Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

CHAPTER FOUR
Amaranth Amaranto Calalu Amaranthus sp.
A favorite food throughout the Americas since ancient times, when the toasted and sweetened seeds
were molded with honey into cakes offered to the Gods. Also known as “garden spinach,” it can be
prepared in any way that one would spinach. The mature seeds make an excellent, protein-rich grain.
A tablespoon of the fresh leaf juice is given three times daily for anemia, as the plant is rich in iron,
calcium, and vitamins. The leaves and branches are boiled and cooled to use as a wash for wounds,
sores, and rashes.
When I went to Don Elijio’s clinic the next week, I found him alone. It
wasn’t clear if he remembered me or not, but he welcomed, as usual, my
offer of help. He was pleased by my gift of a bag of European Chamomile,
the last that we had brought from Chicago.
I brewed us each a cup of tea and Don Elijio began to talk. He told me
his story as we chopped a freshly harvested vine of pungent Contribo.
He was born in San Andreas, a small Maya village on a steep slope on
the Lake Petén Itzá in Petén, Guatemala. When he was only an infant, his
father, Nicanor, killed a man in a drunken rage. At fifteen, his father was
already a known hechisero, one who practices black magic. Authorities
suspected he was responsible for a number of unexplained deaths, and it
was known that for the right price, he would use his power to harm innocent
people.
Rather than face justice, Nicanor fled. He brought with him his wife,
Gertrudes Co’oh. Nicanor had used his powers to enchant Gertrudes when
she was just fourteen. He had sent her sesame candy contaminated by evil
power that had rendered her a slave to his whims.
Gertrudes carried eleven month-old Elijio in her reboso, the ubiquitous
shawl of Central American women. Sleeping by day and traveling by night,
they made their way through the jungle trails. After six days they reached
the border of British Honduras, now Belize, and waded across the river
under the cover of night. They joined thousands of refugees who came to
Central America’s only British colony to escape war and starvation. They