Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rue Ruda Sink In Ruta graveolens
A cultivated herb found in most gardens of Central America. It is a panacea, an herb considered
helpful in all human ailments. The aromatic leaves are used for stomach complaints, nervous
disorders, painful periods, delayed or difficult childbirth, and epilepsy, and rue may be tried for any
condition. Healers rely on rue in the treatment of all spiritual diseases, and it is one of the three plants
that make up the protecciones. It should never be boiled but is rather squeezed fresh into water or tea.
While Panti was in the second hut massaging a patient’s belly, I sat at the
crate table making amulets. It was stiflingly warm that day, and I’d dragged
the table as close to the door as possible in the hopes of catching any
breeze, however unlikely, that happened to flutter by.
Now that I had received my sastun, Panti had decided it was time for me
to learn more about spiritual illnesses. That day, he put me to work making
amulets, which he prescribed frequently to protect his patients against envy
and black magic. I had seen him enchant these amulets with his sastun, then
tell his patients to keep them close at all times, especially when they left the
house or someone they didn’t trust came to visit. An amulet’s power lasts
from about six months to one year before it needs to be reenchanted with
the sastun.
Many patients came to him for relief from spiritual illnesses. It hadn’t
always been that way, but as more people in the region turned to medical
doctors for physical problems, his practice had changed. Aspirin and
synthetic drugs were available in the remotest villages, so many people
didn’t bother to seek out traditional medicines for physical problems any
longer.
Panti had become famous throughout Central America for his skill in
curing spiritual illnesses. Among traditional healers in Central America,
there is a hierarchy. There are bonesetters, massage therapists, and snake
doctors, who specialize in specific physical ailments. The next level
consists of midwives, herbalists, and granny healers like Doña Juana, who
are able to treat a variety of physical conditions. But there are very few of
the doctor-priests, or H’mens, such as Panti, who in the Maya tradition are