'Collective Madness'
or Grisi Siknis
SOURCE: El Universal (newspaper-Mexico City)
DATE: Monday, November 24, 2003
Collective Madness Descends Upon Raiti, Sorcerers Sought for Cure.
The authorities of the Regional Autonomous Council of the Northern Nicaraguan Caribbean are seeking sorcerers to cure the collective madness that affects residents of the town of Raiti to the north of Managua, according to newspaper "La Prensa".
Raiti whose inhabitants belong to the Miskito indian population, is some 750 km north of Managua on the banks of the Coco River, bordering Honduras, and is the second town in the area to undergo the collective madness after the neighboring community of Kikrin in 2002.
According to the newspaper, a medical brigade of the Ministry of Health in Puerto Cabezas, capital city fo the Northern Nicaraguan Caribbean, headed for Raiti to reinforce medical attention, since there are some 30 persons afflicted with the malady.
This medical brigade spearheaded by Dr. Florens Levy, visited the area to "obtain a better appraisal and knowledge of the illness, which has affected Miskito indians for some 40 days," according to the source.
The affected parties have already been visited by medical personnel, although with negative results. The condition of the afflicted is serious: some 30 residents are wandering naked in the streets, machetes in hand, and appear not to recognize other townspeople, claims the source.
The president of the Health Commission of the Regional Council, Juan Gonzalez, told the newspaper that "due to the fact that physicians have been unable to do anything, the help of known medicine men in this area is being sought to combat the affliction."
The sorcerers must be "good sorcerers" whom according to local belief do no harm to others with their occult practices, and devote themselved to undoing "the evil" of other magic users.
Eddy McDonalds, an advisor to the Health Commission, said that "there is no emdication that can reach them (the Miskitos afflicted by collective madness), it's useless to send medical personnel," convinced that the only cure can be effected by "good sorcerers."
McDonalds urged that sorcerers be hired to prevent the madness from spreading to other communities in the Raiti area. "The affected parties have the same symptoms as the residents of Krikin (in 2003) and the only cure [is in the hands] of medicine men."
Information on the collective madness in Raiti as furnished to the authorities by a local, Gerardo Martinez, who told the newspaper that to date it has been impossible to find the "good sorcerors" in order to take them Raiti and heal the afflicted as they did in Krikin last year.
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Translation (C) 2003. Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU). Special thanks to Gloria Coluchi.
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DATE: December 6, 2003
FIRST VICTIM IN WAVE OF "SORCEROUS MADNESS"
Managua (ACAN-EFE). A Miskito native from the town of Namhaka, in the northern Nicaraguan Caribbean, died from the mass hysteria that has spread across the area due to "sorcery" according to local newspaper "La Prensa".
For two weeks now, some 30 Miskitos from Raiti 720 kilometers to the northeast of Managua--have been suffering from collective madness. The amount subsequently doubled and spread to other local communities.
The affected parties, largely women, believe themselves to be the victims of an overdose of sorcerous potions aimed at getting them to respond to the love of their suitors. They recognize neither relatives nor neighbors, wander around nude, flee from them, and are able to walk with their eyes closed and without stumbling, according to reports. In many cases they are armed with machetes.
The "bewitched" women develop exceptional strength and require several men to hold them down, according to the authorities. Medical brigades have been dispatched by the Autonomous Regional Council of the Caribeean. While spearheaded by officers of the Ministry of Health, the brigades actually serve in a support capacity to local medicine men treating the villagers of Raiti.
The newspaper reported that an unidentified ham radio operator reporting from the community of San Isabel, jurisdiction of the municipality of Waspam and close to Raiti, claimed that a native died as a result of the diseases, which is known in the Miskito dialect as "grisis siknis".
The native girl was identified as Isabek Wislop, 15, who crossed the Coco River (on the Honduran border) and died of convulsions at the community of Panzap on Honduran soil.
The health advisor for the regional honduran government, Eddy McDonald, said that "those who study traditional medicine are the ones who have the cure for the collective madness (grisis siknis). We are looking for more medicine men in order to send them to Namahka."
Mc Donald noted that the five healers sent to Raiti last week "controlled" the illness in 25 of the 60 natives affected and are working to "cure" the remainder. The official confirmed that the collective madness has spread to the communities of El Carrial and Panzap itself in Honduras, "for this reason [we can say] to be experiencing an epidemic."
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
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Translation (C) 2003. Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU). Special thanks to Gloria Coluchi.
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Grisi Siknis Under Control in Raiti
Newspaper La Prensa
December 10, 2003
Sorcerers move on to Namahka
The crisis of Grisi Siknis suffered by young girls of Namahka will also be attended by sorcerers ( witch doctors ).
Walter Treminio Urbina
CORRESPPONSAL BILWI
departamentos@laprensa.com.ni
The sickness known as Grisi Siknis, which affected about 60 people in the town of Raiti, within the municipal jurisdiction of Rio Coco, in the autonomous region of the North Atlantic, has been placed under control of about 80% by the sorcerers sent to the place.
The health adviser for the regional Honduran government, Eddy Mc Donalds, told LA PRENSA, that the people attended by the sorcerers were recuperating. "This is a process which takes time, and we are hoping that in five days we'll have control and result's of 100%."
The medical commission made up by two sorcerers, a doctor, two nurses and one psychologist, moved toward the town of Namahka, where a radio announcer spoke of the first victim of the grisi siknis. "The brigade left Raiti to that town of Miskito habitants, where we have been reported of seven young ladies, teenagers, with that problem of massive craziness," said McDonalds.
Sorcerers to Namahka
The three sorcerers which were in Raiti, were sent to Namahka. In the meantime, there will be a constant monitoring of the indigenous girls recuperating. " We cannot abandon the people who are recuperating, once the situation is under control in Namahka, the sorcerers will return to Raiti to rate the recuperation process by those affected by the grisi siknis, and the same will be done with those in Namahka," said McDonalds.
For the government, the malady presented in Raiti, El Carrizal and Namahka, is because of witchcraft practiced by sorcerers of the Honduran Miskito, "We know our heritage and culture, and some proof of that is how the western medicine couldn't cure the indigenous people, which then had to be cured by the sorcerers whom understand the effects and the magic which caused it, on the contrary, they could never be able to resolve the problem of the grisi siknis," assured McDonalds.
Translation © 2004 Winter Steel
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Nicaragua village in grip of madness
Doctors and traditional healers reach remote jungle community where 60 people are suffering from mysterious collective mania.
Rupert Widdicombe
Wednesday December 17, 2003
The Guardian
A team of doctors, psychiatrists, and anthropologists have reached a remote Miskito community in the jungles of northern Nicaragua where 60 people are suffering from a mysterious "collective madness".
The outbreak of the malady, known as grisi siknis in the local Miskut language, began in the Raiti community near the Honduran border a month ago. Seven cases were reported in neighbouring Namahka last week, where one 15-year-old girl is said to have died.
Other cases have appeared in three other nearby communities.
In all cases, the patients have the same symptoms: long periods of coma-like unconsciousness, interrupted by sudden bouts of frenzied behaviour.
During the attacks, sufferers attempt to flee their communities with their eyes closed, seizing any weapon they can find with which they appear to try to defend themselves against invisible attackers.
According to local press reports, they have extraordinary strength and often four people are required to restrain them.
Community leaders in Raiti claim the outbreak of grisi siknis is the result of a curse. In Namahka, the seven affected are all girls aged 14 to 18. Unconfirmed reports say the girl who died was Isabel Wislop. She fled across the Coco river into Honduras, reaching the village of Panzap where she died.
The Nicaraguan government sent a medical team to Raiti including anthropologists and traditional healers.
The Nicaraguan health minister, José Antonio Alvarado, said the Miskito healers sent to Raiti were getting better results than those trained in western medicine.
"If [the affected] are given anti-convulsive drugs or anti-depressants there is no improvement, but if they are given remedies by the healer they feel better," he said.
The medical team has taken samples of water from local wells and recommended that people only drink coconut juice until they have tested the supply.
Mr Alvarado said a medical report carried out in the late 1950s after a similar outbreak concluded that deliberate contamination of wells was one possible cause. "There are citizens that put hallucinogenic substances in the well water that when combined with the anthropological aspects [of the disease] can exacerbate people's behaviour."
The medical team is being led by Florence Levy, the region's health director.
She said there was no indication that a virus was responsible, but many different tests were being carried out.
Dr Levy confirmed that the Miskito healers were leading the fight to bring the outbreak under control.
"There's not much our doctors can do; we are giving support to the healers as they know the problem better than us," she said.
"The population doesn't make use of [the Nicaraguan health service], because the illness is more spiritual than physical, so they turn to the healer for the spiritual part."
The last major outbreak of grisi siknis began in 1910 and affected dozens of Miskito communities throughout the region for 20 years.
It is estimated that some 25,000 people live in the Miskito communities on the banks or the Coco river.
Three years ago about 80 people were affected in the community of Krin Krin. Many were successfully treated by a healer, Carlos Salomon Taylor, who is part of the team now working in Raiti.
Mr Taylor is said to have demanded - and received - more than $700 from the health ministry for his services. He claims that his treatment, which involves local plants and ancestral rituals, cures most sufferers in 15 to 30 days.
Mr Taylor is one of five healers sent to Raiti, where 25 of the 60 sufferers are said to be responding well to treatment.
Grisi siknis has been the subject of anthropological studies and is defined as a culture-specific malady found only in the Miskito culture, although with many similarities to pibloktoq, or "arctic hysteria", found in indigenous peoples of Greenland.
"Western health care people have often been sceptical of these attacks, labelling them 'mass hysteria', or simply 'those crazy-acting Miskito people'," said Professor Phil Dennis, an anthropologist at Texas Tech University who spent two years studying the phenomenon in the late 1970s. He says the attacks are very serious to those experiencing them and their families, and often to entire Miskito communities. He witnessed four attacks during his research and said the patients were "clearly in another state of reality".
According to Prof Dennis, grisi siknis is a "culture-bound syndrome" unique to the Miskito, comparable to anorexia nervosa which is known only in the affluent west. "The culture-bound syndromes force us to realize that health and disease are not simple biological matters, but a complex interweaving of various aspects of being human. Grisi siknis is a very serious health problem for Miskito people."
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Jungle madness poses health mystery
By Rupert Widdicombe
London
December 18, 2003
A team of doctors, psychiatrists, and anthropologists has reached a remote Miskito community in the jungles of northern Nicaragua where 60 people are suffering from a mysterious "collective madness".
The outbreak of the malady, known as "grisi siknis" in the local Miskut dialect, began in the Raiti community near the Honduran border a month ago. Seven cases were reported last week in neighbouring Namahka, where one 15-year-old girl is said to have died. Other cases have appeared in three nearby communities.
In all cases, the victims have the same symptoms: long periods of coma-like unconsciousness, interrupted by sudden bouts of frenzied behaviour.
During the attacks, sufferers attempt to flee their communities with their eyes closed, seizing any weapon they can find to try to defend themselves against invisible attackers.
According to local news reports, they have extraordinary strength and often four people are required to restrain them.
Community leaders in Raiti say the outbreak of grisi siknis is the result of a curse. In Namahka, the seven affected are all girls aged 14 to 18.
The Nicaraguan Government has sent a medical team to Raiti including anthropologists and traditional healers.
Nicaraguan Health Minister Jose Antonio Alvarado said that the Miskito healers sent to Raiti were getting better results than those trained in Western medicine.
"If (the affected) are given anti-convulsive drugs or anti-depressants there is no improvement, but if they are given remedies by the healer they feel better," he said.
The medical team has taken samples of water from local wells and recommended that people drink only coconut juice until they have tested the supply.
Mr Alvarado said a medical report carried out in the late 1950s after a similar outbreak concluded that deliberate contamination of wells was one possible cause.
Western health-care people have often been sceptical of these attacks, labelling them "mass hysteria".
PROFESSOR PHIL DENNIS, anthropologist
"There are citizens that put hallucinogenic substances in the well water that when combined with the anthropological aspects (of the disease) can exacerbate people's behaviour," he said.
Dr Florence Levy, the region's health director, said there was no indication that a virus was responsible, but many different tests were being carried out. She confirmed that the Miskito healers were leading the fight to bring the outbreak under control.
"There's not much our doctors can do," she said. "We are giving support to the healers as they know the problem better than us."
"The population doesn't make use of (the Nicaraguan health service), because the illness is more spiritual than physical, so they turn to the healer for the spiritual part."
The last major outbreak of grisi siknis began in 1910 and affected dozens of Miskito communities throughout the region for 20 years.
It is estimated that some 25,000 people live in the Miskito communities on the banks or the Coco River.
"Western health care people have often been sceptical of these attacks, labelling them 'mass hysteria', or simply 'those crazy-acting Miskito people',"said Professor Phil Dennis, an anthropologist at the Texas Tech University who spent two years studying the phenomenon in the late 1970s.
He witnessed four attacks during his research and said that the victims were "clearly in another state of reality".
According to Professor Dennis, grisi siknis is a "culture-bound syndrome" unique to the Miskito, comparable to anorexia nervosa, which is known only in the affluent West.
"The culture-bound syndromes force us to realise that health and disease are not simple biological matters, but a complex interweaving of various aspects of being human," he said. "Grisi siknis is a very serious health problem for Miskito people."
- Guardian
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Readers of INEXPLICATA will recall the strange madness that spread across the Miskito indian territories of the Nicaraguan republic in December. There were further articles mentioning the mixed success of sorcerers in restoring the minds of the afflicted, but the "Grisi Siknis" appears to have returned with a vengeance...
SOURCE: Diario "La Prensa" de Nicaragua - 13 de Enero de 2004
DATE: January 13, 2004
GRISI SIKNIS RAGES ON
Sergio Le.
CORRESPONDENT / BLUEFIELDS
After the collective hysteria known as Grisi Siknis allegedly vanished from the lands of the Raiti community in the Autonomous Northern Atlantic Region (RAAN), it reappeared unleashing mass insanity in the Miskito community of Kara, a jurisdiction of the municipality of Rio Grande in the Autonomous Southern Atlantic Region (RAAS)
"People are alarmed. They are anxious. They neither rest nor sleep. The community is taking turns to watch those who have taken ill from the sorcerous malady. Residents of Kara have already told the local warlocks whom they believe are responsible for the ailment," said Lt.Co. Danilo Blanco, commader of the Nicaraguan army troops garrisoned at the location. "They claim that they (the residents) are going to lynch them (the warlocks) if they continue. We are requesting that a comission be appointed to visit Kara and solve this collective hysteria."
Blanco told LA PRENSA that there are currently between six to eight men and women, ages 16 to 33, affected by the collective madness. "In the case of one 33 year-old woman, twisted candles have been removed from her vagina as well as nails covered in hair. She has vomited spiders. Things have reached such a degree in the community," noted the lieutenant colonel.
He added: "there is a 16 year-old girl whom the locals believe has a goblin in her stomach. She has been this way night and day for 3 months now. I witnessed this girl's case. She has powerful convulsions as though there was something in her stomach, since it grows suddenly. The stomach returns to its normal state and in seconds expands again."
The military man noted that "this happens every day. Her relatives and the locals have to watch her to keep her from running out into the street in hysterics. They think its witchcraft, a spell, and we really need the help of a government commission."
Cmdr. Manuel Mora Ortiz, chief naval officer on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, told LA PRENSA that the infirmary worker of the community of Karawala in the RAAS was unable to deal with the collective hysteria case.
LA PRENSA spoke over the phone with the director of the Ministry of Health in Bluefields--Dr. Donald Jarquin--and he assured us that nothing official had come through. "We're forming a working group to find out what's going on there. Tomorow we'll find out if its true or not."
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Translation (C) 2004. Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology. Special thanks to Gloria Coluchi.
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SOURCE: Diario "La Prensa" de Nicaragua
DATE: January 23 2004
Grisi Siknis Attacks Sumu Community
It is feared that the illness will extend to the other ethnic groups of the Nicaraguan Atlantic.
The malady known as Grisi Siknis, which afflicted the Miskitos only, has now spread to the Sumu community.
Walter Treminio Urbina
CORRESPONDENT/BILWI
Grisi Siknis, also known as Pauka Prukan, attacked the Santo Tomas de Umbra community located on the Coco River, upstream from the community of Raiti and which belongs to the Sumu ethnicity.
This new outbreak has concerned authorities from MINSA (Ministerio de Salud) and the Regional Council Health Commission who earlier this week sent Porcela Sandino to control this illness, which is spreading throughout the communities of Waspam, RCoco.
"We are alarmed by the increase in cases of Grisi Siknis, which had only affected Miskitos and now the Sumus. We believe that central, regional and municipal authorities should decree an alert in the presence of an epidemic which we may later come to regret, " said Juan Gonzalez Enrique, president of the Regional Council Health Commission.
The illness had only affected Miskitos, "and the fact that it is now appearing among the Sumus is very troubling," noted Gonzalez.
According to the report, 32 people afflicted with Grisi Siknis were reportd before January 16. The outbreak can only be controlled by persons who practice traditional medicine. "Porcela Sandino is the best sukia [medicine woman] we have, and we have sent her on an emergency call."
According to the early reports from the Regional Council Health Commission, the symptoms in Santo Tomas de Umbra are the very same which affected the Miskitos in Raiti.
MORE CASES REPORTED IN NAMAHKA
Moreover, sanitary authorities in this region stated that an increase of up to 60 cases was reported in the community of Namahka. For this reason, Porcela Sandino shall relocate to this community after controlling the situation in Santo Thomas de Umbra, said the Commission's secretary.
Meanwhile, Jose Osorno, mayor of Waspam, is taking all due precautions and is in constant communication with the authorities of Rio Coco through shortwave radio.
The authorities fear that this health problem will affect all the different ethnic groups, for which reason they shall request the aid of the central government.
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Translation (C) 2004. Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology. Special thanks to Gloria Coluchi.
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INEXPLICATA
The Journal of Hispanic Ufology
February 9, 2004
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SOURCE: La Prensa (Nicaragua)
DATE: 02.08.04
NICARAGUA: GRISI SIKNIS SPREAD CONTINUES
BILWI.- The Regional Council's Health Commission, through its president Juan Gonzalez Enrique, declared Grisi Siknis an epidmic after confirming that the communities of San Juan de la Bodega, Florida, Bulkian, Leymus, Tusku Tara, Santa Fe and Santa Isabel, in the municipality of Waspam and Wawa Bar, in the jurisdiction of Puerto Cabezas, are being affected by the Pauka Prukan (Grisi Siknis).
Faced with this terrible affliction which, according to anthropologists, "sukias" and medicine men is transmitted through the sorcery of the "dil men" (wizards) and peoples' minds can be controlled from unknown places.
"We urgently need economic support to treat Grisi Siknis immediately, as it is penetrating deeper every day into native communities," said the Health Commission's president.
Pauka Prukan, known to the media as Grisi Siknis, is affecting other ethnic groups such as the Mayagnas and Sumos in the Rio Coco municipality. "We urgently need to hire as many sukias and medicine men as may be available and have them on notice and on site. Grisi Siknis has become a regional epidemic and must be dealt with as such."
Delegations of native communities in Rio Coco and Puerto Cabezas have joined arms against the Grisi Siknis epidemic and are calling on the state to find an immediate solution to this dreadful malady.
Regional councilman Juan Gonzalez believes that the legislative authority must earmark emergency funds to treat Grisi Siknis, since funds are requiered to pay the medicine men, sukias and ukuly (prophets), as well as transportation costs to get them to the affected communities.
Guillermo Espinoza, mayor of Puerto Cabezas, is concerned by the way in which this collective madness is spreading throughout the region and is now attacking Puerto Cabezas's communities. "On February 2 there were six cases of Grisi Siknis in Wawa Bar and this has us concerned. We are seeking help to treat these cases urgently and avoid a greater outbreak."
The six persons affected were transferred from Wawa Bar to Bilwi and taken to a house belonging to one of the city's medicine men for treatment. According to Eddy McDonald, an adviser to the Regional Council's Health Committee, Miskitos showing signs of Grisi Siknis are being treated with traditional medicine.
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Translation (C) 2004. Scott Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Gloria Coluchi.
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