Two women were condemned this Wednesday in an indigenous community of Southern Mexican State of Chiapas to pay a fine of thousands of pesos for practicing witchcraft acts.
Women, mother and daughter, were condemned in the Tsotsil community of Cuchiusian to pay 200,000 pesos (about $ 9,800).
“All people agreed that they pay the fine, no later than November 2,” said a settler who asked for anonymity, and added that the meeting was peaceful and it took about three hours.
The case began when a 35-year-old man denounced before the community authorities that his mother, María Hernández, and her daughter, whose name was not provided, did witchcraft until supposed health problems.
“The man said his mother joined animals like earthworms, chickens and others, besides herbs, the ground and put them on his broth of Guajolote (turkey) to do it wrong,” said the villager, who professes evangelical religion.
“But to know if that is witchcraft.”
The man added that the broth caused him to be “crazy, nervous”.
“People said he can not do that, the woman knows the Word of God well, who knows how the devil got into his heart,” he questioned.
He also specified that the two women were not imprisoned or beaten, but only the fine was imposed.
“All people agreed that they pay the fine because the man is crazy, bad about the head, when one moves away from God, he enters the devil. He said: ‘It was my mom'”.
In this type of indigenous communities in Mexico, many decisions are made by the system of “uses and customs”, this is an indigenous self-government that civil authorities tend to respect.
These locations have their own health committees and also judged of peace and reconciliation.
In February, the inhabitants of the indigenous community of San Juan Canuc rejected under this system the possibility of applying the vaccine against the COVID-19.
According to a census of 2020 in Mexico, 7.3 million people speak an indigenous language, the main criterion to determine the identity of this population sector.
