Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

CHAPTER FIVE
Jackass Bitters Tres Puntas Kayabim
Neurolaena lobata
A common weed found growing throughout Central America, much prized for its activity against
parasites, including amoebas, fungus, giardia, candida, intestinal parasites, and malaria. Either fresh
leaf juice or a boiled tea can be used for internal or external purposes. Leaves and flowering tops of
the plant contain an active principle, sesquiterpene dialdehyde, an intensely bitter substance found in
many antimalarial plants.
A few months after my first visit, I arrived at Panti’s doorstep at seven
o’clock in the morning, hoping to tag along and help him collect bush
medicines, but he’d already been “andando en el monte” for two hours.
The cement house was fairly new, built for Panti by his grandson Angel
after Chinda died so he would be protected at night. The two thatch huts
were only two feet apart: one a kitchen, where he chopped and stored
medicine; the other where he sometimes gave his patients herbal baths and
massages. Panti’s good friend, Antonio Cuc, was at the chopping block,
cutting up a dark brown and yellow bark.
I sat down beside him. “Buenos días, señor,” I said. Don Antonio
seemed almost as old as Panti. He also had the classic square-jawed Maya
face, but his serious expression was in contrast to Don Elijio’s twinkling
humor. His strong, calloused hands, criss-crossed with scars, wielded the
machete with practiced skill. He told me that he was Kekchi Maya and that
Panti was Mopan Maya.
There are an estimated four million Maya living in Central America
today, speaking twenty-five different dialects. Although the ancient Maya
had written glyphs, the dialects of the modern Maya are oral languages.
Although he spoke Mayan, Don Antonio could no more read an inscription
on a Maya temple than I could.
“What are you chopping?”
“Billy Webb bark,” he answered. “All this week I’ll be clearing the high
bush from my land. Next week I will burn.”