Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

Panti spoke quietly to her as she gagged and spit at the muddy ground.
“That is very good, mamasita. You will be well soon, I promise you.” He
marched back to the house, yelling over his shoulder, “Stay with her,
Rosita.”
The repulsive odor was overpowering my senses and I wanted to bolt
again. Yet something held me at my post. It didn’t matter if I believed in
black magic or not. She was a sick woman who needed my help.
I held Angelina’s shoulders and patted her head as Panti asked her sons
about her enemies. Any jealous neighbors or angry relatives? he asked.
They mentioned their sister’s former boyfriend. Angelina had recently
rejected him as a suitable husband for her daughter. The boyfriend’s mother
had paid Angelina a visit on the Tuesday before she took sick. The woman
had angrily accused Angelina of assuming her daughter was too good for
her son. As she stepped off their doorstep to leave, she had cursed them,
shouting, “Soon you will see suffering come to this house because of your
pride.”
Don Elijio continued his probe. Were they missing any personal items
or photographs? They are often used in spells. Did they find any pachingos,
voodoo dolls, buried in the house or hidden inside rooms? Panti instructed
them to look through their mother’s belongings and dig around the doorstep
for any pachingos. Then Panti’s sastun confirmed that the boyfriend’s angry
mother had paid an obeha (black magic) person to cast an evil spell over
Angelina.
With that news, the sons exploded, waving their arms about and
pleading with Panti for revenge. “We want to see that disgraceful woman
suffer herself for what she has done to our mother. We will pay you
whatever you ask.”
Panti put his hands into the air with the palms up as if to stop an
oncoming blow, warning, “I will cure your mother. That I can do because
God has given me these powers. But you must go to another house to bring
harm to someone.”
I helped Angelina limp back to her seat, wiping her face with a cloth I’d
wrung out in cool water. A tear fell off her cheek and onto my hand, and
with that lone tear, all my fright evaporated, absorbed by that single drop of
emotion. I suddenly felt ashamed that I had ever been scared enough to
think of running.