Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tzibche
Crotolaria cajanifolia
Somewhat of a rare herb, Tzibche is used in the treatment of many spiritual diseases and as a
protective brushing before the sacred Maya Primicias. It may also be collected as one of the Nine
Xiv formula for herbal bathing.
Good Friday broke with seasonal dreary rain and fog, which had been
soaking our farm most of that Holy Week. Although the farm was now
blanketed with young blades of grass, there were still many patches of slick
mud. We had been living in knee-high rain boots for days and bathing in
rainwater under the outdoor shower. We’d also kept the wood-burning stove
lit all day to keep ourselves warm and to dry the laundry hanging
everywhere in our kitchen.
We had homemade muffins, mangoes, and Lemon Grass tea for
breakfast that morning around a table Greg had fashioned from secondhand
mahogany boards. But this was no customary, workaday Friday: This was
the day my family and I were to meet the Maya Spirits.
We began scurrying around in preparation not only for the Primicia but
for our special guests: Panti and Claudia. James left to canoe across the
river and walk the mile to the road to guide our guests to the farm.
Soon I heard James yelling from the riverbank, “Mo-o-o-om. We’re
crossing over.” Within minutes we saw Panti slowly and deliberately climb
the hillside steps, which Greg had just finished building a few weeks
before.
Behind Panti was a red-faced, puffing Claudia, bearing his sack of dirty
laundry on her head. James held up the rear, oar in hand with a smile as
wide as the Macal River on his handsome face.
We exchanged warm greetings, and Panti marveled at my large kitchen,
with its thatch roof soaring twenty feet above our wood stove. He was used
to small rooms with few windows and imposing darkness.
I led them to the guest room—a rough and rustic, unpainted frame
house with a thatch roof, but they let out squeals of approval as if it were a