El Niño Fidencio

I first heard about El Niño Fidencio ("Kid Fidencio") from Davíd Carrasco, my thesis advisor at Colorado, who grew up partly in El Paso.

A 1920s folk healer from the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, he continues to be channeled by present-day psychic healers.

That was the connection for me: the mediumship, which fit with some research in Afro-Brazilian religion that I was doing at the time.

Among the many Web sites relating to him are a Fidencio blog (in Spanish) and a bilingual Yahoo group.