Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

I was unable to refuse his request. It was a genuine plea for help. I told
Antonio to come to my farm as soon as he could.
Two days later, he and his wife Helena sat at my kitchen table,
recounting their story. They lived in Benque Viejo del Carmen, where their
grandparents and every family member since had been born. They had
started their business by selling modest harvests off the back of their truck,
eventually opening a permanent stand at the San Ignacio market.
Recently, they said, one of their neighbors had become jealous of their
hard-earned success. The neighbor had been heard complaining that
Antonio and Helena were too smug about their good fortune. He had told
many people in town that he would put an end to their conceit.
One day while Antonio was away, a dish of stewed pork was sent to
their home as a gift, delivered in the hands of a child. “My auntie sends this
to you,” the youngster told Helena. She didn’t recognize the child and
wasn’t sure who had sent the plate of food, but she ate the stewed pork for
lunch. By the time Antonio returned home from Belize City, she was
strangely ill with nausea, acute anxiety, and an overpowering sense of
doom.
Antonio called in the family’s granny healer, who was respected by dint
of her decades of experience and knowledge of medicinal plants. The crone
immediately suspected the symptoms and asked Helena, “Did anyone send
you something to eat?”
The grandmother concluded that the meat had been tainted with black
magic by the jealous neighbor, whom she also had overheard boasting in
public that he would teach Antonio and Helena a lesson about pride.
But Antonio and Helena didn’t believe the old woman. They went to the
town clinic, where Helena’s sickness was diagnosed as gastritis. She took
pills for a month but only got worse. The original symptoms intensified,
and she had severe menstrual cramps for the first time in her life. She also
began to suffer from nightmares, twisted fantasies, and depression and
became indifferent to her roles as wife and mother.
Antonio brought Helena to Belize City to see another doctor. The doctor
admitted that he didn’t know what was ailing her but suggested it might be
hysteria. From Belize City, they took a bus to Merida in Yucatán, Mexico,
to consult with a specialist who took X rays and ran a series of tests with no
conclusive results. He gave Helena Valium, which made her even more
nauseated and depressed.