Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Skunk Root Zorillo Payche Chiococca alba
A tropical vine whose dark, brittle, and meandering root is one of the most important remedies in
Maya medicine. The root is used for stomach ulcers, pain, and ailments with multiple, confusing
systems. The bark of the vine and the root are taken as a tea to ward off black magic, envy, the evil
eye, and evil spirits. The leaves are part of the Nine Xiv formula for herbal bathing.
Only a few weeks later, Don Elijio and I were making a wound powder of
dried Cancer Herb and Tres Puntas leaves when a stocky Indian man bolted
through the doorway.
“Don Elijio.” The man’s voice trembled. “I come with much faith. I
bring you a woman who is truly ill.”
The man stepped to one side, revealing a disheveled woman in her late
forties wearing torn and badly soiled clothes. Her hair was stiff and matted,
her complexion gray, and her expression tortured. It was her eyes, though,
that were the most frightening. Her fixed gaze sent an icy feeling through
my veins.
She was being propped up by a brawny man on either side of her. Her
strong escorts, we learned, were her sons Roberto and José.
I instinctively grabbed her hand and helped her to sit down on one of
the stools. She slipped forward, drooling uncontrollably. The drool
streamed down her chin and fell onto her lap. The son named Roberto
quickly jumped up to wipe off his mother’s face.
The woman began shifting her body from side to side and doing what I
can only describe as a panting growl. I looked over at Panti to see he was as
calm and in control as ever.
“Our mother took sick about two weeks ago,” explained José.
Late one Tuesday night, their mother, Angelina, was in her room
combing her hair while the rest of the family sat in the living room.
Suddenly they heard her door slam shut and the lock click. A coarse,
unfamiliar voice bellowed from her room, then moaning and a