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Don Elijio nodded and said, “The Jackass Bitters is good, but you<br />
should have bathed her first, then applied a dried powder mixture of Jackass<br />
Bitters and Cancer Herb. Those two are very powerful together. Do you<br />
know the Cancer Herb?”<br />
“No hermanito, little brother, I don’t,” she said.<br />
“Well, it’s little, only a foot or so off the ground, <strong>with</strong> a little rounded<br />
leaf and a fluffy stick of a flower that looks like a tail,” he told her.<br />
She shook her head silently and said, “No, I haven’t seen that one.”<br />
“No matter, you can come back tomorrow and Rosita will go <strong>with</strong> you<br />
to the old logging road and show it to you.”<br />
After he explained how she was to combine the leaves of both plants for<br />
the hot tea bath, he launched into a complicated prescription for the fungus.<br />
He told her to take equal parts of the leaves of both plants, toast them over<br />
the hearth until very dry, and pass them through a sieve to make a fine<br />
powder. Then she was to cover the fungus <strong>with</strong> castor oil and sprinkle the<br />
powder over the area, using a feather to make sure it went deep into the<br />
holes. He told Doña Juana to be sure that her granddaughter kept her foot<br />
covered <strong>with</strong> a sock for the night. In the morning, she was to soak a sock in<br />
the hot tea and wear it all day long.<br />
“That will do it for sure,” he assured them.<br />
The women nodded in respectful agreement.<br />
“Is that all, then?” Panti asked, stretching out and glancing over at his<br />
hammock.<br />
“Well, <strong>with</strong> your permission, I would like you to examine the big girl<br />
here. She has too much gas and indigestion all the time. She is constipated<br />
too.”<br />
Following them into the examining room <strong>with</strong> a lantern, I held it over<br />
Don Elijio’s head as he dug deeply into her abdomen, giving her the classic<br />
ciro massage. The teenager squirmed under the pressure, but Don Elijio<br />
held fast.<br />
The fingers of both hands dove into the soft flesh around her belly<br />
button, disappearing up to his second knuckles. Then he twisted his hands<br />
clockwise, pressing as he prayed.<br />
“You have dry ciro, my child,” he said as he turned her over on her<br />
stomach and massaged her back and legs <strong>with</strong> quick, squeezing movements.<br />
“Rosita, go get her a mixture of Man Vine, Contribo, and Guaco. That<br />
will taste strong, child, but it will serve you well.”