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

Tucson And London: University of Arizona Press, 1993. First Edition . Hard Back. Very Good/Very Good. 6 1/2" X 9 1/2. 476 Pages Indexed. Black boards with red lettering to spine. Front board has bumped corners and scuff marks on front endpapers. In the rural areas of south-central Mexico, there are believed to be witches-called tlahuelpuchis- who transform themselves into animals in order to suck the blood from the necks of sleeping infants. Because tlahuelpuchis are inherently evil and indistinguishable from ordinary people, they are more feared than other kinds of supernaturals. This book analyzes the belief in bloodsucking witchcraft held by the great majority of the population of rural Tlaxcala a generation ago and chronicles its drastic transformation since then. Based on information gathered in some fifty communities over more than twenty-five years, it describes all facets of bloodsucking witchcraft and analyzes its social and psychological aspects within the overall system of magic and religious supernaturalism prevalent in Tlaxcala. Of particular interest is a detailed description of an "epidemic" of bloodsucking witchcraft in which seven infants of different households were found dead in a single morning. This afforded one of the authors an extraordinary opportunity to study events surrounding such incidents. His full account of 47 incidents over six years permits a thorough analysis of the factors involved in each death. As the people of this region are rapidly losing the cultural identity they have maintained since the Spanish Conquest, this book preserves a complex of beliefs and practices that has been an important component of their ideology. It not only presents the story of witchcraft in Tlaxcala but also offers a history of anthropomorphic supernaturalism in Mesoamerica and a review of previous scholarship on the subject that will be of interest to a wide range of readers in the social and behavioral sciences. 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.