Weigle 1983

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES 347
Jackson, M., 1977, The Kuranko: Dimen- Toelken, B., 1969, The "Pretty Language"
sions of Social Reality in a West African So- of Yellowman: Genre, Mode, and Texture in
ciety. London: Hurst. Navajo Coyote Narratives. Genre 2:211-35.
Seitel, P., 1980, See So That We May See: Toelken, B., and T. Scott, 1981, Poetic
Performances and Interpretations of Tradi- Retranslation and the "Pretty Languages" of
tional Tales from Tanzania. Bloomington: Yellowman. Pp. 65-116 in Traditional Ameri-
Indiana University Press. can Indian Literatures: Texts and Interpreta-
Tedlock, D., 1978, Finding the Center: tions (ed. by K. Kroeber). Lincoln and London:
Narrative Poetry of the Zuni Indians. Lincoln University of Nebraska Press.
and London: University of Nebraska Press. Marta Weigle
The Image of Guadalupe: Myth or Miracle? Neither the present team nor its predeces-
Jody Brant Smith. Garden City, New York: sors have been as large or as highly specialized
Doubleday & Company, 1983, xiv + 173 pp.; as those scrutinizing the Shroud of Turin.
25 illustrations. $14.95, cloth. Callahan, an entomologist with a biophysics
background, and Smith, an associate professor
On 7 May 1979, and again in April 1981, of philosophy and religion at Pensacola Junior
Philip Serna Callahan and Jody Brant Smith College in Florida and, unlike Callahan, not a
were allowed into the vault of the new basilica Catholic, have published their scientific results
in Mexico City to examine and photograph (in in The Virgin of Guadalupe: An Infrared Study
regular light, in infrared, and with computer (Washington, D.C.: CARA, 1981). The present
enhancement) "Our Lady of Guadalupe, a book is an abbreviated, popular account, and
life-sized image of the Virgin Mary that ap- Smith presents neither the historical and
peared miraculously on the cactus-cloth tilma, scientific evidence nor the project's procedures
or cape, of Juan Diego, an Aztec peasant, in in a systematic, comprehensive way. A fellow
1531" (p. 3). Their Image of Guadalupe Re- of the Institute of Psychic Research, Smith also
search Project thereby joined in basilica annals intersperses his narrative with jarring incidents
a number of others-including official church of personal visions and synchronicity, for
inquiries in 1556 and 1666; examinations example: "The scientific findings regarding the
by such artists as Miguel Cabrera (early 1750s), Shroud of Turin were very much on my mind
Francisco Campa Rivera (1954, 1963), and as I flew back from Mexico City .. . [and] I
Francisco de Guadalupe Mojica (since 1950); considered it a good omen when I picked up
and investigations by such scientists as ophthal- the candy on my dinner tray and found printed
mologists Javier Torroella-Bueno (1950s) and on the wrapper 'Made in Turin, Italy.' " (p. 43).
Enrique Graue (1975). Almost all investigators Anthropologists will find The Image of
have reached conclusions similar to Callahan Guadalupe easygoing but unsatisfying fare.
and Smith's: "Our discovery of the absence of However, the appendices-translations of perti-
undersketching in the Guadalupe and our nent sections from "The Nican Mopohua" (ca.
inability to account for the remarkable state of 1551-61), "The Primitive Relation" (ca. 1573),
preservation of the unsized cactus cloth as well and "The Codex Saville" (fifteenth and six-
as the unfading brightness of the paints or dyes teenth centuries)-and the bibliographical notes
used in the original parts of the painting put Dr. are useful.
Callahan and myself firmly in the ranks of Marta Weigle
those who believe the Image was created
supernaturally" (p. 105).
Curanderismo: Mexican American Folk Healing. and full-time work is as a healer, who sees more
Robert Trotter II and Juan Antonio Chavira. than five patients a day, and who uses all or
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1981, xi + some significant part of the theoretical system
204 pp.; photographs, glossary, bibliography, described here" (p. 1). Trotter and Chavira level
index. $16.00, cloth; $8.00, paper. harsh criticism at the extant literature. Previous
studies have centered on Mexican American
A curandero, according to Trotter and 'folk' illnesses, such as mal de ojo ("evil eye,"
Chavira, is "a person whose main profession or "bad eye") and susto ("fright"). The present
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BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES 347

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