This essay was originally written in the English language for inclusion in Zellner, ed., SECTS, CULTS, AND
SPIRITUAL COMMUNITIES (Praeger Publishers, an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, Ct,
1998).
For further information please visit http://www.greenwood.com
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El Niño Fidencio and the Fidencistas
Antonio N. Zavaleta:
Antonio Zavaleta grew up in the Lower Rio Grande Valley between Texas and northeastern Mexico. As a young
man, during summer vacations from school, he stayed with his grandparents on their ranch. They employed many
migratory Mexican farm workers, with whom he spent many hours. "My lifelong love for Mexican folkore and of
Mexico in general was kindled around the campfires and the endless evening stories. It was there that I first heard
the stories of El Niño Fidencio." After receiving his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin,
Tony began teaching and served as a Brownsville City Council member. He had been studying a well-known native
healer in Brownsville, and the idea of comparing these techniques with those of Fidencio was exciting. He made
several trips to Espinazo, the home of El Niño Fidencio. On one such trip he met Maria, a follower of Fidencio,
and together they worked to learn the details of the healer's life. "It is rare that an anthropologist has the opportunity
to have firsthand, day-to-day knowledge of the inner workings of a religious cult and to be accepted by it. They are
as sincere and profound as any religious group I have ever encountered."
Known as a land of mystery and paradox, Mexico today is the product of a conflict between two distinct cultures,
Native American and Spanish. In the sixteenth century, Spanish explorers, seeking adventure and wealth, brought
to Mexico a mixture of medieval chivalry and religious devotion (Boone 1989).
Many of the Spanish military were members of lay religious orders and hoped to re-create the crusades. Religious
leaders, on the other hand, hoped to establish a utopia and prepare for the second coming of Christ (Darley 1968).
A CLASH OF CULTURES AND ACCULTURATION
Spanish Catholicism included a plethora of medieval practices. These ideas meshed with and enhanced the
superstitious world of the Native Americans. The friars, zealous in their desire to spread Catholicism, quickly
recognized that their success depended on tolerance and acceptance of native beliefs and practices. Over time,
many Indian religious ideas were brought into the Catholic Church, both symbolically and physically. This ultimately
opened the door for the acculturation of some of these beliefs into the official Catholic Church in Mexico.
Acculturation occurs when one culture blends with another losing its distinctive traits in the process. The
result was the creation of an unofficial as well as an official Catholic religion. Today, after nearly five centuries, there
exists rich diversity between the practice of Catholicism and of its alter ego, Mexican or folk Catholicism (Madsen
1967).
Beliefs common to both Catholicism and folk Catholicism include the concept of the incarnation of God in the
form of man, his life and teachings on earth, his death or departure, and his promise of return followed by the
establishment of a utopian society (Morinis and Crumrine 1991). In addition, the concept of a virgin goddess is
essential to both belief systems, as is the belief in the existence of a pantheon of lesser gods or "saints," who are
believed to be physically capable of affecting the lives of the living. Finally, the existence of sacred or holy sites
dedicated to the saints and the requirement of the faithful to make pilgrimages to these sites are central features of
both belief systems. Although the two religions coexisted and shared similar beliefs, they served different
populations.
Traditional Catholicism met the needs of the Spanish, their descendants, and the affluent. Folk Catholicism
was more responsive to the needs of the poor, the Indians, and the racially mixed descendants of the Spanish and
Indians. Now, as then, the majority of the Mexican people are spread across the country, living in small towns,
villages, and settlements. Their extended kinship groups live, for the most part, a subsistence existence in isolation
from the major religious, cultural, and economic centers. It is among these largely rural people that the practice of
folk Catholicism flourishes.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION IN MEXICO
The distribution of wealth and power in a society describes its system of social stratification. Societies vary
tremendously in the extent to which people share, or refuse to share, societal resources. An important feature of
any stratification system is the opportunity for individuals to better themselves materially.
Such movement is called social mobility. Rates of social mobility differ considerably among societies. For
example, caste systems, such as those that exist in India, have very little social mobility. Birth determines the
shape of human existence, what jobs members can hold, whom they can marry, whom they can interact with and
how. Rules are reinforced by the Hindu religion. Individuals born into a caste, die in that caste. Moreover, their
children will live and die in the same caste. Class systems, characteristic of industrialized societies, such as the
United States, are those in which people have the opportunity to experience upward or downward mobility. Another
system of stratification that has more opportunity for social mobility than a caste system but less than a class
system is called an estate system. Mexico had such a system.
Estate systems are typically rural with those at the top owning or controlling most of the land. Because such
societies are not heavily industrialized, and because educational opportunities are limited to the wealthy, most
people are poor and will remain so.
Race can also influence the degree of social mobility in a society. In Mexico, Spaniards and their direct
descendants occupied the upper strata and Indians were at the bottom. Mexicans, or mestizos, a racial mix
descended from the Spaniards and Indians, constituted the lower and middle classes. The upper classes, living in
Mexico City, controlled huge provincial landholdings as absentee landlords. They led lives of privilege, insulated
from the middle class and especially from the lower classes of Indians and poor mestizos. In spite of the early
emergence of a mixed class, there was little or no social mobility allowed in the system (Ricard 1982). Limited
economic and political opportunities for the Indians and mestizos created a climate of frustration and hopelessness.
Mexico's history is filled with the oppression and exploitation of the many by the few. The Spaniards, with
their twin missions of gold and God, subjugated the native population. And often those who suffered the most turned
to religious and "otherworldly" beliefs for comfort.
ENTER A MESSIAH
By the mid-1920s, Mexico's underclass had endured over four centuries of suffering. The country was rocked
to the core by revolution, civil war, death, and destruction. At the same time, President Plutarco Calles (1924-1928)
brutally attempted to rid Mexico of the Catholic Church (Krauze 1987).
It is noteworthy that messiahs usually appear during periods of oppression or economic catastrophe in order
to fulfill people's longing to end their suffering. Such a situation is characterized as structural strain. Strain occurs
when individuals' needs are not being met through existing social structures. Such strain can produce a number
of different kinds of social movements that are categorized by sociologists as collective behavior, some of which
are messiah-led.
Messianic leaders are universally charismatic.People follow them because they have personal characteristics,
distinctive appearance, or mannerisms that galvanize an audience.
Most messiahs are heralded by unusual or unexplainable natural phenomena, such as "the star of Bethlehem"
signaling the birth of Christ. In Mexico volcanic eruptions and the appearance of a comet in the skies over Mexico
City set the stage for the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917. These occurrences were thought to foretell a messiah.
In 1926, unearthing of a monolith in the central plaza in Mexico City was believed to prophesy that Indians
would regain their ancient rights (Brenner 1929). This prophecy had been made some 475 years earlier by native
priests who had witnessed the monolith's burial by the Spanish. The priests concluded that after some
indeterminable period of penance, the foreign invaders would be expelled, and native culture and religion would be
restored. What they could not have foretold was that the actual rediscovery of the monolith would coincide perfectly
with the appearance of a Mexican messiah in the desolate deserts of northern Mexico.
NATURE OF THE REDEEMER
Fulfilling the Mexican image of a redeemer, José Fidencio Sintora Constantino came to the attention of the
Mexican press in 1928. This coincided with president Calles's persecution of the Catholic Church.
His followers called him El Niño, "the child." He was a peasant, as poor as the people who sought deliverance
at his hand. He claimed that his power was derived from God through the soil and native plants of the desert. His
spiritual gift, or don, had been granted to him, through a direct revelation by Christ and the Holy Spirit, beneath a
sacred pepper tree in the center of Espinazo, a small village in northern Mexico. Fidencio adhered to a simple
credo: "Those who suffer have the Grace of God. By suffering, health is reached, and it is necessary that this
should be so, because those who desire to be well, should be strengthened by sorrows and pain" (Brenner 1929:
21).
Fidencio came to be regarded as a living folk saint during his lifetime (Macklin 1973; Spielberg and Zavaleta
1997). Media interest in his healing power waned in a few years, but Fidencio showed no more concern about the
loss of newspaper attention than he had shown interest in his previous celebrity status. He often said that his
mission on Earth was not to be famous, but to ease the pain of suffering humanity. In the end, numerous attempts
to exploit him failed. He died as he had lived, a simple, barefoot peasant.
EL NIÑO'S CHILDHOOD
Since the arrival of the Europeans, Mexico has been home to a parade of prophets and miracle workers. All
have appeared during times of crisis. All have claimed supernatural powers, all have had cultlike followings, all have
had short-lived popularity, and have all paled to insignificance when compared with El Niño Fidencio (Brenner 1929).
There are only sketchy facts known about the early life of Fidencio. He was born in 1898, near the village of
Yuriria, in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. He and a younger brother were orphaned as children. For a time they
were removed from the village, but by the age of 11, Fidencio was back in Yuriria, assisting the local priest as an
altar boy.
From an early age he showed a great fascination with religion (Quiros 1991 ). At the age of 13 or 14, he was
contracted to work for a wealthy family as a kitchen boy. It is curious that he was selected for household work
because work in the fields was traditional for Mexican boys at that time. He attended elementary school for a short
time; it was neither common nor expected for a peasant boy to continue schooling beyond the age of puberty. As
an adult, Fidencio was semiliterate.
Around 1921, at the age of 23, Fidencio, in the company of his brother, settled in Espinazo, a small
community in northern Mexico. He never left this area.
EL NIÑO "THE HEALER"
Fidencio's first attempt at healing was the spontaneous act of setting his mother's arm, broken in a fall.
Although the splinting of an arm hardly seems remarkable, Fidencio was said to be eight years old at the time
(Quiros 1991).
At Espinazo, Fidencio developed a considerable reputation for treating animals, especially assisting at births.
But it was not until he was called upon to assist with a human birth that his ability and fame as a healer and
midwife began to unfold.
During the course of his lifetime, El Niño Fidencio had several supernatural experiences in the form of
revelations or visions--some, he claimed, were visitations by Jesus Christ.
In an early vision, Fidencio was visited by a strange, bearded man who imbued him with the spiritual gift of
healing, which included profound knowledge of medicinal plants. Although Fidencio never had any formal training
in the healing properties of plants and home remedies, he was expert in their use.
A second supernatural visitation occurred in 1927. This mystical event played a significant role in Fidencio's
life. He felt it authorized him to share his gift of healing with the masses of needy and, thus, begin his mission on
Earth. From this time on, Fidencio adopted the persona of a holy man and lived the life of an ascetic. He achieved
fame as a healer in 1928, at the age of 30. He died ten years later, a few days short of his fortieth birthday.
EL CAMPO DEL DOLOR
In the early days of 1928, Mexico was in the throes of the post-Revolutionary government's persecution of the
Catholic Church. Catholic clergy were expelled, imprisoned, and executed, and church property was confiscated.
During these troubling days, Mexico turned her eyes to the northern desert as the first reports of miracles began
to emerge.
The earliest news coverage of the strange young miracle worker described a man who neither claimed to be
a doctor nor prescribed any patent medicines. He nevertheless performed healing miracles, including making the
blind see and the dumb speak. Talk of the young healer previously had been confined to northern Mexico, but in
1928 virtually all the major dailies in Mexico City carried articles on the miraculous cures in Espinazo.
Throughout 1928 and 1929, articles, supported by dozens of eyewitness testimonies, touted Fidencio's
healing abilities. News spread rapidly, and soon his fame extended throughout Mexico and to the United States
and Europe (Ha traspasado 1928; "The Worker of Miracles" 1928).
El Universal de Mexico, one of the leading newspapers and among the first to give national exposure to the
phenomena in Espinazo, sent its top reporter, Jacobo Dalejuelta, and photographer, Casasola, for a firsthand look.
In February 1928, the paper reported that the demented, the paralyzed, and the leprous, a thousand strong, had
formed a little town of makeshift huts and tents around the home of Fidencio. More than a hundred small wooden
huts had been erected to rent to the growing crowd of miracle seekers. El Niño Fidencio worked near a sacred tree,
and the ill gathered around him for public healing sessions that ran day and night for several days at a time. This
scene eventually became known as the healing circle or el círculo de curación (Dementes, paralíticos y leprosos
1928).
El Universal de Mexico described Fidencio as a "young man of few words, muscular with a sort of yellowish
color and very simply dressed" (Dementes, paralíticos y leprosos 1928). His room contained a crude wooden bed,
a table, and a chair. However, according to reports, he used these infrequently, preferring to sit and sleep on the
floor. He did not eat or drink with regularity, and mostly consumed liquids. In spite of these abstemious habits, El
Niño Fidencio worked for days and nights without interruption, seemingly unaffected by fatigue (El curandero de
Espinazo 1928).
Significantly, from the earliest days of his fame as a healer, El Niño Fidencio was a public man. He performed
his cures in the midst of thousands of onlookers, always allowed photographs, and gave numerous interviews.
During one of the public healing sessions, El Niño reportedly turned to Dalejuelta and said, "Open your eyes,
go wherever you want, tell the people what you have seen, and be sure to tell the truth." To the photographer,
Casasola, he quipped: "Take pictures of whatever you like, but be sure to give me copies, because if you don't,
none of them will come out" (Dementes, paralíticos y leprosos 1928). As a result of this openness, hundreds of
photographs document his life and work. With the national press focused on El Niño Fidencio, a massive response
was predictable. The needy, the sickly, and the terminally ill, people from every walk of life and social class, began
converging on the little desert village of Espinazo.
For the majority of the year, the town bakes in unrelenting heat. When it is not hot, a desert chill descends on
the landscape and its inhabitants. As hundreds and then thousands of sickly and dying people arrived in 1928, this
desolate and unforgiving spot was turned into the field of pain, el campo del dolor (El campo del dolor 1928). The
hopeful created their own accommodations by improvising shacks, stacking thorny desert plants into the shapes
of huts and lean-tos. The crowds, suffering from insanity, paralysis, cancer, leprosy, and syphilis, were so large
their members had to wait for weeks, even months, to be seen. Thus, many virtually became residents of Espinazo.
FAMOUS CURES
The newspapers' accounts contained many case histories of El Niño's miraculous cures. One famous case,
retold many times, involved a young blind boy, the son of a Spanish immigrant. The boy, age two, was the victim
of a firecracker accident that caused him gradually to lose his sight until he was completely blind. The doctors
had given him no hope of recovery.
As tales of the miraculous El Niño filtered throughout Mexico, the child's parents decided to take him to
Espinazo, an arduous journey that required two weeks. The family lived in a brush shack that they constructed,
using their clothing to cover the many openings. Weeks passed as they waited patiently. When the day finally
came for Fidencio to see their son, he would not allow the mother to explain the cause of the boy's blindness.
"It's not necessary that you explain it to me," he said (Dementes, paralíticos y leprosos 1928). Asking them to
be patient, El Niño Fidencio massaged the boy's eyes for a few minutes. Then he lifted his head to the heavens
in an ecstatic state for several minutes, as if he were having a vision. When some time had passed, El Niño
lowered his head and continued to massage the boy's eyes. Finally he said, "Ya estás curado;... [you're healed;
bring me a handkerchief to cover his eyes and be sure not to remove it until the early morning light]" (Dementes,
paralíticos y leprosos 1928). The family returned to their shack. Early the next morning, as day was breaking, the
boy's mother began to remove his bandage. The boy exclaimed, "Ya veo [I can see]" (Dementes, paralíticos y
leprosos 1928). This documented case of restored sight was later judged to be an extreme case of autosuggestion,
which it very well may have been. Such cases, however, caused frenzy among El Niño's followers, adding to his
fame and popularity.
Another interesting case typified the cures for which El Niño Fidencio was famous. A woman reported that
her husband, who suffered from chronic dyspepsia, had consulted numerous doctors.He had undergone
unsuccessful surgery, and his condition was so serious that he was expected to die. With no other hope available,
the couple decided to go to Espinazo. El Niño came into their tent and, without asking any questions about the
man's illness, began to massage his stomach. When he departed, Fidencio, who often used fruit as a medicine,
left a large bunch of bananas for the patient to eat. The wife remarked that her husband could not eat them because
fruit made him very sick. However, having begun to feel a little better, the patient asked for a small piece of banana
and, to his wife's great surprise, asked for more a short time later. Within two hours, he had eaten four bananas,
causing him to vomit violently. Fidencio returned the next day and massaged the patient's stomach with a paste
made from fruit, soap, and medicinal plants. By the second day, the man had improved remarkably, and by the
fourth, he was able to walk for the first time in months (Curaciones hechas por El Niño Fidencio 1928).
Among the early curiosity seekers was a medical doctor from the city of Torreón who was afflicted by
paralysis. Fidencio cured him after only one week of treatments. While in Espinazo, the doctor witnessed many
cures, which he later reported, including the notable cure of a young man from Monterrey who had gone insane.
The doctors had declared his insanity incurable, so his father had brought him to El Niño, who immediately began
to extract the young man's teeth. Following this procedure, the youth rapidly regained his lucidity. The young man's
insanity, the doctor from Torreón reasoned, had been due to an infection in his teeth that had affected his nervous
system. The young man, grateful for his cure, stayed on to work in El Niño's household. It was a familiar pattern in
Espinazo for the healed to volunteer service to the community (Aspectos de el campo del dolor 1928).
THE MYTH OF EL NIÑO
If the press played a large role in spreading the news of El Niño's cures, it may have played an even larger
role in promulgating the myth of El Niño. He was said to have had special powers, particularly clairvoyance, since
childhood. According to some reports, when an incurably ill person approached, Fidencio would remark to the
crowd, "A person is coming who is wasting his time; tell him to go off and prepare for his death; I can't help him
except to pray for him" (Aspectos de el campo del dolor 1928). Dalejuelta reported in El Universal de Mexico that
the well-known General Peraldi came to Espinazo with an incurable illness. El Niño told him to stay if he wanted,
but that he could not help him. He must make peace with God because "Your sufferings are going to take you on
an eternal adventure" (Curaciones hechas por El Niño Fidencio 1928). According to the report, General Peraldi died
before the end of that day.
Followers and observers alike reported that El Niño Fidencio often seemed to enter a trance while healing. He
denied being part of the spiritist movement that was common in the early part of the century and was popular in
Mexico (Kardec 1989). A very religious person, Fidencio asserted that he was in communication with the Heavenly
Father, who healed through him. He seldom referred directly to the supernatural, but simple comments like the one
he made to the photographer Casasola--about the photographs not coming out if he were not given a copy--were
passed on by word of mouth. The press repeated the stories, greatly enhancing the belief that El Niño had the
supernatural ability to affect the outcome of events.
Not all the effects of notoriety, of course, were positive. The growing reports of miraculous cures enraged the
medical community, and claims of fraud and deception grew more common. In Mexico City, Dr. Neumayer, a
professor at the national medical school, gave a public demonstration on the types of psychic cures performed by
El Niño Fidencio. Neumayer claimed that Mexico was fertile ground for these types of healings and predicted that
El Niño's ability would soon wane (Opinión de un médico 1928).
A PRESIDENTIAL VISIT
The media reports of miraculous cures in Espinazo reached a fevered pitch in the early months of 1928. On
February 8, 1928, the presidential train Olivo made a special stop at Espinazo so that President Plutarco Calles
could have a private consultation with Fidencio. The president's visit came at the height of the government's
persecution of the Catholic Church, and naturally led to speculation that Calles intended to expand his efforts to
control the church. However, eyewitness reports indicate that Calles suffered from a serious skin ailment and came
seeking relief from El Niño Fidencio. Calles's visit protected El Niño from serious interference by local and state
governments, as well as by the church and medical communities (Condal 1977.)
Medical associations called for immediate intervention, not on the basis of Fidencio's practice but on the basis
of what was not being done to protect the community at large. So many seriously sick people had congregated in
Espinazo that the fear of contagion became an increasingly valid issue. Many believed that the situation posed a
serious health threat to all of northern Mexico (Dos veces por semana habrá caros por Espinazo 1928).
FRIENDS AND ENEMIES OF EL NIÑO FIDENCIO
Because of the thousands of seriously and incurably ill people flocking to the village, it was inevitable that the
death rate in Espinazo would rise. In fact, so many people had died that two new cemeteries had to be created. "A
New Cemetery for the Miracles of Fidencio," reported the Monterrey newspaper (Un nuevo panteón 1928). How
could the president of the Republic go there and not see the truth of what was happening? "Was some deal made
to protect Fidencio?" asked El Universal de México newspaper (Pretende ser mejor 1928). In a small village where
one death might be recorded every year, 44 persons had died in less than one month (Un nuevo panteón 1928). The
focus of the Mexican press turned from reporting the issue to hosting a debate between the medical and spiritist
communities (Kardec 1986). With such negative publicity, the governments of the northern states of Nuevo León
and Coahuila experienced extreme pressure to resolve the case of the young healer.
The early newspaper accounts also were among the first to mention El Niño's cult following that emerged from
among the loyal masses of the healed (Dementes, paralíticos y leprosos 1928). A small army of faithful, called the
brigada roja (red brigade), encircled, sheltered and protected El Niño from the constant attacks of the press, the
medical community, the government. and the church. During the early months of 1928, the Mexican press outside
Mexico City varied sharply in its opinions on the Espinazo phenomenon. The provincial dailies in the major northern
cities of Monterrey, Saltillo, and Torreón agreed with the need for local government control and concurred with the
outrage of the medical community. "Monterrey is threatened with being converted from a mecca of health into one
of suffering and death," read one headline (Espinazo he convertido 1928). The article claimed that Monterrey and all
of northern Mexico were in danger of a major epidemic. Health authorities in the state of Nuevo León clamored that
all manner of persons with every possible disease had congregated, and that it was now time to end this farce. In
all probability, such articles were expressing embarrassment about the international attention. It did not help
matters that the area had been plagued by a rash of scandalous healers and miracle workers throughout the early
part of the century.
