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"pata de cabra" My Baby Shat Hair!

 
 
Tamayyurt
04:57 / 14.05.02
Ok well, not my baby but The Dadaist asked me to post this here to see what you make of it.

A first of his was changing his kid's diapers and found hair in the crap. This obviously freaked him out and took the child to the Doctor who had no idea what it was. So the guy took the kid to a curandera (witch, basically) and she told him it was something called "Pata de Cabra" (Translation: Goat's Foot) She told the guy that it was going to start to consume the kid and eventually waste him away, but that she could cure it after a few ritual banishing or what not.

Thoughts?
 
 
the Fool
05:24 / 14.05.02
Go to another Doctor and get a second opinion. Do the banishings and all that, but go to another Doctor as well - be sure.
 
 
Mystery Gypt
08:01 / 14.05.02
where did this take place?
 
 
that
08:30 / 14.05.02
um - does the baby have access to hair that it might have eaten? Either its own or someone elses? Sorry...not sure how well hair digests, so there might be a prosaic explanation...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
08:37 / 14.05.02
Possible explanations (off the top of my head).

1) The kid eats hair, or fur from a stuffed toy or the fringe off a rug. Kids do eat weird stuff.

2) It wasn't really hair, but looked like it.

3) The kid has a teratoma (a benign growth that includes DNA and may include hair, even teeth.)

I've come across the phrase "pata de cabra" as a sort of all purpose magic word- as in "Abracadabra, pata de cabra!"
 
 
Papess
11:37 / 14.05.02
I have two questions.

One, how old is the child? An infant has less access to things like brushes. My son is now a year and a half and about six months ago managed to get into my arts and craft supplies. Well the next day I noticed a distinct sparkle in his soiled diapers. He obviously ate some of my glitter glue (don't worry, he is okay) giving new meaning to the saying...All that glitters, isn't gold

My next question....How much is the Curandera charging for the banishings?

~May T
 
 
Ierne
13:10 / 14.05.02
First of all, it's hair. It's not like the kid is shitting blood or anything. Hair can be found anywhere, and small children are constantly putting things in their mouth. This child is not cursed.

Secondly, is your friend fully involved in the Santeria community in his area, or did he just ask around for someone and go (I don't want to say "on a whim," because of course he's concerned about his child, but...)? If the cuandera doesn't know him, and he's not a part of her community, of *course* she'll charge him more – why not? This is how she makes a living! She's gotta eat too, y'know.

If he is part of the community and she does knows him, she'll probably do more to calm the parent than to stop the child shitting hair. (And not charge as much for her services.)

He doesn't need a cuandera – he needs to keep an eye on what the kid is putting in hir mouth.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
13:18 / 14.05.02
I'm inclined to agree. No harm in taking Junior to another docter- hair is pretty indigestible.
 
 
Sebastian
13:33 / 14.05.02
This is interesting. Being a physician who privately advocates fringe therapies and/or sorcery for conditions that traditional medicine has proven unable to manage successfully, and still appears that it never will -hair loss, depression in some cases, end stage cancer, autoimmune diseases- I have also been much aware of how the representatives of such "excluded" knowledge corpuses advocate their efficiency for conditions that western medicine deals pretty well with (which I do not consider to be too many by the way).

For this particular child, I would ask if there are cats in the house -cats loose a lot of hair, which tends to agglomerate under beds and in room corners-, and I definitely agree with all the other positions here that are quite good sensical. And that last point is the only thing with which I believe I can healthily say now: Lets go for the Magick.

Oh, by the way, I think the teratoma Mordant mentioned should be located in the testicles, and chances of its products or tissues appearing in feces would only suggest a fairly advanced dissemination of it.
 
 
Tamayyurt
16:13 / 14.05.02
I'm assuming this is taking place in Argentina. As for your other questions... I don't know. I'm sure the Dadaist can answer them when he signs on. Aaaaannnyy minute now.
 
 
FinderWolf
12:57 / 15.05.02
Um, no offense, but why is hair in the crap such a dramatic deal? I agree with Ierne. We all eat hair sometimes unknowingly, and I'm sure the chances of an infant's doing so are much greater cause they don't know what the hell they're doing. I wouldn't jump to conclusions about some mystical cause here, no more so than if you found corn in your feces
 
 
Sebastian
14:44 / 15.05.02
Impulsivelad, you mean that the Dadaist lives in Argentina? Just because I leave there, well, I mean, here.

HunterWolf, ur right fella, its no the hair that has motivated this dramatization, but rather what the curandera/healer said about the child's condition, "that it was going to start to consume the kid and eventually waste him away"
 
 
Ierne
15:05 / 15.05.02
Hey Sebastian, welcome to the Magick!

I've been thinking about the curandera's response as well, and it's a bit extreme, not really connecting with the baby's actual symptoms. To be fair, there may be other symptoms we don't know about...it would be great if the Dadaist could give us some more info, if he wants.
 
 
Sebastian
17:29 / 15.05.02
You know Lerne, you made me remember something, although I will have to admit I have, well, read something that, how can I put it, okay, I'll say it then, while bearing in mind that the paths of knowledge are, oh, so diverse, so, the thing is, I used to read, oh no, well, I still have the novels, yes, I mean, I used to read Lynn Andrews. I SAID IT!! I SAID IT!!

Well, the point is that in one of her books it is described how "black" sorcerers hook people by such "extreme responses" and other lines, and actually this involves a lot of manipulation, particularly because they address something that is "occult" to the addresse, simply meaning that any worthy representative of a given culture is exposed to fall into the manipulative traps of the representative of a knowledge that is "excluded" (occult) to that culture.

Back to, ahem, Lynn Andrews, the anecdote in this novel I recalled was soemthing in the line of terrifying her with dreaded premonitions about her health and then regaining composture while examining things from another perspective.
 
 
pacha perplexa
10:44 / 16.05.02
Very interesting, Sebastian. I can't avoid thinking that the curandera could use this strategy to convince people simple problems to make sessions. If she's a con, this means profit.

Simple suggestion thru belief has a great power over health states. I remember a brazilian indigenous myth in which, if an owl lands near your window and says "ooo-oo" (or whatever name you english-speakers give to an owl's sound) three times in a row, it means you're going to die in a few days. I read from an anthropologist couple of years ago that people would suddenly deteriorate and die days after hearing the owl. For no apparent reason.

Now, is our owl a version of The Omen's crow? Or is it the belief in unavoidable death that causes it?

Sebastian, care to give me the name of the book? And welcome, my latin-american fellow!
 
 
DaveBCooper
15:40 / 16.05.02
I’ve been led to believe that kids in the womb are covered with a layer of hair, which is then absorbed into the body before birth, and excreted after the kid’s born… which would kind of explain what happened, wouldn’t you say ?

DBC
 
 
Sebastian
18:57 / 17.05.02
Pacha, the book is called Windhorse Woman, by Lynn Andrews. Chapter 18 is titled A Dark Sorceress.

The best line of that chapter says that these healers are only healers of the diseases they create. They hook people through superstitions, by catching on people's hidden fears. I was going to transcribe some of it but I do not have the book around and that was pretty much the point. It is also mentioned that Westerners are always looking for "meanings" and "reasons" until when they meet any indian or aborigin on the street and automatically assume they are carriers of hidden and powerful knowledge, loosing all the common sense that for at least this occasions is the only antidote.

Hey, that sounds good after all, I am going to re-read more of Lynn Andrews.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:31 / 21.05.02
Is the sprog doing okay? Anyone know?
 
  
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