Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

soon as possible,” he said swiftly, turning on his heels to get back to
Angelina’s side.
I scooped out a handful of Zorillo into a gourd bowl and carried it to the
kitchen. As I plopped the foul-smelling root into a pot and started a fire
under it, my hands were trembling.
I rushed back to the cement house with the coals, catching Panti dousing
the woman with holy water from head to foot, nearly shouting the Mayan
prayers over her.
I went to fetch the pieces of Copal incense Panti had requested. He
tossed them onto the coals in the tin he’d situated under her stool, and the
rich incense enveloped her. He also sprinkled dried Rosemary on the coals
as he repeated the prayers and held her pulse.
He joined me in the kitchen to check on the boiling Zorillo. I put
another piece of wood on the fire. I looked over at him for reassurance. I
felt frightened by the woman.
“I am sure it is black magic, Rosita, but I will ask the sastun to make
sure.” Shaking his head, he added, “It is awful what people do to their
neighbors.”
To acknowledge that this poor soul suffering right in front of me was a
victim of black magic was too much for me to accept. So I concentrated on
her physical symptoms. Whatever troubled her, she was obviously in need
of Don Elijio’s herbs and prayers.
I cooled the Zorillo concoction by pouring the dark, pungent liquid back
and forth from one gourd bowl to another. I could hear Panti twirling his
sastun, repeating her name along with words like espiritu maligno (evil
spirit), maldad (evil), and hechismo (black magic).
I carried the cooled tea into the house, and Panti started mixing in Rue,
holy water, and the sacred Esquipulas stone. He handed her the mixture in a
gourd, and I half expected her to bat it to the ground. Instead, she steadied it
to her lips and drank it down, sip by sip. It was the only cognizant act I had
yet seen her perform.
She soon made a motion that she had to vomit, and Panti and I lifted her
by the arms and led her outside, where she held onto the trunk of the Sour
Orange tree. She wretched and moaned and uttered incoherent words, as if
she were mumbling in a foreign language. As she threw up phlegm and the
foulest fluids I’d ever smelled, I could feel my face get hot, while my heart
beat loudly in my ears.