Experience Two ~ “I am in you and you in me...” Brujo Negro, California

For three generations, Brujo Negro's maternal family has venerated Santa Muerte, the Mexican Lady of the Dead. His abuela told stories. El diablo y la muerte son hermano y hermana; the devil and death are brother and sister. “Abuela would say that La Muerte was a very tall lady and she would look into the church on Sundays to watch which children were paying attention to the mass,” he says. Muerte would tell the devil who was good and who was bad, and then, who knew what would happen once he found out? “I think she told me this like she told all her grand-kids, to scare them into being 'devout Catholics,’” Brujo says. “Well, instead of scaring me, all my abuela succeeded in doing was to kindle my interest in the Sacred Lady, a fascination that grew until I started to study and practice Brujeria--” Mexican witchcraft.

Life was a mélange from the beginning. He and his family are “Mestizo,” with both European and Chichimec (Mexican indigenous) blood. A first generation Mexican, Brujo was born and raised in southeast L.A. “in a world that included Curanderos, Curanderas , Sobadores (massagers), Snake Doctors (people that make medicine with the rattlesnake), Yerberos (herb doctors), Brujas, Brujos, Santos (saint veneration) and many other traditions.” Even his craft name, which translates to “black witch,” has multiple levels to its meaning. Friends call him “brujo” because of his practices. His dad added “negro,” a tease for his penchant for wearing all black, which for Brujo, was, and still is his favorite color. The name stuck.

When Brujo visited his Grand Aunt Tia Tina every summer in Ciudad Juarez, she told him stories about the Santos (Saints) and how to pray to and venerate them. Years after her death when he’d been studying Brujeria in earnest, it was clear that Tia Tina, a devotee of La Santa Muerte, was a practitioner of Santos where offerings to the saints yielded results. But the family, being predominantly Catholic, “had no intention of telling me that what my Tia was teaching me was a form of Mexican Brujeria.” Tia prayed to the saints as Catholics should. There were no old goddesses lurking there—at least on the surface.

Brujeria is not a dying culture in L.A., Brujo tells me: it is home to many botanicas, great places to meet other practitioners. “In these instances,” he says, “you either make friends or enemies. Luckily I made some good acquaintances.” Once a positive relationship was established, magical ideas could be exchanged. Now, at least for Brujo, things are a little different.

Transplanted from urban-ethnic L.A. to rural, conservative Northern California, Brujo continues his practice, but not as openly. “I've learned to be careful about what I say,” he tells me, recalling a conversation with a Muslim co-worker who was impressed with his knowledge of the Koran. Comfortable in the conversation, he let it slip that he was reading the book in terms of his magical practices. The co-worker, obviously spooked, started treating him with more deference. This is a problem almost everyone on a non-mainstream path faces, particularly when the word “witch” comes into play. Misconceptions and superstitions are hard to erase when they're ingrained. While he doesn't hide who he is, Brujo doesn't advertise.

Brujo's partner Camillia is not Mexican. She can't recite the prayers and incantations in Spanish, Nahuatl or Quiche like he does, yet she is effective with candle magic and other spells. Still, he says, the work she does is effective because “she works with what resonates with her.” The concepts of Brujeria can be taught to anyone, he tells me; “You bring your own things to it.”

Brujo has no time for ethnocentricity. “You can't be in the world and not find a blend of culture,” he says. He tells me about Catholic churches in Mexico that substitute chocolate and Pulque, the libation of the gods, for wine at Mass. Pulque is a native drink made from agave, the same plant as tequila. This is no European tradition, but an adaptation of old ways used to convert native people. When you drink chocolate or Pulque in mass, Brujo says, you're performing an ancient ritual.

Brujo has received requests from practitioners in Europe for help working with Gato Negro and other spirits of Brujeria. Zora Neale Hurston made references to aspects of the black cat in Mules and Men, her documentation of Hoodoo culture in the 1930s, but there are references to Gato Negro in the Libro de San Cipriano, an ancient Brujeria grimoire. It goes on and on; cultures exist within cultures, they borrow and meld. “Even Brujeria is a syncretic tradition,” Brujo tells me, “a blend of Native Mexican Shamanism and Medieval Iberian [Spanish] Witchcraft.” Fights over ownership are futile and unhealthy. When you buy into ownership, Brujo says, you cease to evolve.

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