Bloodsucking Witchcraft: An Epistemological Study of Anthropomorphic Supernaturalism in Rural Tlaxcala

Front Cover
University of Arizona Press, 1993 - Social Science - 476 pages
In the rural areas of south-central Mexico, there are believed to be witches who transform themselves into animals in order to suck the blood from the necks of sleeping infants. This book analyzes beliefs held by the great majority of the population of rural Tlaxcala a generation ago and chronicles its drastic transformation since then.

"The most comprehensive statement on this centrally important ethnographic phenomenon in the last forty years. It bears ready comparison with the two great classics, Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft Among the Azande and Clyde Kluckhohn's Navaho Witchcraft."ÑHenry H. Selby
 

Contents

Introduction
1
Aftereffects and the Psychological Context of the Postsucking
10
Municipios Surrounding La Malintzi Volcano
37
in Rural Tlaxcala
39
The Belief System and Structural Context of Bloodsucking
54
The Syncretic and Historical Development of Anthropomorphic
80
The Comparative Distribution and Definition of Witchcraft
117
Anatomy of a Bloodsucking Witchcraft Epidemic
132
The Diagnostic and Etiological Analysis
226
Social and Psychological Manipulations and the Ex Post Facto
264
Period
302
The Social and Psychological Functions of Bloodsucking
353
An Epistemological Approach to the Study of Magic
371
Conclusions
400
Notes
437
Index
459

Highway and Road Network
156
The Logic
209

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