THE CACHICHE WITCHES

Cachiche is the name of a town, that from last times was synonymous of witchcraft for many Peruvians, Cachiche parecia a town of witches, because it lodged countless women who in agreement with the iqueños, had supernatural powers, used - segun said to extirpate the evils of the body and to prepare concoctions that guaranteed the love of the pair, among others santerías.

The famous witch but of Cachiche is without doubt Julia Hernandez Chest Widow of the Diaz, a witch who segun count died to the 106 years of age, after a risky full life of sorceries and spells, but only of good, of which they cure, of that reconcile hearts. She did not make damage. It was not "malera".

This is what their defenders affirm, its officious historians, those that predict a safe return to Cachiche if the eyes of the statue are contemplated fixedly, those that they count - on fright and horror the apocalyptic and accurate prophecy of the palm of the seven heads. An evident demonstration - they of the supernatural power of Doña Julia say.

She counts the legend that the witch predicted that Ica will sink when the seventh head of the palm turns green again that is in the dry lagoon.

And the witch guessed right, because Ica was under waters in January of 1998. The river was overflowed, thousands of people were victims. People assure that that year not mochó, nor burned the seventh head of the palm, from that date have not let do it.

BRONZE STATUE OF THE CACHICHE WITCH

MURAL IN CASA OF THE BROTHER OF THE WITCH

TOWN OF WITCHES And WIZARDS

A full seat of arms of sun and sand receives to us in Cachiche, the Earth of the witches, ten minutes of the city of Ica. a group of children very carefreely plays in the one of its corners, jumping rope, we approached and we asked to them for doctor Cabrera, one of the last healers of this town, that tries to maintain the tradition that this town made famous.

One of the children guides to us until the door of a green small house and soon it moves away running. We swallowed saliva and we touched door that, after minutes opens slowly, while from the dark the ajado and kind face of a old one arises that it invites to us to happen to its home, we noticed that on the inside an aged tree of huarango raises itself.

"No longer wizards in Cachiche have left... already nobody follows the tradition", says to us with hopelessness and smooth I clear one's throat Don Víctor Goatherd Hawthorn, that next to its wife Doña Olinda Arcs; it shuffled its ajado Spanish card pack.

With a surprising lucidity to its 91 years, Don Víctor shows that in the days of their grandparents, indeed, the witches existed. They told him that it was so the congestión and negligence in the witch-like aerial traffic by the nights, that could be seen on the following day romped between the trees of huarango; to these ladies of the broom, requesting aid to the farmers so that they help to lower them to earth.

Don Víctor Goatherd said: "All my work is based on the faith: Faith of part mine to cure and faith from which they wish to cure itself ".

The honest and humble wizard Goatherd, worked in the beginning in I found Mansilla; of a Arequipeños, which were characterized being operating, already when retiring; Don Víctor Goatherd, learned to the art of the curanderismo, but the ironic thing of the destiny is that his first reaches of the magic; that there are many enchants, acquired it of the mother of the Mansilla, that years but late; with the experience of the years, this virtue of the ancestros of Cachiche, Don Víctor Goatherd polished.

Therefore, approximately to his sixty years she was one of the Legend of Cachiche, retired of the agricultural tasks, our wizard Goatherd little by little began to gain the affability of own and strange, that arrived at their humble home; that without theater of ignited candles, it solved his problems to them; diseases or misfortune, in a deep meditation, a stammering of entrecortadas words, a hand worn away by the years, leaned on the heads, overwhelmed glances, abnormal sensations flowed on the inside of its assiduous clients who came from Peruvian very distant earth, Latin, European, etc., left thanked for by the virtues our wizard Goatherd. "Whatever is doctor.... - the clients asked, as confesito act removed its hand behind a curtain -.... what is their will and that God blesses it". He did not know to receive, because he was not avaricious.

He was without place to doubt an honest and charismatic personage who Cachiche welcomed it like its son.

My father tells me that, as well as Don Víctor Goatherd Hawthorn, were other wizards, like one; that by fights with a reliable cachichano settler, by problems of the water distribution, this last one hauled but water and the wizard said "you are going to see to him, dumb you are going away to be", last a time my father returns to Cachiche and he greets himself with the affected one, and he made atraves single of gestures, indeed the wizard cumplio his threat.

Histories like, the one of the wizards who became turkeys domestic servants, but who flew at night, and until death habian fights in the air, and spent the average night they flew annoying to the settlers from the air, llamandolos by its name and they are ed ***reflx mng to cause fright.

And, other histories like coming from the small farm and in the way of return to Cahiche, you were with a cow with his crias, other times with a bull underneath a bridge, chance, somebody that forgetfulness of its animals; no.

Cachiche was small, everybody was known, and all told their experiences, and other histories but, for example on the shrouded ones, that escribire but ahead, when it arms it pretty, with quality of publication.

Goatherd could with many evils, of many people, but its own old age could not with a natural aim. It passes away in Ica the 05 of March of the 2001.

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