Tale’s magical trick: making the reader dissolve

Opening the pages of “The Hummingbird’s Daughter” is like being swept up in a whirlwind of description so sensuous that one tastes, feels and hears the unfolding of events set against the backdrop of 19th century Mexico. Luis Alberto Urrea’s language is richly textured, creating a poetic fiction raised to the heights of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The prolific poet, novelist and nonfiction writer sets this epic tale, based on the life of his great-aunt Teresita, in northwestern Mexico in the tumultuous 1880s. Teresita is the illegitimate daughter of Don Tomas Urrea, a fun-loving, womanizing haciendado. Early in the story, the wealthy rancher moves his family, including Teresita, from Sinaloa to a family spread in Sonora, a country as wild and unsettled as the rest of his cast of fascinating characters.

Tomas is not a believer in the spiritual powers of the Mexican healers, but in time he recognizes that his daughter is becoming a gifted curandera, or healer, who will come to be called the Saint of Cabora and “Queen of the Yaqui,” the native tribe. As Teresita grows into young womanhood, her healing gift becomes more apparent. So does Tomas’ love for the daughter who eventually is branded a witch by the government. He stands staunchly by her side. Urrea makes love and family loyalty a balancing and civilizing theme of the novel.

But this is Teresita’s story, and we follow her in a rite of passage as she is initiated by Huila, the tribal healer who teaches her about the plants of the desert. Teresita claps her hands and holds them over a bush. Slowly, “the little ugly bush began to push against her hands. It was as if cool smoke had billowed from the leaves. Cold smoke. Fog. And it rolled softly against her palms....”

Teresita is gifted with plants and herbs. But she also has stronger powers. She can transport people into dreams and cure many illnesses just by moving her hands over the sick. As her magical gifts expand, she learns she can hurt people as well as heal them. After a terrible ordeal in which she curses her brother and nearly kills him, she vows never to turn her psychic will against anyone, to work only for the good of people.

But what good can exist in the killing fields of pre-revolutionary Mexico, which Urrea describes here with such passion? Mexican President Porfirio Diaz is enslaving the natives of Sonora. Thousands of Yaqui people are being shipped to the Yucatan to work in the plantations of the rich. Mexico is ripe for revolution. The military, the church, the tribes of the region, the wealthy and the poor all struggle against each other in a battle for survival. It is a time of horror and terror that tears apart the nation’s social fabric.

Even so, love takes root. When Tomas marries Gabriella, a change comes over him as he discovers her love can take him to a place he has never known. We feel the author’s love of the earth, even in the searing landscape of the Sonoran Desert. Huila teaches Teresita that the healer’s power “comes from the earth. Itom Achai [their god] sends us life through the ground. Look at the plants! Why do they have roots? Do they have roots in the air?”

As Teresita’s powers grow, thousands of people flock from throughout the countryside to be healed. Tomas’ ranch is overrun by the poor, sick and oppressed, who begin to call her a saint.

But the Diaz regime in Mexico City cannot countenance anyone who might foment revolution by empowering the poor. So the novel winds to a violent, dramatic ending that presages the Mexican Revolution of 1910, an era that resonates with the religious and political confrontations of our own time.

“The Hummingbird’s Daughter” is a brilliant work by the author of such powerful nonfiction as “The Devil’s Highway,” “Across the Wire” and “By the Lake of Sleeping Children,” the short story collection “Six Kinds of Sky” and the novel “In Search of Snow.” In this book, Urrea’s prose is so rich that every scene immerses the reader in the reality and spirituality of the period.

It is Urrea’s song of tribute to his Mexican ancestors and la gente of today. Every page is finely crafted, making Teresita’s story a powerful tale that satisfies the soul. *