BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA:
Film title: “Yo soy hechicero”, by Ron Stanford (Director and Filmmaker), Ivan Drufovka (producer and editor) 1996, Country of Production: USA, Language of film: Spanish, Length of film: 48 min.
SYNOPSIS:
This documentary/ethnographic film focuses on Juan Eduardo Núñez, who declares, “I am a sorcerer” (yo soy hechicero). Produced in 1996—almost three decades ago – it still raises unresolved issues about the production and reception of ethnographic films, especially those dealing with religious, ritual, and esoteric practices. In the film’s blurb for the Multicultural Review in 1996, I wrote: “It is untamed because the filmmakers purposely let the events speak for themselves – an unusual strategy, especially in documentary and ethnographic films that seem to assume Westerners need filters to approach what are perceived as irrational practices.”
The absence of expert voice-over and explanations defines this insider’s look at a day in the life of Juan Eduardo Núñez. He and his followers speak for themselves, explaining their actions and reasons for participating in divination, initiation, and healing rituals in a backyard cottage in a New Jersey neighborhood. Although Juan Eduardo Núñez’s rituals can be identified as belonging to Afro-Cuban Santeria, he prefers to be known as a charismatic sorcerer who has created his own community of practice among Latinos in New Jersey. The film therefore highlights the situated production and power of vernacular or lived religions among exiles and immigrants. Additionally, one of the film’s contributions to ritual studies is that it demystifies the orderly seriousness and solemnity often assumed about rituals in classical anthropology, instead bringing an everyday lightness and even humor to these life-changing, transformative, emotional rituals.
Based on screenings I attended at anthropological professional conferences, one critical question the film raises is: What is this about independent, charismatic healers that so displeases academic audiences when they break with assumptions about purity and tradition and focus instead on the efficacy of magic? This seems to occur wherever independent healers (shamans, sorcerers, witches) work in urban centers embedded in competitive capitalist consumer societies, moving away from pristine and bucolic contexts.
In addition to glimpsing the inner workings of a community of practitioners, viewers will appreciate the lighthearted interjections of his typical American suburban teenage daughter and the vitriolic warnings of his Protestant wife, who sees his work as the work of the devil.
This film will interest not only researchers of similar Afro-Latin religions and students of cross cultural divination, possession, and healing rituals, but also those reflecting on and critiquing mainstream assumptions behind cinematic representations in general and the genre of ethnographic films in particular.
KEYWORDS:
Ethnographic films, Afro-Latin religions, Cuban origin, Anthropology
ACADEMIC COMMENTARY:
In this ethnographic film, we are presented with the daily rituals performed by Juan Eduardo Núñez in his home temple in New Jersey, USA, for a community of followers. These include divination, healing, initiation rituals accompanied by ritual music (produced by tapes), dancing, possession, the telling of myths, the making of potions, and animal sacrifice. Interestingly, he claims to be just a sorcerer rather than an initiate of Afro-Cuban religions such as Santeria or Palo, even though his practices are strongly related to them.
He is of Cuban origin, moved to the United States sometime in the 1980s, and now lives in a New Jersey suburb. Thus, the film tells the story of an immigrant who creates his own community of practitioners in exile. At no point does he claim any spiritual power derived from his ethnic or national origin. Rather, his spiritual power is presented as derived from the efficacy of his rituals.
However, critics of this film, including anthropologists and ethnomusicologists, were concerned about a) the possible exoticizing effects of the film and b) its lack of “authenticity” in relation to “traditional” Santeria practices. These two points of criticism offer the most interesting arguments for discussion about the film, challenging perceived assumptions about the evaluation of the religious practices of ethnic minorities by mainstream audiences, as well as academic bias regarding notions of authenticity in “traditional” religious practices.
In a discussion after the screening of the film at the American Anthropological Association, some were appalled by the potentially negative effects of this filmic representation and were concerned about the potential racist and exoticizing reactions of audiences, similar to the effects of Hollywood representations of Vodou and Santeria in popular culture. In particular, they were disturbed that animal sacrifice was shown without the contextualization of an expert’s voice-over.
Most notably, criticism at the conference and the review by an ethnomusicologist focused on the lack of purity and tradition. Yo soy hechicero portrays a charismatic Cuban healer who identifies as a sorcerer (not a santero or initiate of Santeria) and draws from various Afro-Latin religious practices and Spiritism in a unique way. Nonetheless, the ethnomusicologist’s review claims that the practitioner, Eduardo Núñez, breaks the rules of purity: the initiation is not performed according to tradition, and the music was played from a commercial tape rather than performed live as in traditional events; in short, it was considered inauthentic in relation to a purist, traditional notion of this otherwise non-institutional religion.
These two critiques reveal what so displeases academics when confronted with charismatic healers who break with purity and tradition and instead focus on the magical efficacy of their rituals. This often occurs when charismatic healers (shamans, sorcerers, witches) work in urban centers and are immersed in competitive capitalist consumer societies, far from pristine and bucolic settings.
The tension between traditional religious practices and the innovations of independent charismatic healers was articulated by anthropologist Carol Laderman in “The Limits of Magic” (1997). Having built her anthropological career working with “traditional” Buddhist healers, she adopted their views about vernacular Buddhist healing as inauthentic. In this article, she suggests that another anthropologist, who worked with a very successful non-traditional urban Buddhist healer, should discard her fieldwork materials for being the result of a fraud. This healer, who dressed in men’s clothes and combined various Buddhist and folk rituals, was nonetheless extremely famous and had a large following.
In my 2002 paper, “Ritual Alchemy: Brujería and the Magic of Consumption,” presented at Wesleyan and later published as Romberg 2005, I challenged the nostalgic view held by Laderman and others, such as those critiquing Yo soy hechicero, who maintain a static notion of “traditional practices” and reject new vernacular practices for diluting the power of “tradition” and turning them into urban novelties. What these critics overlook is the question of “efficacy,” which draws clients to such urban healers, and the fact that, in many cases, religious practices are actually “traditionalized” by the very anthropologists writing about them.
Raquel Romberg
Bibliography:
Laderman, Carol. 1997. “The Limits of Magic.” American Anthropologist 99 (2): 333-341.
Landies. Maurea.1998. Review of “Yo soy hechicero.” EOL Volume 4 (1998)
https://www2.umbc.edu/eol/4/Landies/Hechicero.htm (accessed April 4, 2025)Romberg, Raquel. 2002. Ritual alchemy: Brujería and the Magic of Consumption. Talk at Wesleyan Center for the Americas, March 6.
Romberg, Raquel. 2005. “Glocal Spirituality: Consumerism, and Heritage in an Afro-Caribbean Folk Religion.” In Franklin W. Knight and Teresita Martínez Vergne (Eds.) Caribbean Societies and Globalization, pp. 131-156. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
