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Page 6 The Battalion Thursday, April 13,1989
Expert: Border killings mix
of African, European rituals
MEXICO CITY (AP) — The kill
ings that shocked both sides off the
Mexico-U.S. border appear to be “a
Russian salad of rites” containing
African and European elements, a
leading anthropologist said Wednes
day.
Although human sacrifices were
performed regularly in pre-Colum
bian times, “human ritual slayings
are unheard of in modern Mexico,”
Fernando Winfield Capitaine said in
a telephone interview.
“Animal sacrifices are very com
mon, however, as part of the wide
spread superstition and witchcraft
that exists in Mexico nowadays,”
added the director of the Veracruz
Museum of Anthropology at Xalapa.
Police in Matamoros, across the
border from Brownsville, Texas,
have uncovered more than a dozen
human bodies, the apparent victims
of drug smugglers indulging in Sa
tanic rites popularly known as “san-
teria.”
The smugglers apparently hoped
that offering the souls of others,
both human and animal, would pro
tect them from arrest and harm.
Several arrests have been made
and police are looking for the al
leged ringleader, a Cuban in his late
40s named Adolfo de Jesus Con-
stanzo.
Police look for suspects
in March store robbery
Dabbs Oil Store No. 7, 2100 South
College Ave., was robbed Thursday
March 2 at 1:40 a.m.
Three suspects used a baseball bat
to smash the glass doors at the sta
tion and disable the video cameras.
The suspects then loaded a 500-
pound, grey Tidal TACCII money
dispensing safe into a green, 1979
CMC pickup with an aluminum
camper shell on the back and sped
off northbound on South College.
The truck was recovered in north
west Bryan.
Witnesses describe the suspects as
each being approximately 5-foot-11
and 150-160 pounds with medium
build.
STOPPER
775-TIPS
If you have any information re
garding this crime, please contact
Crime Stoppers at 775-TIPS.
Once called, Crime Stoppers will
issue a special coded number to pro
tect the caller’s identity. If the call
leads to an arrest and grand jury in
dictment, Crime Stoppers will pay
the caller up to $1,000.
Crime Stoppers also pays cash for
any information regarding felony
crimes or fugitives.
U.S. officials say Constanzo ap
parently introduced elements of
“santeria,” a Caribbean Hispanic
version of voodoo influenced by Ro
man Catholicism, to the area, where
it was previously unknown.
Police said the bodies were muti
lated, and they found candles and
kettles full of body parts and animal
bones in the ranch.
“I’ll have to have more informa
tion and maybe look for myself be
fore I can analyze this further, but
from what I saw on television last
night this doesn’t seem to be any
Mexican occult ritual,” said Win
field, who specializes in pre-His-
panic cultures and their religious in
fluence in modern times.
“They seem to be a Russsian salad
of rites from various satanic cults
which the people indulged in, prob
ably crazed by drugs,” he said.
Winfield said the “lamps” discov
ered at the ranch were actually small
shot glasses blackened with soot and
filled with wax, with a wick stuck in
the middle, called “veladoras” in
Spanish.
“These are quite common in Mex
ican witchcraft and are typical of the
European-Roman Catholic black
magic rites inherited from Europe,”
he said. “But other elements like the
kettles seem part of the Haitian-Af-
rican rituals practiced in many
places, including Cuba.”
Winfield said the African rituals
were brought by slaves from Africa
and adapted locally to the Roman
Catholic religion. In Brazil it’s called
“macumbe,” in the Hispanic Carib
bean “santeria.”
“They vary from place to place,
but the main elements are almost all
the same,” he said.
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FOLEY’S
...OF COURSE
Cisneros favors
keeping elected
ag commisioner
AUSTIN (AP) — The Mexi-
can-American Legislative Caucus
and San Antonio Mayor Henry
Cisneros joined the debate over
Agriculture Commissioner Jim
Hightower’s job Wednesday, say
ing they favor keeping the job an
elected position.
“The majority of Texans will
not stand for any eff orts to take
away their right to vote,” said
Rep. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen,
chairman of the caucus.
Hightower, a two-term Demo
crat, has become highly contro
versial in recent months.
Having earlier angered the
chemical industry by imposing
strict new pesticide regulations,
he also has angered some cattle
men by leading the effort to sell
hormone-free beef to European
markets.
The Texas farm Bureau re
cently urged that the elected post
be abolished and a commission of
gubernatorial appointees be
placed over it.
The post could be abolished
this year because the Texas De
partment of Agriculture is under
going the periodic “sunset” re
view given all state agencies.
Republican Gov. Bill Clements
hasn’t indicated whether he
would sign a bill to continue the
department.
Hinojosa, joined at a news con
ference by other lawmakers and
Cisneros, noted that the Mexican-
American caucus represents
nearly one-third the votes needed
in the House to pass the agricul
ture department bill that already
has won Senate approval.
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The Battalion
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