The Catemaco and Los Tuxtlas tropical flora is home to 100´s of medicinal plants. Local inhabitants and especially indigenous people today still rely on these plants for the treatment of multiple ailments.
Geographically the Tuxtlas's mountainous terrain essentially isolated it from the rest of Mexico until the 20th century. The first railroad arrived in 1912. The first modern highway did not reach here till the 1950´s. Reliance on curanderos (healers) knowledge of medicinal plants was a must, and it is only a small step from curandero to brujo (witch or wizard).

Historically brujos, shamans, witch doctors or whatever you choose to call them, occupy a revered place in Mexican indigenous culture. The Aztecs classified almost 40 different types of healers.

On the spiritual side, after the Spanish conquest, Catholicism's attempt to slaughter indigenous culture was ingeniously transformed by native peoples into metamorphed saint worship and, especially in Veracruz, abetted by a large influx of African slaves and their jungle heritage.Cuba's santeria, Haiti's voodoo, and Catemaco's brujeria are closely related and promise their aficionados blissful enlightenment, and, to cover all bases, even throw in a little devil worship.

Catemaco brujos went a step further and commercialized the industry. So for 5,000 pesos or so you get a spell to wipe out your competitor and cure cancer, or for 100 pesos or so you'll get a limpia (cleansing) of evil spirits. The limpia price usually includes a raw egg, a few sprinkles of rose or other flavored water and a gentle beating with fresh herbs, but no dessert. Charms or amulets are extra.

And then there are the local white witches. They usually are deeply spiritual and mystic believers who earned their accolades with hard work and knowledge of their physical environment and human psychology, and are almost impossible to find by the brujo tourist, except for the dozens of herbalists and amulet seller around the central Catemaco market.

Catemaco's major claim to fame, aside from its disappearing flora and fauna, are the commercial brujos. The area, lately, seems to be schizophrenic about their presence. A few years ago a glitzy magazine, Los Tuxtlas en el Siglo XXI was printed without a single mention of brujos.

In the 1990´s the local brujos were identified with numerous murders and drug related mayhem and probably caused the local populace to ignore them.

If you arrive in Catemaco expecting anything offical regarding brujos, forget it. Instead, throngs of bike and bicycle riding shills accost you to steer you to their most well paying brujo. The town has tried to put a stop to these shills, but the system seems so be ingrained. Gypsies, locally known as hungaros, have also found Catemaco. Their haggling to read palms add to the brujo amosphere, but they too, are hounded by the official inquisition.

The first Friday in March is the annual Congreso Internacional de Brujos when healers, soothsayers, assorted medicine men and a garden-variety of witch doctors descend on the town to sell their spells and exploit tourist pesos.

History of brujotourism
Gonzalo Aguirre Pech founded brujotourism in Catemaco in the mid 1950´s. Until then brujos were mostly of the white witch variety content with herbal healing and occasional spells.

Aguirre, after serving as the taxi driver for Catemaco's then Brujo Mayor (Wizard # 1), Manuel Utrera, took over the old master's clientele and promoted himself into world renown, attracting Mexican presidents and dozens of other politicians, film stars and camera crews. Allegedly, Aguirre sold his soul to the devil on Cerro Mono Blanco, and developed sufficient diabolical powers to turn his enemies and detractor into toads and rats and hang them outside his offices to warn unbelievers. As his fame spread he assumed the name Brinco de Leon, (Lion Jumper) and gloried in the well deserved title of Brujo Mayor. Apparently he also founded the original Congreso de Brujos as a get together for local shamans, brujos, necromancers, hexer, warlocks, sorcerers and like ilk.

In 1982, shortly after his death, the tourist industry in Catemaco tried to compensate for the famous brujo's departure by holding the first official Congreso Internacional de Brujeria, actually by then the fifth such congress. The event gathered international press coverage with its initiation of a black mass succeeded by assorted parapsychics, anthropological specialists on witchcraft and a row boat race on Laguna Catemaco.

Most of the devil's advocate´s assistants then opened their own brujo shops, including Nicolas Chagala, Tillio Lutrera, Rodolfo Berdon, Julian Gueixpal (El Salto Del Tigre), Gilberto Rodriguez Pereyda (El Diabolico of San Andres) and others.

One, Antonio Vazquez, went so far as proclaim himself the Brujo Mayor and move his offices to Tijuana.

Apparently brujo runs in the blood, Julian Geixpal´s offspring by now run some of the more fashionable brujo clinics in Catemaco: Tito Guexpal Seba, (El Poder Negro), and Apolinar Guixpal Cobix (another El Salto del Tigre). One of their sons, Pedro Guixpal Cobix (El Poder del Tigre) now has his own office. Many of Gonzalo Aguirre´s brothers, sons and daughters also followed in his footsteps, including some who actually combine medical degrees with witchcraft.

The family is so successful that aside from large real estate holdings, their properties include a major Catemaco hotel, a well known chain of drugstores and medical centers. Many of the Aguirre family and the lesser stars of the Brinco de Leon´s entourage still provide the soul of Catemaco's commercial brujotourism.

References

tuxtlas.com - Brujos of Catemaco