OLD HEALER, A RECURRING FIGURE IN INQUISITORIAL PROCEEDINGS

Abstract

At one time when access to professional health services was inaccessible to a large part of the population, the treatment of diseases was in the hands of men and women who were considered able of providing relief to patients. Although the office of restoring health to the sick is not in itself an illegal activity, frequently the people who practice it end up involved in accusations before the Holy Office, mainly for to two reasons: the first one is because the unorthodox nature of the treatments that they apply, which makes this character assimilate to others, such in view of as sorcerers; the second, even more frequent, is due to a failed cure, which causes the d ante issatisfied patient to come forward to denounce the healer as charlatan and superstitious. This s healerstudy will review cases of women considered, either by themselves or by others, as healers, “curanderas”, who were denounced before the inquisitorial authorities in the bishopric of Michoacán in the 18th century, in order to show that the most characteristic profile of this character is that of the old woman.