THE "LIMPIA" IN THE MESOAMERICAN ETHNOMEDICINES

A limpia (cleansing, in the Spanish language) is a physicalsymbolic method, used in the Mesoamerican traditional medical practices, to reach a new balance. The verb "to clean" means "make something or someone free of dirt, mess or defects". When what is removed is visible, the result of cleaning is an objective fact; when, however, the alteration, the defect, the block inside the person is symbolic (energetic), the limpia becomes an act of faith, a physical ritual that is a step away from the sacred or the traditional. In fact, according to Mesoamerican natives, the human being is built up also by something more than the body: this is a kind of vital energy that is an integral part of all creatures, and of course the human being. Not specific of Mesoamerican worldview, the spiritual vibration is communicated, with other discursive images, by other ethnic groups coming from all around the world. Mesoamerican people, thus, think that health problems have not only corporal or psychological causes and relations but energetic too. The limpia makes the person connected with itself and with its own environment (biological, community and of cultural beliefs); its purpose is to reharmonize the person with that environment, removing and expelling from it the elements (physical, psychic, social and symbolic) causing its sickness or influencing it.