The limpia's logic is absorption: harm that has settled in a person can be drawn into something else and carried away. The barrida, the sweeping, passes the absorbing object over the patient's body, head to foot, front and back, in strokes that trace the sign of the cross, while the healer prays, commonly the Apostles' Creed, Our Fathers and appeals to particular saints. The classic instruments each have their sense. The herb bundle, with rue, rosemary, basil and pirul among its usual members, joins the plants' protective reputations to the brushing away of clinging harm.
The unbroken egg, the most widely known, is held to absorb the intrusive force whole, and in cases of suspected mal de ojo it is afterward broken into a glass of water and read: threads, clouding or an eye-like film in the white confirm the diagnosis and show the harm safely transferred, and the egg is disposed of carefully, often at a crossroads or by burning. Sprays of blessed water, mouthfuls of aguardiente blown over the patient, and copal or incense smoke complete the repertoire in various regional hands. For susto, the fright-sickness in which part of the soul is jarred loose, the limpia joins calling ceremonies that summon the frightened spirit home by name. The rite is short, domestic and repeatable, the everyday sacrament of a tradition whose theory of illness includes envy, shock and spiritual intrusion alongside the natural causes it also treats with herbs and counsel.