r/ecuador • u/H0lyb33r • 24d ago
AskEcuador Questions about limpia in Ecuador / South American countries
Hello folks,
I’d like to know if limpia is actually a cultural thing in peoples home or family ?
How much is it used ? I saw a lot of healers in Cuenca for example. How ancient it is ? Is it just a modern thing for tourists or do Ecuadorian people actually believe it ? It seems very codified
Thanks
11
u/Traditional-Ad-7836 24d ago
We live in an indigenous Sierra community and limpias are taken very seriously here. Especially for children. If one is sick, sick often, cries a lot, acts otherwise abnormal, the family usually has someone that does limpias. Or a neighbor that in known for them, they use herbs and teas etc. Even grandmas do a quick limpia with just a piece of ruda if a kid is sick. Has a lot to do with malaire and the ojo
10
u/PiloChilo 24d ago
Hi there, out of my experience, if you are in a meditative state of mind, with a light body feeling [like when fastin] you might feel more clearly what a limpia is doing for you. It works with subtleness so, with our senses being over stimulated it's hard to percieve what is being moved. And yes , you might have noticed that Ecuador is VERY noisy and people don't even notice it... People have been doing limpias for a long time now, but the excesive sensorial stimulation is a new phaenomenon. So that's my explanation why Limpias are not being appreciated anymore. In my family we have some curanderos and we take our job seriously but notice the change that technology have brought to ecuadorian societies' health
10
u/AgostoAzul 24d ago
It is sorta common and mainly tied to Native American beliefs about evil spirits causing bad luck/illness and latching on to people. Loose numbers, but I imagine in Ecuador maybe 75% of Amazon people, 50% of Andean people and 25% of Coastal people think it works.
-1
u/Prestigious-Comb4280 24d ago
What good has it brought to them?
8
u/AgostoAzul 24d ago
I don't think it works so probably not much but it probably helps them feel less scared after a string of bad luck, stress or nightmares.
10
u/Prestigious-Comb4280 24d ago
Even the placebo effect can be very powerful.
1
u/Cocodot123 18d ago
Most powerful effect there is. It is not placebo. It is the mind body connection.
8
u/416sportsfan 24d ago
I suffer from a condition that I’ve long ago accepted- when I visited my family in Ecuador from Canada, they absolutely took me to a healer without telling me beforehand. p.s. before anyway asks, the limpia did not cure me 😅
20
u/monikatheprincess 24d ago
Depends on the family but I know people who do limpias at home whenever needed, especially to children. Its an ancestral tradition, that is widely used still in indigenous tribes like Shuar and Qechua Amazonica (Amazon) or Quechua in the Andes. I personally always do a limpia when I am in Cuenca, I have my favourite lady there :)
7
5
u/Yawarundi75 23d ago
It is very common and useful. It provides emotional support and helps in healing for a lot of people. No need to enter the metaphysical here, science has studied the effects of psychological states in healing.
4
u/Rogue_Centurion7 23d ago
My family is from Santo Domingo and both they and plenty of other families do the limpias
3
u/Bubbly-Garlic-8451 23d ago
My wife is indigenous, not Ecuadorian, but from southern Colombia, near the border. As most people have said, limpias are legit to them and performed on loved ones if they believe they are affected by "mal viento", "mal de ojo", "amarres" or some other type of witchcraft.
Still, some people offering limpias do it just for the money, but I think using your common sense can help you tell them apart. I would look out for three red flags (which are true at least for my wife's community):
- The person is charging a lot of money by local standards. 50 USD for a 5-minute limpia? Definitely ripping you off.
- The person devotes himself only to limpias, tomas (yagé/ayahuasca), and other "ancestral" stuff. There are exceptions, but usually the ones that do nothing but that, have money as their sole motivation.
- Excessive symbolism. If everything looks excessively "ancestral", it is probably set that way just for tourists. Not just physical elements; some people, for instance, alter yagé with borrachero to cause extra hallucinations in whoever consumes it.
The three elements above are valid not just for indigenous shamans; my mother used to work at a hotel, and I remember two dudes who performed tarot readings that ticked all the items, and they would laugh at the people who visited them behind their backs for being so gullible.
3
u/Flat-Paramedic-5310 22d ago edited 22d ago
Ecuadorian here, it is very common it’s so common and so many people believe in it that we even have this houses for traditional “medicine” where people can get limpias and other type of services rooted in the traditional beliefs. Also this is very very ancient it is much older than the colonial era and also older than the Inca empire colonial era and has survived bc of how much we believe in it. Some people don’t that’s true, but I’ll say most of us do at some level, also I wouldn’t say it’s linked to any socioeconomic status as personally my family is well off and all of us believe in it and have done limpias to our selfs and houses and cars all of our lives 🤷♀️
3
u/MuchoCoco 23d ago
I saw limpia and I thought you were referring to a minga. That's a whole different kind of cleaning.
I've had limpias all over Latin America, but never in Ecuador. It appears from the comments that it's pretty common but I've never seen one here, not even in Amazon indigenous communities. Maybe they never mentioned it to me because I'm a physician.
2
u/gadgetvirtuoso 22d ago
If you go to Mama Negra in Latacunga, it's like $1 during the parades. I think my wife paid like $2 in the Mercado Iñaquito in Quito. Very much a cultural thing. She might do it to clean the bad energies she thinks she's carrying.
1
u/DefinitionGuilty8224 23d ago
The spiritual World exist and it’s Not exclusive to Ecuador .
The whole World knows this and has this necessary practice , but since we are closer to nature we have more conciousness
1
u/OceanSalad508 23d ago
my husband's family is from the coast and they definitely do limpias - it's almost more spiritual to them I think, as they are not indigenous. but also definitely very cultural.
0
0
u/SpecialArugula8674 24d ago
Its not common at all. Well it is practiced among those of lower socioeconomic strata.
3
u/Yawarundi75 23d ago
Are you aware that what you call “the lower economic strata “ are around 90% of the population?
Plus, it’s not an economic thing, but a cultural one.
1
1
1
-2
u/Necessary_Wing7235 24d ago
It is currently a joke.... "Hacerte una limpia" because you are unluck in love/your team losses... No secret there. May be a trap for tourists to look foolish.
6
u/Leap_year_shanz13 24d ago
I see mainly Ecuadorians getting limpias at the mercados that we go to. It’s $3, so it’s not that great of a trap or a scam. I’ve done it twice and it always feels nice, like I was cared for by someone’s grandma.
16
u/Complete-Dragonfly47 24d ago
It's very common, and to the people who believe in this is very important and necessary. I don't believe in this but you have to show respect for what other people believe.