Brujería

Brujería is the Spanish-language word for "witchcraft". Brujería also refers to witch-healers in the Americas (especially Latin America and the United States). Both men and women can be witches; brujo(s) and bruja(s), respectively.

Etymology

There is no sound etymology for this word, which appears only in Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, and Galician (other romance languages use words derived from Latin strix, -igis, originally an owl). The word may be inherited from a Celtiberian substrate or it may derive from the Latin plusscius, -a, um (> plus + scius),^[1] a hapax attested in the Cena Trimalchionis, a central part in Petronius' Satyricon.^[2] Pluscia could have arisen from rhotacization of the /l/ and voicing of the /p/, pluscia> pruscia> bruscia> bruxa (Portuguese)> bruja (Spanish).^[3]

In popular culture

• In the television series True Blood, Jesus Velasquez (played by Kevin Alejandro) is a Mexican brujo.
• In the television series Constantine, the Brujería are revealed to be the series antagonists. They are depicted as ancient magical creatures cursed by God and rejected by Hell who were thought to have been destroyed by the Great Flood but have survived in hiding.
• In the movie Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, actress Gloria Sandoval plays a bruja who is a part of a worldwide coven of witches.
• In the television series Power, drug dealer Nomar Arcielo (played by Vinicius Machado) refers to FBI agent Angela Valdez (played by Lela Loren) as "bruja" due to his distrust of her.
• In the television series Ash vs Evil Dead, Pablo's Uncle is a brujo who sends Ash on an ayahuasca trip, and helps him defeat a Deadite.
• In Kate Karyus Quinn's young adult book Another Little Piece, brujas heal a cursed Annaliese who needs help switching bodies to live forever.
• In the crime novel "The Wrong Side of Goodbye" by Michael Connelly, a character describes "an impromptu 'marriage' on the beach officiated by an artist friend who was ordained in a cult-like Mexican religion called brujeria."

See also

• Catalan mythology about witches
• Curandero

References

1. Oxford Latin Dictionary, Oxford. Clarendon Press: 1968
2. "sunt mulieres plusciae, sunt nocturnae",63.9
3. Ali, Said, Investigações Filológicas, 1975, pag. 275

• Ankarloo, B. & Clark, S, (2002) Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: the period of the witch trials
• Guiley, Rosemary Ellen (1989) The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, New York: Facts-on-File.

Further reading

• Spence, L. (1994) The Magic and Mysteries of Mexico
• Christian, W.A., Jr. (1989) Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain
• Henningsen, G. (1980) The Witches' Advocate: Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition (1609-1614)
• Castaneda, C. (1968) The Teachings of Don Juan
• Romberg, Raquel (2002) "Witchcraft and Welfare: Spiritual Capital and the Business of Magic in Modern Puerto Rico"
• Chatwin, Bruce In Patagonia
• Kinnie, Ernest The Brujo....2-Act Play