dissertation, the following members of the Final Examination Committee concur in its approval and recommend its acceptance:* ' ^ AAMAJ<J( (£ ' / *> *This approval and acceptance is contingent on the candidate's adequate performance and defense of this dissertation at the final oral examination. The inclusion of this sheet bound into the library copy of the dissertation is evidence of satisfactory performance at the final examination. STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfill­ ment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under the rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable with­ out special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quota­ tion from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I should like to express my indebtedness to the members of my committee: Dr. Edward H. Spicer who introduced me to the people of Pascua and whose guidance I have relied upon, Dr. Harry T. Getty whose advice has been of inestimable value, and Dr. Kenneth L. Hale for many helpful criticisms. I am grate­ ful also to Drs. Richard B. Woodbury and Malcolm McFee who read and criticized parts of the manuscript. My thanks go also to the people of Pascua whose interest and cooperation made my work among them a rewarding and pleasant experience, especially Anselmo Valencia, Juan Acuna, and Virginia Salvador. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT vi INTRODUCTION 1 The Problem 1 Field Procedures 5 The Informants 7 Orthography 9 THE HISTORY OF ACCULTURATION 11 Pre-Spanish Yaqui Culture „ 11 Mission Yaqui Culture 15 Autonomous Community Culture 20 Relocated Yaqui Culture 25 DISEASES AND THEIR CAUSATION 31 The Diseases 31 Disease Causation 33 Natural Causes 33 Emotional Causes 38 Sin 42 Witchcraft 43 Other Magical Causes of Disease 49 TECHNIQUES OF DISEASE TREATMENT 51 Seataka 51 Prayer 62 Medicine • 69 Diet 78 Massage . 80 CURERS AND PATIENTS 83 The Hitevi 83 CURERS AND PATIENTS—Continued 112 The Partera and Childbirth 112 iv V TABLE OF CONTENTS—Continued Page CURERS AND PATIENTS—Continued 129 The Layman as a Curer 129 The Layman as a Patient 132 THE CONTACT COMMUNITY 139 Anglo-American - Pascuan Contacts 141 Mexican-American - Pascuan Contacts 148 Pascuan - Other Yaqui Contacts 150 Pascuan - Other Contacts 151 THE PROCESSES OF ACCULTURATION 153 CONCLUSIONS 172 APPENDIX I YAQUI MEDICINES 191 REFERENCES CITED 221 ABSTRACT Located within the city limits of Tucson, Arizona, is the barrio of Pascua. In Pascua live a community of Yaqui Indian emigrants from Sonora, Mexico. These people came to Arizona with a set of beliefs and practices about health and disease which represented a fusion of Indian and Spanish elements. Since they have lived in Arizona, they have lost some of these customs and adopted some customs of their Anglo-American neighbors. Other Yaqui-Spanish customs still persist. Some of the diseases recognized by Pascuans are those defined by modern scientific knowledge. Other diseases are defined by the folk cul­ ture of Spanish-America. Still other sets of symptoms are known only by Yaqui terms. Pascuans attribute illness to natural causes, to emotional causes, to God's punishment of sin, to sorcery, or to other magical causes. Diseases are cured by the supernatural power, seataka, of the curer, or by the prayers of the curer or others. A special form of prayer is the manda or vow to perform some service in exchange for a cure, a pilgrimage, a fiesta, or especially joining one of the religious societies of Pascua. The giving and taking of medicines is also an important part of almost every cure. The curer frequently regulates his patient's diet. Finally, massaging is often done to effect a cure. The hitevi is the principal Yaqui medical specialist. He is a professional curer paid for his services. He undergoes lengthy training vi vii and, more important, possesses supernatural power. Both men and women can be hitevim. Hitevim are still active in Pascua. The midwife, the partera, is not believed to have supernatural pow­ er. Formerly she gave advice and medical aid to the expectant mother, assisted in delivering the baby, and treated illnesses of infancy and early childhood. Midwives are licensed in Pima County, Arizona today. Pascuan parteras could not meet the requirements for licensing and through fear of legal prosecution have ceased to practice. Anglo-American medical services have replaced her. In addition laymen treat their own illnesses and those of their families through the use of home remedies. The layman, too, as a patient chooses what sort of medical treatment he will have: that of the hitevi, the making of a manda, or that of Anglo-American medical practitioners. The role of the hitevi exists today in Pascua partially because of the structure of the contact community and partially because of the role's internal structuring, while for the same reasons, the role of the partera has disappeared. Therefore, the system of hitevi curing has not been replaced by Anglo-American curing but is an alternative to it. The religious curing system, manda curing, has co-existed with hitevi curing for many years and today is a third alternative curing institution. These alternative institutions are so adjusted as to exist compatibly, without competition, in Pascuan culture. / INTRODUCTION The Problem The Yaqui Indians of Sonora, Mexico have been in contact with European culture since the seventeenth century when Jesuit missionaries came to them, gathered them into large villages, and set about to teach them Christianity. As a result of this contact the culture of the Yaquis grew to be a fusion of Indian and Spanish elements. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, following military defeat at the hands of the Mex­ icans, some Yaquis left their homeland and settled in various parts of Mexico. Some even migrated to the United States. One of these displaced Yaqui communities is Pascua, located in Tucson, Arizona. In Pascua the Yaquis maintain some degree of community organization and a considerable body of distinctively Yaqui beliefs and customs. The city of Tucson in which they find themselves contrasts sharply with the Sonoran villages they left. In the first place they find their settlement physically surrounded by a large urban center and each family participates to some extent in the life of the city, primarily for adults in the economic in­ stitutions of Tucson, and for the children through the public school system. Secondly the settlement in Tucson offers a different cultural milieu from that of Sonora because it predominately represents a different cultural tradition, that of Anglo-America. The Yaquis came to Pascua with a set of beliefs and practices about health and disease which represented a mixture of Indian and Spanish 1 2 traits. Since they have been living in Arizona, they have lost some of these and adopted in their place some customs of their Anglo-American neighbors. However, other Yaqui-Spanish health customs have been retain­ ed and flourish in Pascua today. The problem of this dissertation is to examine and attempt to explain why some Yaqui-Spanish health customs have been discarded while others have persisted. Pascuan beliefs and customs about health and disease and its curing are incorporated into different aspects of their culture. Many come under the aegis of religion, others are held and practiced by the family and so forth. Nevertheless, for the purposes of analysis Malinow- ski's (1945:49-50) concept of the institution will be used as a model for the organization of the description of Pascuan curing beliefs, practices, and personnel. Malinowski defines an institution as a group of people organized for a particular purpose, having techniques and material culture to implement that purpose and a charter or set of ideas about what should be done and how it should be done.