The Curanderx Toolkit

Reclaiming Ancestral Latinx Plant Medicine and Rituals for Healing

De: Atava Garcia Swiecicki

Narrado por: Victoria Villarreal

Arranging ofrendas. Brewing pericon into a healing tea. Releasing traumas through baños and limpias. Herbalist and curandera Atava Garcia Swiecicki spent decades gathering this traditional knowledge of curanderismo, Mexican folk healing, which had been marginalized as Chicanx and Latinx Americans assimilated to US culture. She teaches how to follow the path of the curandera, as she herself learned from apprenticing with Mexican curanderas, studying herbal texts, and listening to her ancestors. In this book listeners will learn the Indigenous, African, and European roots of curanderismo. Atava also shares her personal journey as a healer and those of thirteen other inspirational curanderas serving their communities. She offers listeners the tools to begin their own healing—for themselves, for their relationship with the earth, and for the people.

The Curanderx Toolkit includes more than twenty-five profiles of native and adopted plants of Baja and Alta California and teaches you to grow, know, and love them. This book will help anyone who has lost connection with their ancestors begin to incorporate the herbal wisdom and holistic wellness of curanderismo into their lives. Take the power of ancient medicine into your own hands by learning simple herbal remedies and practicing rituals for kinship with the more-than-human world.

©2022 Atava Garcia Swiecicki (P)2024 Tantor

Wonderful introduction to curanderismo!

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in curanderismo (the traditional medicine and ancestral healing arts of Mexico, Aztlán, and the other sacred and unceded Indigenous lands we now call “Latin America”)! “The Curanderx Toolkit” has my full and enthusiastic endorsement as a New Mexican curandero living in Arizona who has been practicing curanderismo for about 21 years total and whose Master’s and Doctoral research focuses on curanderismo and Indigenous traditional medicines.

This book is beautifully and accessibly written, well-researched and -cited, and beautifully introduces curanderismo in a way that is helpful for practitioners of all learning levels: from those brand-new to the tradition to experienced practitioners looking to deepen, broaden, and enrich their practice. Doña Atava’s attention to detail in communicating both scholarly and traditional practitioner sources is deeply appreciated, as is her care and intention in using gender-inclusive language in both English and Spanish. The healer profiles sprinkled throughout the text are an especially lovely and powerful addition. They bring to life the diversity of approaches, philosophies, backgrounds, and lived experiences of curanderismo practitioners in the U.S. Southwest, the heart of Chicana/e/o/x curanderismo practice.

Those who are critical of gender-inclusive language (especially those who insist on adhering to conventional, binary, colonizer Spanish orthography) may find the “-x” suffix distracting, but this should not deter anyone from reading or listening to this book. Anyone sincerely interested in learning about curanderismo would be doing themselves a great disservice by skipping this beautiful work. Similarly, Doña Atava’s explicit and intentional centering of Indigeneity, anti-capitalism, anti-racism, and anti-sexism is especially welcome for anyone interested in decolonizing and re-Indigenizing work, but may be distracting or off-putting for those who are not ready to embark on that work (and/or who are looking for works on curanderismo that focus more on the European and Christian roots of curanderismo - for these readers, I highly recommend Trotter & Chavira’s “Curanderismo: Mexican-American Folk Healing”).

The audiobook version is well-performed and a welcome option for people whose busy lives and/or diverse learning styles can benefit from having a spoken version rather than a read one. (I’ve read the print version, but really appreciated being able to supplement with the audiobook during my commute when finding reading time was difficult). My only critique of the audiobook is that there are some minor pronunciation issues with some of the Nahuatl words, but they don’t distract from or lessen the accuracy and value of the contents - just an academic “nit-pick” on my part that should not discourage anyone from listening.

I had the pleasure of meeting the author, Doña Atava, at the University of New Mexico’s Summer Curanderismo Institute a few years back and have enjoyed working with her there every summer ever since. Even if I’d never met her and couldn’t personally vouch for her expertise, knowledge, and wisdoms, though, I would still highly recommend this book (in all formats) on its own merits alone.

¡Muy bien hecho, maestra! Tlazkamati, notemachtiani ❤️‍🔥🙏🏼🌱