El Niño Fidencio and the Fidencistas: Folk Religion in the U.S.-Mexican Borderland

By Antonio Noé Zavaleta Ph.D.

El Nio Fidencio and the Fidencistas: Folk Religion on the U.S.-Mexican Borderland, is an biographical ethnography examining the life of Mexicos most famous folk healer as well as the folk religious healing cult that has followed him since his death in 1938. Dr. Zavaleta examines curanderismo, the transmigrational patterns of Mexicans in the United States as well as Latino/a social psychology and importance of folk beliefs and practices in their daily lives.
In 2009, Zavaletas lifetime of research supporting Mexican nationals living abroad, Mexicanos en el Extranjero earned him the prestigious Ohtli, a Nahuatl(Aztec) word meaning pathfinder. The Ohtli is regarded as the highest community-minded awards which the Republic of Mexico bestows to non-Mexican citizens for their service to Mexico.
In 2010, Zavaleta was appointed by President Obama to the Good Neighbor Environmental Commission of the EPA which reports directly to the President and dedicated to observing and analyzing ongoing events within the cross-border eco-systems of the United States-Mexico borderlands.
Zavaleta studied anthropology at The University of Texas a Austin completing a doctoral degree in 1976. For the past 40 years he has been a faculty member and administrator at The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College and The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Dr. Zavaleta retired in 2016 and lives in Brownsville, Texas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524612337

Antonio Noé Zavaleta Ph.D.

Dr. Antonio “Tony” Zavaleta is a native of Brownsville, Texas studied anthropology at The University of Texas at Austin, graduating with a doctoral degree in 1975. He joined the faculty of Texas Southmost College which later became the University of Texas at Brownsville. He served as Dean and Vice President from 1991 to 2016. He retired from The University of Texas Rio Grande as Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs (Brownsville) and was awarded the title of distinguished Professor Emeritus after 45 years of service in the classroom and administration. Dr. Zavaleta has had a remarkable career in anthropology and the study of Mexican folk healing known as curanderismo. He is internationally renowned for his study of the U.S.-Mexico Border. In 2009, Zavaleta received Mexico’s highest diplomatic award, the “Premio Ohtli,” or “Pathfinder” award, for his lifetime study of Mexican border culture and assistance of Mexican citizens in the United States.

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© 2016 Antonio Noé Zavaleta, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/16/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-1234-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-1232-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-1233-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016909141

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Includes Biographical Information and Index

1. El Niño Fidencio, Mexican History

2. Folk Religion, Folk Catholicism

3. Curanderismo-Shamanism

4. U.S.-Mexico Border Health Studies

5. Folk Medicine, Healing Traditions and Spirituality

6. History of Northern Mexico and South Texas

7. Folk healing in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas

8. Mexican American/Latino Studies and Culture

9. Complementary and Alternative Medicine, CAM

Contents

Introduction

A Strong Dream Man

About this Book

Curanderismo

The Move to Texas: 1954

Learning the Legend of El Niño Fidencio

The Bracero Camp: 1958

University Bound: 1966

Return to Brownsville: 1976

1. Magical Mexico

Mexico’s Syncretic Beliefs Systems

Millenarian and Messianic Figures

Spiritism

The Mayan Cult of the Talking Cross: 1800s

Tatita Santo and The Oblates of Mary Immaculate: 1860s

Santa Teresa Urrea-La Batalla de Tomochic: 1870

Don Pedrito Jaramillo: 1900-A Tribute to Dr. Américo Paredes

Don Pedrito Jaramillo-Zavaleta Family Lore: 1880s

La Nueva Jerusalén: Michoacán

The Niño Fidencio Appears in Spain

2. El Niño Fidencio

Idols Behind Altars

Fidencio His Early Years: 1898-1915

Espinazo: 1915-1925

Double Exposure

He Walked on Earth

His Healing Years: 1925-1938

First Newspaper Accounts: 1928

Emilie Sagée’s Doppelganger: 1845

Ariel’s Story: Surgery with Broken Bottle Glass

Von Wernich is Healed: 1928

Fidencio becomes a World Sensation

President Calles’ Visit: 1928

Fidencio Under Attack: 1925-1930

Medical and Public Health Officials: 1928

The Cristero Revolt: 1926-1929

The Fear of Epidemic

The Niño’s Red Brigade: 1930-1938

The Mexican National Catholic Church (MNCC)

The Folk Saint of Espinazo: 1929-1938

La Directora y El Revisador

La Revista HOY: 1937

The Cult of the Niño Fidencio

The Nino’s Healing Spirit

Missionary Efforts

The Fidencista Movement: 1945-1970s

The Fidencista Movement: 1973-1988

The Fidencista Movement: 1989-2016

The Niño’s Death and Burial

What Killed the Niño Fidencio?

3. Espinazo: The Holy Land

Finding Espinazo

Sacred Ritual Sites

El Pirul

La Avenida de Dolor

La Tumba

América’s Daughters: The Tomb Girls

The Niño’s Casa Grande

Church Office

El Foro

El Charquito

La Dicha de la Santa Cruz

Cerro la Campana

La Gavia

La Gruta

Puerto Blanco

El Señor Del Camino

Los Panteones

Michael’s Niño de Madera

El Misionero B&B

Puestecitos

La Capilla de Anhelo

The Niño’s School

Modernization: 1988-2016

4. La Fiesta

Ancient Earth Religion

Celebrations

Alabanzas

Misiones y Materias

La Danza: Matachines y Concheros

Estandartes y Banderas

The Avenue of Pain

Pilgrimage and Penance

The Primary Rituals: Remembering his Birth and Death

The Arrival and Departure Rituals

Getting Settled in Espinazo

Preparing for the Penance

Praying at the Niño’s Tomb

Ritual Cleansing at the Charquito

El Desfile General

The Message at El Foro

La Velación

Castillo y Toro

Circle of Estandartes and Banderas

Secondary Rituals

The Fiesta Princess

Training New Materias

The Public Dance

Spirits on the Fringe

The Late Night Stroll

The Bus that Never Arrived

5. Panita’s: Iglesia Católica Apostólica Fidencista

Panita’s Followers

Panita on National Public Radio

Panita’s Compound

Panita’s Patio

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender at Espinazo

Arriving at Panita’s

Panita’s Health Fades

The Niño Selects His Successor

La Paloma: The Dove

David Donado Zapata Destined to Lead

Panita’s Legacy

The Schism

6. Fabiola’s Iglesia Fidencista Cristiana

Fabiola and Her Family

Religion and Revolution

Professor Heliodoro’s Vision

Centro de Estudios Culturales y Espirituales Fidencistas: 1979

The Niño’s House: La Casa Grande

Iglesia Fidencista Cristiana (IFC): 1993

The Contemporary Church

Church Doctrine

The Church’s Future

7. The Niño’s Holy Scriptures

Niño’s Holy Scriptures

Deciphering the Unintelligible

The Escritura/Scripture Titles

Scripture Number 1, August 15, 1925

Scripture Number 26

The Holy Scriptures-A Brief Explanation

8. Fidencio in the United States

Transmigration: Mexico-U.S.

Founding of Healing Missions

Transmigrational Phases

Fidencistas Abroad

Cultural Competency

Latino Cultural Diversity

Latino Health Determinism

The Latino Family

Latino Folk Medicine

9. Fidencista Social Identity

Social Identity

Keeping Faith Alive

Cultural Materialism

Popular Culture

Cultural Diversity

Spiritual Knowledge

Spiritual Deviancy

Folk Beliefs in Everyday Life

Catholicism vs. Folk Catholicism

Somos Católicos: We are Catholics

Overt Practices

Cultural Schema

Latino Social Psychology of Folk Catholicism/Folk Religion

Fidencismo and the Empowerment of Women

10. The Niño Fidencio in the Media

Testimonial

Newspaper Accounts: 1928

The El Niño Fidencio Comic-Book Series: 1965

Hollywood Newsreel: 1928

Jorge Stahl: Vida y Milagros del Niño Fidencio: 1928

The Olsons: 1970s

Nicolás Echevarría: 1980s

VHS in the 1980s

Juan Farré and Curry Fernández: 1990s

Dr. Ira Abrams: UT-Austin Graduate Film Class

Mercado Sonora: The Witch’s Market

Mexican Witchcraft: The National Geographic Taboo Series

VICE: Investigative Television

YouTube

Facebook

The El Niño Fidencio and Curanderismo Research Project Webpage

Niño’s Telenovelas

11. The Niño Fidencio and the Curanderismo

Anthropological Theory and Method

The Research Model

The Principal Informants

Ciprianita Panita and Manuel Robles

María Tamayo

Cresencio Chenchito Alvarado

Alberto Salinas, Jr.

The National Newspaper Archive: UNAM

The Niño Fidencio and Curanderismo Research Team

Doña América’s Photograph Collection: 1925-1938

National Photograph Archive: Pachuca, Hidalgo

State Archive of Nuevo León

The Witch’s Market: El Mercado Sonora

National Geographic: Mexican Witchcraft

National Museum of Anthropology

Works Consulted

COVER ARTIST

Strong Dream Man is an original work of art by Brownsville artist Gabriel Treviño depicting the sad-eyed, thick-lipped Mexican curandero El Niño Fidencio. Surrounded by pre-Columbian imagery depicting voice, the Niño displays the Christian cross and is caressed by the calavera of La Virgen de Guadalupe adorned by her star-filled cape, speaking from the spirit world directly into the Niño’s ear. Abstract images of both the Mexican tri-color and the Stars and Stripes indicate the trans-border nature and influence of the Niño and his healing ministry.

Gabriel Treviño is a South Texas-based artist whose work reflects U.S.-Mexico border culture. Gabriel was born in Brownsville, Texas and raised on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border. Gabriel studied with renowned Chicano contemporary artist †Carlos G. Gómez. Most of Gabriel’s work continues to be privately collected from ongoing monthly exhibits in local galleries. Find more info on Treviño’s work by visiting: The Art of Brownsville Blog and or follow him on Facebook. Email: [e-mail].

The cover art entitled, A Strong Dream Man, is an original painting commissioned for:

El Niño Fidencio and the Fidencistas: Folk Religion in the U.S.-Mexico Borderland (oil on canvas 24 inches by 18 inches, 2010).

COVER GRAPHIC ARTIST

The cover designer was Lic. Erika María Pariente de la Garza, graphic designer who studied in Monterrey Nuevo León, Mexico at the University of Art A.C., Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Diseño. She is currently a graphic artist at Colegio Tamaulipas in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico. She designed the cover for El Niño Fidencio and the Fidencistas.

Dedication

This book, El Niño Fidencio and the Fidencistas: Folk Religion in the U.S.-Mexican Borderland, is dedicated to the memory of †José Fidencio Sintora Constantino El Niño Fidencio, †Ciprianita Panita Zapata de Robles, †Damiana Martínez, †Víctor Zapata, †Profesor Heliodoro González, †Rafael Rafa Quintanilla, †Paloma, †Manuel Robles, †Alberto Salinas, Jr., †América López de la Fuente Villarreal, †José Duarte, †Carlos Gómez, as well as, Fabiola López de la Fuente de González, María Tamayo, Chenchito Alvarado, and all of the materias and followers of the El Niño Fidencio both past and present, who have dedicated their lives for the benefit of their communities.

A special recognition goes out to Professor Emeritus June Macklin of Connecticut College for her pioneering work in the Anthropology of Folk Sainthood in northern Mexico, and to †Professor Américo Parades, friend and mentor, the Father of Latino Folklore. Finally, a special recognition to the man who accompanied me on many treks across northern Mexico, †Dr. Joseph Spielberg Benítez.

José Fidencio Sintora Constantino

El Niño Fidencio

Mexico’s Greatest Curandero

November 13, 1898–October 19, 1938

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Acknowledgements

I thank my family which has supported and encouraged me throughout the more than 45 years I have worked in Medical Anthropology, Curanderismo, and the U.S.-Mexico Border. I thank my wife Gabriela Sosa-Zavaleta and my four sons: Tony, Jr.; Chris; Brian (Norma) and Michael Anthony Zavaleta (Gaby). Time away from them will never be fully repaid. I acknowledge the leadership of the Fidencista movement for nearly 30 years of support and all that I have learned from them, especially those who have gone before us: †José Fidencio Sintora Constantino, El Niño Fidencio, †Ciprianita Panita Zapata de Robles, †Manuel Robles, †America López de la Fuente and †Alberto Salinas, Jr.

I thank the leadership of the Iglesia Fidencista Cristiana, IFC, especially Fabiola López de la Fuente viuda de González and her three sons, Gerardo, Ariel and Alejandro for their understanding and support. I thank María Tamayo, materia from Brownsville my friend and materia for being so understanding in the beginning of my study more than 30 years ago and for being my constant traveling companion in search of the Niño Fidencio. I thank †Alberto Salinas, Jr. materia from Edinburg and his lovely family for allowing me into the most intimate aspects of their lives in the world of El Niño Fidencio and for remaining my special friends after the death of their father.

I thank all of the faithful followers of the Fidencista movement I have encountered over 30 years, this is truly their story. Again I cannot say enough about †Dr. Joseph Spielberg, of Michigan State University, retired, and †Dr. Américo Paredes, The University of Texas at Austin, retired, for mentoring and recognizing my potential as an anthropologist.

I thank all those who labored on some aspect of this book including: Carmelita Ramos, Yolanda Zamarripa, Dr. Michael Van Wagenen, Dr. Rachel E. Barrera, Martha Espinoza, Lupita Gómez, †José Duarte, and Alice González who was there at the beginning, more than 40 years ago.

I thank Jefferson Cortinas Walker editor/proofreader as well as Jerry Jamar proofreader, and especially my students who endured all my stories about Fidencio all those years. Finally, I thank Dr. Philip Kendall, UTB/TSC Vice President for Academic Affairs and historian for his mentorship, friendship and unfailing support of my passion. Finally, I would like to thank my major professor Dr. Robert M. Malina for his unfailing support and friendship.

Introduction

A Strong Dream Man

El Pequeño Clarividente

About this Book

This book, El Niño Fidencio and the Fidencistas: Folk Religion in the U.S.-Mexican Borderland, is the history of José Fidencio Sintora Constantino better known as, El Niño Fidencio, and an ethnography of his followers known as Fidencistas. It also examines the emergence of folk religion in the U.S.-Mexican borderland. The research began in 1988 and continues today. As with most long-term anthropological studies, a personal relationship developed with the place and the people which will continue for my lifetime.

I begin this story with a brief introduction, Strong Dream Man, a metaphor for Mexican folk healing or curanderismo. The introduction includes a personal story of my family’s move from California to Texas in 1954 and is based on experiences in the cotton fields of northern Mexico. I learned of Fidencio for the first time through the folk tales told by braceros around their camp fires on my grandparents’ farm in northern Mexico near the Texas border.

It was amongst braceros that I first heard of El Niño Fidencio from the people who had actually known him in life. Fidencio, arguably Mexico’s greatest curandero, performed his miracles in the 1920s and died in 1938. I heard his name again in an ethnographic film screened at The University of Texas at Austin in the early 1970s and a third time as a young anthropology professor at Texas Southmost College in Brownsville, Texas in the 1980s.

This book is comprised of eleven sections that attempt to compartmentalize the subject matter in order to recount Fidencio’s story accurately. Part 1 is entitled Magical Mexico and provides the reader with a brief overview of millenarian and messianic cult figures in Mexican history from the 1700s through the present day.

Part 2 is entitled El Niño Fidencio and examines the life of the healer from his birth in the Mexican state of Guanajuato in 1898 to his death in Espinazo, Nuevo León in 1938 including the healing years. Part 3 is called Espinazo and describes the tiny village in Nuevo León where the Niño lived-out his adult life becoming an international superstar, and where his cult, Fidencismo, was born and is sustained today. Part 4 Fiesta, describes the amazing semi-annual religious celebrations held in Espinazo in the Niño’s memory twice a year in October and March. Fiesta describes and explains the importance of fiestas in Mexican culture as well as the most subtle aspects of the Niño’s celebrations (Quiros, 1991).

Parts 5 and 6 describe the Fidencista’s two most important women. The leaders who have maintained this benevolent healing cult from the time of the Niño’s death into the 21st century, they are: †Ciprianita Panita Zapata de Robles, leader of the native independents and Fabiola López de la Fuente de González, the head of the Iglesia Fidencista Cristiana IFC.

Part 7 describes the Niño’s Holy Scriptures; outlining new and heretofore unknown material transcribed from his spiritual messages delivered in trance both during and after his death. Part 8 entitled Fidencistas in the United States examines the transmigration of Fidencistas from Mexico to the United States, returning each year fulfilling their pilgrimage and penance obligations to the folk saint (Crumrine, 1991).

Part 9 describes Fidencista social identity including cultural materialism, folk Catholicism, and Latino social psychology. Part 10 examines the history of the Niño Fidencio’s media exposure from newspaper articles in the 1920s to film, TV, and the Internet; including Mexican Telenovelas, YouTube, and Facebook exposure.

Finally, Part 11 The Niño Fidencio Research Project, elaborates the important aspects of this study spanning the years, 1988 to 2016 including the ethnographic and anthropological research model utilized in this ethnography. The book is finalized with an extensive bibliography of works consulted by the author over many years and which informed him during this book’s preparation. This bibliography will assist anyone who has interest in further study of Mexican American folk healing and folk Catholicism (Micozzi, 2011).

Curanderismo

This book is the story of the famous Mexican curandero/folk healer El Niño Fidencio (1898-1938). It examines the benevolent healing movement known as Fidencismo that developed during the last years of Fidencio’s life continuing to this day. It is also the story of my half-century of study of U.S.-Mexico border anthropology. It has been a wonderful and mysterious journey filled with adventures that has never failed to amaze me or those who have traveled the path with me (Zavaleta and Salinas, 2009 and Trotter and Chavira, 1981).

Early in the journey a family friend remarked to me, "Oh, so you are going to study the ‘strong dream man,’ (a colloquial name for Fidencio), he will come to you in your dreams and direct your work, pointing you in the right direction," and so he has. While this book is not an examination of curanderismo, it does provide the reader with a tremendous amount of information about Mexican folk healers known as curanderos (Henderson, 2014; Kiev, 1969).

Early 20th century anthropologists, Madsen, Rubel, Romano and Foster enlightened students of anthropology with their publications such as, "Hippocrates’ Latin American Legacy: Humoral Medicine in the New World, Mexicans of a South Texas City and Across the Tracks."

My lifelong journey in search of an understanding of curanderismo began with my introduction to the theory of hot-and-cold properties of wellness and illness and their importance in Latin American folk healing modalities along with descriptions of Mexican American folk healing by both Rubel and Madsen in their Hogg Foundation studies. (Foster, 1994).

El Niño Fidencio and the Fidencistas, is a descriptive ethnography of the Mexican folk healing system known as curanderismo, examined through the actual life experience of its most glorious practitioner, El Niño Fidencio. The Niño did not consider himself a curandero although that is the anthropological category that best suits him. To some he was/is seen as a shaman, to others a medicine man and to all he was a miracle worker.

The Niño believed that God the Father in the form of an old grey-haired man appeared to him imparting his spiritual gift of healing. His miraculous gift has been described many ways; but my favorite is that he was a thaumaturge, a miracle worker. He appeared on the desert of northern Mexico at a time when a millenarian messianic figure was needed, and expected as described by Anita Brenner (Brenner, 1929; and Tafur, 2009).

Fidencio believed he was spiritually anointed to serve man by leading a solitary and humble life in a Christ-like fashion. He was not a traveler encountering the ill and infirm like Tatita Santo, on the other hand, people came to him in the 1920s as they do today, making their pilgrimages to give thanks for miracles requested and received. The faithful make the journey to Espinazo, Nuevo León, called La Nueva Jerusalén/the New Jerusalem, and to its Avenue of Pain or Avenida Sagrario where their penance is acted out.

The simple act of penance is foundational; not only of the Niño’s healing ministry, but also for the religious cult that follows him through life and after death (Garza Quiroz, 1991).

It is important to note that many of the Niño’s followers considered him the second coming of Jesus Christ; some were convinced that he was an actual reincarnation of Christ. It is clear, though, from his Sagradas Escrituras/holy scriptures that the Niño Fidencio was a man like any other; however, he was born with both physical peculiarities and strange abilities. He was unusual in that he received visions and revelations throughout his life and was a very competent trance medium and clairvoyant in childhood, long before he received his most spectacular spiritual gift of healing.

Shortly before his 20th birthday, Fidencio began a ministry of miraculous healing in Espinazo where he worked as a simple hacienda kitchen boy. Over the years, a community of followers grew up around him producing a full-blown religious cult with a well-defined social organization. Fidencio was a remarkable curandero and miracle worker who performed every manner of marvelous acts including translocation and healing over long distances. Many believed that he raised the dead and restored sight and speech to the deaf and blind, others believed it was all a trick.

The Mexican National Institute of the Indigenous defines curanderismo as A system of knowledge, beliefs, and practices that are intent on the prevention and treatment of illnesses. Or the management of misbalance that is perceived as pathological for the individual or the social group.

Anthropologist George Foster introduced us long ago to ancient humoral theory that forms our understanding of the concept of balance including humoral theory and hot-and-cold theory in health and illness. This book assists us to better understand what curanderismo is, what it does, and why it is important today (INI, www.cdi.gob.mx and Brown, 2015).

There is no single uniform system of curanderismo; it is totally eclectic and based on the individual healer and his/her cultural traditions. The indigenous practices of southern Mexico are different from those of the northern and border states, which are unlike those practiced in Texas or in the American Midwest. Curanderismo is an eclectic healing system in constant flux adding and deleting healing modalities, practices, rituals, beliefs and concepts stylized by each individual practitioner. It adopts passing trends while retaining a cultural core that is based in Latin American Roman Catholic cultures.

For example, fifteen years ago, La Santísima Muerte, the death saint, was not known on the U.S.-Mexico border but today she is its most popular folk saint sold in every hierbería. Additionally, she has been associated with narco-culture and has become a major topic of discussion by our federal agents involved in drug interdiction (Chestnut, 2011). However, thousands of non-narco related people revere her as their protector, foregoing their former patroness, La Virgen de Guadalupe, who is seen as not aggressive enough for their needs.

The study of curanderos and curanderismo is important for many other reasons; Carlos Viesca Treviño describes curanderos as, The sole perpetrators of resistance against the European invasion of 1519. Curanderos and their counterparts, witches/brujos, continue resistance against assimilation and cultural annihilation today, both metaphorically and practically, as the native affront to State and Church, (Treviño, 2001).

Entry level curanderos practice with physical material such as medicinal plants, prayer cards, candles, oils, and baths, while more spiritually advanced curanderos work from a trance state where the spirit of an entity such as the Niño Fidencio or Pancho Villa assists in the healing and advising process. Sometimes a curandero will be dedicated to a particular Catholic saint, or revolutionary hero, a gypsy, a deceased doctor, a Native American medicine man, or even simple children like Aurorita and Tomasito are believed to possess miraculous powers (Condal, 1977).

In his book, "Exploring Medical Anthropology, Joralemon quotes from the work of Paul Starr in the examination of the Social Transformation of American Medicine." Both works are significant to our discussion. Medical anthropologists have shown that in order to be effective, folk healers or curanderos must simultaneously possess both social and cultural authority, that is they must be empowered by the community they serve. They must possess some status, quality or claim that compels trust or obedience. Authority, on the other hand, must be based on the willing consent of those who are subject to it (Joralemon, 2016 and Starr, 1982).

Respected medical anthropologist Kleinman states that the sick person depends on and believes in the ability of the curandero to heal him/her. This is also true of the family of the sick person who has just as much importance in the spiritual drama of healing as the sick person (Kleinman, 1980; Joralemon, 2016; and Brown and Barrett, 2010). In order for curanderismo to be successful, partnerships must be developed between all involved.

In the 1970s, the developing concept of Barefoot Medicine in China demonstrated that approximately 85 percent of all human ailments maybe successfully treated by non-professional primary care technicians, using a village trainee with two months of training and a proverbial medicine bag. Curanderos, on the other hand, have a lifetime of learning and practice and have usually apprenticed with a senior curandero. So why, then, is modern American medicine so quick to dismiss curanderos’ abilities? (China’s Barefoot Medicine, 1974).

It is not difficult to believe that the treatment by curanderos is very efficacious in culture-based societies where people have limited access to doctors. Today, most curanderos mix and match indigenous practices with modern medicine in a lifelong learning curve; acting as people’s primary and secondary-care providers. In fact, in many cases, they are the only providers available. This is exactly the situation, a lack of providers that created the Fidencio phenomenon. Post-revolutionary northern Mexico was devoid of medical services and Catholic sacraments outside of urban areas.

Historically for the people, A belief that ‘flies in the face’ of accepted Catholic traditions, regarded curanderos as folk saints. In his doctoral dissertation, José María Villarreal quotes from Monterrey Nuevo León, anthropologist Breen Murray, Traditional Christian (Catholic) saints focus attention precisely on the attributes of sainthood and the significance of official rejection. Murray argues, from a Church’s perspective, a more suitable term for El Niño Fidencio would perhaps be an anti-saint (I am not sure why). Folk or popular saints attain sainthood via their understanding and approval among the devoted followers and not from the Church. Over a forty-year period, Murray has never been sympathetic of the Niño Fidencio or his movement (Villarreal, 2015 and Murray, 2005).

Villarreal informs us that drawing from a model describing the therapeutic success of a curandero, a combination of socio-cultural and physical factors may be assessed by: 1) understanding that many illnesses are self-limiting and cures are attributed to the healer; 2) patients use a different set of cultural criteria to determine if they have been healed; 3) an illness may have both social and physical symptoms and both must be addressed in order to determine if a cure was received; and 4) chronic conditions may continue through life and so there is no clear point at which treatment ends. Curanderismo often maintains and sustains the patient through life very much like modern medicine treats diabetics for a lifetime (Villarreal, 2014 and Barnes, 2005).

My earliest exposure to curanderismo and El Niño Fidencio was on my grandmother’s farm just south of the U.S.-Mexico border during the Bracero Era; where I learned for the first time of the Niño Fidencio and that is where this story begins (Samora, 1971).

The Move to Texas: 1954

At the young age of 6, and after the Korean War, my father relocated the family from southern California to south Texas. He thought a lot about what he was about to do and discussed it with my mother but as a six-year-old, it did not occur to me to ask him why we were moving from California to Texas, it was simply an adventure. I had met Superman along with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger and Tonto and all my heroes on the parking lots of California supermarkets and on the film lots and knew what to expect of cowboys and Indians in Texas (Arreola, 2002).

Throughout my life, I have wondered what life would have been like coming of age in Los Angeles instead of Brownsville. As I reflect back on my life in Texas, I would not change a thing; south Texas is home. I encountered El Niño Fidencio early in life. As Mexico’s most mysterious thaumaturge/miracle worker, he would influence the direction and satisfaction of my life during a thirty-year period.

I learned the mythology of El Niño Fidencio around a bracero campfire, listening to braceros tell tales of the Niño performing miracles in Espinazo. He was a curious looking man, nondescript, humble, and unassuming and it is probable that the Niño never realized the magnitude of his mysterious and spiritual abilities (Cohen, 2011).

He accepted his gift as God given, never questioning; working as diligently as he could until his time on Earth was up. The Niño did not recognize his fame or wealth; he walked mostly barefooted adorned with a simple white tunic without frills. He occupied no station nor held any special rank, he was at best childlike, and that is what set him apart from others and why the people considered him a folk saint calling him the child Fidencio, El Niño Fidencio.

Zip Zavaleta, Tony and Tommy at the Ranch: 1955

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After my initial encounter with Fidencio in the bracero field, I reencountered him at the university via a student film production, We Believe in the Niño Fidencio, Jon and Natalie Olson’s production. They were students at The University of Texas studying just a few years ahead of me and told the Niño’s story through the camera lens of the early 1970s, a full generation before the digital age of film (Olson, 1973).

Fidencio had now appeared in my life a second time reminding me of his presence in the spirit world, as if to say, Look at me, find me, I’m right here. Today, the Olson film is regarded as a pioneering work in pre-digital ethnographic film era and the first ethnographic film focused on the Niño Fidencio (Ortiz, 2012).

Fidencio appeared to me a third time just months before the 50th anniversary of his death in 1988. This time he called out, come to me, come to my fiesta. This would be the beginning of a wonderful, mysterious journey in which the Niño has become a permanent part of my personal and professional life; I walk in his steps drawn to learn as much as I can about his work in life and in death.

This book marks the twenty-eighth year of my study of Fidencio and my personal journey. I know it is just a simple respite before continuing along the trail to its terminus.

Learning the Legend of El Niño Fidencio

This story begins in 1954. Family lore describes how the sixteen-year-old Fernando Zip Zavaleta left his high school in 1942 along with a group of friends; walking away from the campus of the old St. Joseph Academy in downtown Brownsville, Texas and to the Marine Corps recruiter’s office a few blocks away.

With a deep patriotism, the half dozen high school seniors headed toward World War II in the Pacific. As the sun rose over the Rio Grande Valley the next morning, they boarded a train to the west coast. The ride would eventually transform this small band of Valley boys, uprooting them from their sleepy border life to the killing fields of the Pacific Theater. They would experience firsthand the unimaginable horrors of war in the Pacific. Far removed from their riverfront community and the agrarian culture of the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The lives of those who returned were forever changed and they in turn would change the Valley, as members of the "Greatest Generation," many would become my mentors.

After the war years, southern California was not forgiving of Mexican Americans still reeling from the Sleepy Lagoon incident and the Zoot Suit Riots. For example, the young Marine couple, Zip and Eleanor, had trouble renting a home in Los Angeles; they were seen as a mixed-race military couple, a double whammy. With two strikes against them, they were forced to move their young family into the housing projects of East Los Angeles the one so often featured in Hollywood productions (Valdez, 1981). My mind’s eye still has clear images of a brief life in the projects and I can see the front door and parking area in front of our little project apartment.

At the time of enlistment, most of the group had already turned seventeen and therefore did not require a parental signature on their enlistment form. Sixteen-year-old Zip Zavaleta, (nicknamed so, because he was the fastest boy in any barrio footrace) was underage and needed his father’s signature but that was not forthcoming. This was only a momentary obstacle as the boy next door volunteered to forge my grandfather’s name to the enlistment form. Zip was in. It was wartime and the United States Marine Corps recruiter did not request his birth certificate. The following day, and without saying goodbye to his mother, an unthinkable act in Mexican American culture, the lifelong friends headed for Camp Pendleton. They would become Marines, true American patriots.

His loving but resentful mother confirmed the stories of my father’s wandering spirit to me numerous times especially since he left home once before joining the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in Arizona. His father, Pedro, who spoke no English, was forced to make the trip to Arizona to bring the fifteen-year-old back to Brownsville. Of Pedro’s nine sons, Zip was the most troublesome wandering free spirit.

Family lore was confirmed one day at a popular Brownsville watering hole when an elderly man sitting just a couple of tables away called over to me, Zavaleta, right? Yes, proudly and heartily I responded, mistaking him for a political supporter. Well, I’m the boy who lived next door to your father and who forged your grandfather’s signature giving him permission to join the Marine Corps. Your grandfather Pedro never forgave me but he sure was proud that his son was a Marine."

Pedro, a Mexican citizen born in Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas of a pioneer family in the middle 19th century, volunteered for service in World War I but because he spoke no English, did not serve.

Zip survived both World War II in the Pacific and the Korean Conflict after that. He was promoted to Chief Master Sergeant of the Motor Pool and was responsible for keeping the battalion’s trucks and tanks running during battle conditions, he was a hardworking and clever mechanic.

Mustering out of the Marine Corps after the Korean Conflict in 1954, the 29-year-old Marine, his southern California wife, Eleanor, also a Marine, and their three sons packed up and headed to south Texas, where he was promised a job on the family farm and ranching business.

The family prepared its shiny new ’54 Plymouth to tow a classic teardrop trailer along with the family’s newest addition, a two-month-old baby boy, Junior, setting out across the vast deserts of the American Southwest with the ever present canvas water bag strapped to the hood.

The first night’s stop was in one of those now classic Route 66-esque (we were actually on Route 83, opting for a shorter but more desolate river route) trailer parks somewhere near Tucson, Arizona. Built in the 1950s, long before the construction of the nation’s interstate highway system, today they stand out, as relics of bygone days.

El Paso, our second stop, was a full day’s drive across the Arizona and New Mexico deserts. Zip’s older half-brother, Pedro, was also a mechanic, settling in El Paso after the war. Mama dubbed him El Paso Pete, a nickname that survives today.

We only stayed overnight. The following morning, while waving a tearful goodbye to El Paso Pete, Chelo his wife and son Hector. Zip turned the Plymouth southward along the river road past Ysleta pueblo, a narrow two-lane highway from El Paso that would take us to our next stop, near Del Rio. This would be our longest leg; the new Plymouth hummed eagerly up to the test, while baby Junior tolerated the desert heat. As we loaded our pet canary in the Plymouth for the drive, Mama said, if the canary survives the desert heat the baby would also. The canary died on the second day but baby Junior made it across the summer desert.

Tracking southward approximately 10 hours across the Texas desert, Del Rio was the halfway point in our drive from El Paso to Brownsville and another classic motel. The boys loved these little roadside motor hotels since each had a gleaming blue swimming pool where we cooled off late into the night from the oppressive summer heat. Today, these dilapidated motels grace the old highways of America, living in the memories of the ’50s and the first generation of American cross-country driving.

Day 3 would be our last leg with a long haul south from Del Río to Brownsville. Driving south along the meander of the Rio Grande River, south Texas terrain begins to green, turning from desert to a farmland strip along the river. Day 3 was a full twelve-hour drive to grandmother’s house, with the terrain dropping from the limestone escarpment in the west down to the Rio Grande River delta and finally to Brownsville on the gulf coast.

A brief stop in Roma was imperative since in 1954 there were still a few Zavaletas living in our ancestral home. Roma is the westernmost entry point to the Lower Rio Grande Valley and home to the Zavaleta family in the United States who emigrated from colonial Ciudad Mier in northern Mexico entering Texas before the Mexican American War in 1845. We were original Tejanos, living in Texas before the establishment of the river as the international boundary. In fact, Zavaletas had lived along the river in Cerralvo, Agualeguas and Ciudad Mier, Nuevo León, and on their Chapeño porción since before 1600 (Pinheiro, 2014; García, 2014).

Zip’s grandmother, Eufemia Chapa Saenz de Zavaleta, was from Chapeño, then living in Roma with her unmarried daughter, my father’s aunt, who was the telephone switchboard operator in Roma for many years.

My cousin Teresa Ramírez Zavaleta was raised by her aunt Candelaria Saenz Peña of Roma and Laredo after her parents divorced. Candelaria also raised Teresa’s grandfather Ramiro Ramírez, her nephew upon the death of Teresa’s mother, Teresa Saenz de Ramírez. So the Zavaleta family is connected to many of the pioneer families of Starr, Zapata and Webb counties (Teresa Zavaleta, 2016)

The petrified rock wall in front of the house along the U.S. Highway 83 still stands proudly. The rock wall was constructed with beautiful hunks of petrified wood from the famous Starr County Petrified Forest.

Grandfather Reid taught me rock collecting and hence, my lifetime fascination with the petrified wood forest in Starr County, Texas. To this day, a glance at great-grandmother Eufemia’s house along U.S. Highway 83 is obligatory when passing through Roma on the way home from Zapata, Laredo or points west.

After a pleasant, if brief, visit in Roma, our Plymouth chugged on to Brownsville making it in about five hours, well before dark. Arriving in Brownsville, we were welcomed by grandmother, Mamá Chita, and the entire extended Zavaleta clan turned out to welcome us home.

The mile-a-minute Spanish spoken by most of the aunts and uncles was unintelligible to us Californians. We had not been at grandmother’s house for more than a week when father introduced us to a nicely situated rental house in the cozy Riverside area of town. A few weeks later, the two older brothers, Tony and Tommy, began school at the Old Saint Joseph Academy in downtown Brownsville where both their grandfather and father had gone to school.

Zip ambitiously set out in his new life helping his father, Papá Pete, on his farm that required a westerly drive of about 30 miles up the Military Highway to Progreso on the north side of the river just south of Weslaco, Texas. The new international bridge at Progreso and Nuevo Progreso on the Mexican side had recently opened.

From the river, the ranch was a dusty and sometimes muddy drive along a dirt road about 10 miles to the west toward Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas.

There is always plenty of work to be done on farms but not necessarily by a combat veteran Chief Master Sergeant of the United States Marine Corps. Returning to Brownsville after 12 years and two wars, Zip expected to manage the farm not be a farmworker, but it was not to be.

The Bracero Camp: 1958

Farm work on the border in 1958 was mostly hand labor. The 50s were the historical high point of the bracero era, 1941-1964. Thousands of migrant farmworkers arrived each summer from the interior of Mexico to pick cotton and vegetables and many moved into the United States becoming farm workers.

Harvest was a huge event and extended family celebration when a good crop came in after hearty spring rains. Harvesting cotton, corn, pumpkins, and watermelons involved a large amount of human labor. Each summer the entire family of aunts, uncles, cousins, compadres and their kids arrived at the ranch for a harvest celebration, similar to those featured in Bless Me Última and the Milagro Beanfield War (Anaya, 1972).

It was evident from the start that father was not happy and not destined to be a farmer. During this time (before I learned to speak Spanish), loud and heated conversations between father and Papá Pete did not bode well on how the ranch would be run and who was in charge.

I was with my father the day he left the ranch for good. After a violent argument with Papá Pete, we drove back to Brownsville in silence. It was the only time I witnessed my father cry. This seminal event liberated my father from his imagined obligation to his father allowing him to strike out on his own.

Not leaving the ranch in good standing, father quickly played to his strength opening a diesel mechanic shop on 14th Street near his half-brother Rafael’s mechanic shop. Trained as a diesel mechanic and with management experience, Zip knew that his diesel shop would be an immediate success and it was. It seemed like all of the older Zavaleta boys had their own mechanic shops. Only the two youngest, Gus and Joe went to college becoming professionals. Father was the only diesel mechanic in town, and that made him very popular in Brownsville at a time when agriculture and shrimping were turning away from gasoline to more powerful diesel engines.

Until Papá Pete’s death in 1964, father continued to help his father with the repair of the ranch machinery and the installation of a deep water well and pump for irrigation. The pump was a marvel of 1950’s technology and the only privately owned motorized well in the region. The fact that the Zavaleta farm was irrigated was cause for amazement by all. The diesel engine that powered the pump was located about a mile away from my grandmother’s ranch house but I can still hear the drone of the engine as it sucked the life giving sweet water/agua dulce up hundreds of feet from deep in the Earth.

During the remainder of the 1950s, I served as father’s sidekick traveling back and forth to the ranch along the Military Highway coming to love it then, as I do today. As time passed, father purchased a couple of old Caterpillar earth moving machines, enormous beasts of the 1940s and with them; he began an earth clearing and leveling business. In the 1950s, there was still plenty of land that had not been cleared or leveled for agriculture especially along coastal Cameron and Willacy Counties. I know all those fields.

Today, all of the old remaining bracero camp buildings along the Military Highway stand as sentinels heralding the past era, Los Indios, Relámpago, Blue Town, La Paloma, and San Pedro. My mind’s eye can see the ghosts of old cars and trucks as well as people milling about and the many children playing as I zoom by on the modern Military Highway.

Of the legions of cousins, none seemed to show the same interest in ranch life that I did. During the summers, grandmother Conchita (Mamá Chita) would invite the older cousins to spend some time at the ranch but as the years passed, only my cousin Jesse and I would stay for extended visits over the summer gaining