Sorcery and Morality in the Andes: Illness, Healing, and Brujería in Kañaris (Lambayeque, Peru)

Abstract

Sorcery (brujería, curanderismo) is a genre of both ritual healing and malicious witchcraft practiced throughout northern Peru. In the Andean community of Kañaris, practitioners call upon the power of place-based spirits called "enchantments" (encantos) to both cause and cure certain classes of illness. These individualized spirits are embodied in particular mountains, waterfalls, and high-altitude lakes. They are repositories for a sacred power that has the potential to both help and harm people, as manifested in a person's body, productive activities, and social relations. Yet in Kañaris, the encantos do not usually address lay people directly or cause illness by their own will. Instead, ritual specialists called "sorcerers" (brujos) or "masters" (maestros) direct the power of the encantos towards a person with the intention to benefit or injure them. Therefore, moral responsibility for illness attributed to sorcery lies with the sorcerer, and the client on whose behalf he acts. People in Kañaris say that malicious witchcraft is always motivated by envy, and perpetrated by a fellow community member. The people who should be most trustworthy are also the most likely to do withcraft.

Subjetividad o miedo. Los modos de ser y hacer de las brujas en los Andes

“…Entos dice "vas yendo, se abre solo una puerta (dice). Una puerta, entrás, primero vas a encontrar La brujería no se puede llevar a cabo sin la intervención directa del diablo (Fernández 2011(Fernández y 2017Sax 2014;Fernández y Gil 2019). El diablo es el que da el poder, sea el que sea, especialmente aquel que se quiere usar para dañar.…”