Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

certain prayer and with cooled baths to the head and eyes. Nighttime
headaches need hot baths and a different prayer.”
“Ooooooooooh,” responded Doña Juana, nodding her head approvingly
toward Marina. “I told you he would know what to do.”
“Rosita,” said Don Elijio, not missing a beat. “Go to the other house and
fill this bag with the Nine Xiv for Marina.”
I used my flashlight to find the Xiv and filled the bag. The delicious
aroma of the oils in the fresh leaves delighted and refreshed me. I wished I
could sleep on a bed of freshly collected Xiv.
“Here you are, maestro,” I said when I returned to the crowded room
and handed Don Elijio the leaves.
“You are to boil a handful of these leaves for ten minutes, allow it to
cool thoroughly, and then sit down in a chair with your head bent backward
like this,” he instructed. He mimicked the position he wanted her to take so
that she would know how to do it. “Then, wash your head with the cool Xiv
water and allow some to fall into your eyes. Cover your head with a thick
towel and do not remove it for the rest of the day. Do this for three
consecutive days.”
Don Elijio reached out for her arm to feel her right pulse at the wrist,
and as he often did, he motioned for me to feel the left.
“What do you feel?” he asked, peering at me intently.
“It seems rather slow and weak,” I said. “Somewhat faint.”
“Right,” he said. “You have felt it correctly. The circulation is very
poor. When I finish the prayer you will massage her neck and shoulders as
you do mine. I know that will help her too.”
When he finished the nine prayers, she shifted into a stool closer to the
door where I massaged her neck muscles and corrected the alignment of her
cervical vertebrae.
As I worked, the children sat wide-eyed and silent. They watched us
like hawks, obviously drinking the scene in. Thus is traditional healing kept
alive, I thought, by moments just like this, when matriarchs show their
progeny how to get help from village healers.
No sooner had Don Elijio finished with Marina than Doña Juana pushed
one of the smaller girls into the patient seat.
“Now, this little girl lives with the sniffles all the time,” continued the
matriarch. “Her father wants to get some pills for her, but I told him no, not
to do that, as I have never seen that those pills work on people but instead