Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

Not too confidently, I began to examine her. I was amazed at how easy
it was to determine the position of her uterus.
“I find it very low but in the center,” I told him.
Don Elijio got up and felt her belly. He nodded and smiled. “This is
easy for her,” he told the woman proudly. “She knows the body well and is
already a doctor. And a woman.”
“When we put your uterus where it should be, the itching will stop,” he
said to the woman. The weight of the uterus on the vaginal tissues prevents
proper flow of blood, lymph, and nerve currents, thus allowing the yeast to
thrive. When the uterus is properly placed, the elements of the blood will
adjust the pH of the vaginal wall, thereby making an unfavorable
environment for the yeast.
Don Elijio returned her uterus to its proper place. “See here,” he said,
pointing to the pelvic bone. “The width of two fingers above this bone is
where a woman’s uterus should sit. No more and no less. And always be
sure it is in the center.”
Because of his knowledge, Don Elijio had become legendary among
midwives. In Belize, many women still rely on lay midwives for childbirth.
In a country of remote villages with few ambulances and hospitals,
midwives are accepted and respected members of the basic primary health
care team. The country has an excellent system of training home birth
attendants, in which women who want to become midwives are trained by
other women.
San Antonio, like all other villages, had two or three women trained as
midwives who took care of the vast majority of home births. They came to
Don Elijio only when a patient was in serious trouble. Don Elijio had never
lost a patient in childbirth. He was expert at coaxing intransigent babies to
come out or to turn. He dealt with breech births with a series of
manipulations and special prayers.
“I’ve never had to send a woman to the hospital,” he said. “My prayers
and massage have helped every time. But the doctors are in such a hurry
nowadays. Twelve hours of labor pass and they sharpen their knives.”
Once on a cold, rainy, winter night in January, a midwife came to his
house and roused the old man out of his sleep.
“Get up, old man, I need you,” she said as she frantically knocked on
his door. Don Elijio grabbed the plastic purse he used as his doctor’s bag
and followed her back to the patient’s house. A baby—a girl—was already