Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

CHAPTER SEVEN
Spanish Elder, Buttonwood
Piper amalago
Cordoncillo
A common medicinal plant of many varieties, highly respected for its versatility as a traditional
remedy in Maya healing. The leaves and flowering tops are boiled as a tea and used to wash all
manner of skin ailments, to aid insomnia, nervousness, headaches, swelling, pain, and coughs, and
for the treatment of all children’s disorders. The root is applied to the gums to relieve toothache. The
raw exudate of the root heals cuts and prevents infection. The plant is one of the Nine Xiv used by
Don Elijio for herbal baths.
With so much to learn about the medicinal plants of the Maya, I decided to
stay with Don Elijio three days each week.
I slept in the cement house with him. My hammock was stretched across
the length of the waiting room, separated from his small room by an
embroidered, orange curtain, the last piece of handiwork Chinda
accomplished before she died. In Spanish, its fitting inscription read: “I will
love you forever.” The words swirled around two bluebirds on a flowering
branch.
The first morning I was there he tugged at my hammock strings. “Wake
up, child! No time to lose,” he said in a raspy whisper.
It was a chilly winter dawn and I groaned. I hadn’t slept well the night
before, unaccustomed as I was to sleeping in a hammock. On reflex, I
yelped, “Sí, maestro,” before taking a deep breath and swinging my legs
onto the cold cement floor. He turned his back while I dressed in
yesterday’s clothes and tied up the hammock where it was stored during the
day. He washed his toothless mouth with water from a bucket stored in the
corner and gave me a cup of water to wash with.
Breakfast for Don Elijio was white sweet bread dipped in a cup of
instant coffee, mixed with three spoons each of powdered milk and sugar. I
poured myself some hot chocolate from my thermos and munched on
cinnamon crackers.
“Eat quickly, child. C’ox c’ax,” he said in Mayan, which meant, “Let’s
go to the forest.” I gulped down the last of my warm drink and started