A War Of Witches: A Journey Into The Underworld Of The Contemporary Aztecs - Softcover

Knab, Timothy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813333873 ISBN 13: 9780813333878

Publisher: Westview Press, 1997

Synopsis

An overheard plot to do away with an unwanted son-in-law begins this mesmerizing and astonishing journey into the Aztec underworld a world of magical dreams and mysterious healing, shadowed by a deadly justice.Aided by two local curanderos, or healers, American anthropologist Timothy Knab embarks on a spellbinding adventure of sacred Aztec rituals and mystical dream journeys into Talocan, the underworld of gods and lost souls. Along the way, he begins to understand the Aztec belief system and the art of healing, as well as the dark past of San Martín infamous through Mexico for its brujos, or witches, and a mysterious War of Witches” fifty years earlier that may never have ended.Capturing time and place as surely as a jeweler sets a stone, Knab chronicles his spiritual immersion into the contemporary Aztec culture and, ultimately, his remarkable transformation into an authentic curandero. Part murder mystery, part soaring supernatural dream tales all informed by serious anthropological research A War of Witches will keep you breathless and on the edge of your seat from the very first page to the explosive revelations in the final chapter.

About this title

About the Author:

Timothy J. Knab has spent decades researching and working with contemporary Aztecs in Mexico. He is a curandero; a former anthropology professor at the National University of Mexico; a visiting lecturer at Wellesley College and Tufts University; a professional chef and an acknowledged expert on Mexican and French cuisines; and the editor of A Scattering of Jades: Stories, Poems, and Prayers of the Aztecs.

From Booklist:

In this fantastical combination of personal revelation and local history, Knab unravels secrets of an ancient vendetta in a Mexican village. An anthropologist by trade, Knab develops a practicing belief in the supernatural Aztec practices holding sway in San Martin, up in the mountainous fastnesses east of Mexico City. In the course of his initiation into a spiritual world of dreams, spells, and death, he increasingly earns the trust of his teachers, old lady Rubia and old man Inocente. He becomes a healer, and in treating a morose girl, Knab connects her relatives with a man in his dreams named "Cruz." The relatives show Knab a family picture that proves Cruz was real and not a REM hallucination. That fact melts the reticence of the two elderly spiritualists to discuss his death back in the 1930s, which occurred against the background of a land-ownership dispute. The fight was largely carried on by witches armed with curses, and it peaked with a scarcely believable tale of a crucifixion, leaving a legacy of silence that only a believing acolyte could pierce. In our world, modernity and traditionalism seem congenital enemies, but this tale--part murder mystery, part dream interpretation, part multicultural encounter--honestly reveals how they actually coexist in this remote place. Fascinating for readers engaged by exotic paganism--or by a plain, good story well told. Gilbert Taylor

About this edition

• Publisher: Westview Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0813333873
• ISBN 13: 9780813333878
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240