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After they departed, I went to the guest hut, where he told me that one<br />
of the men had been involved in a serious crime in San Ignacio, where a<br />
court hearing would be held the following week. He had asked Panti to<br />
enchant the judge and the jury in his favor. I was shocked to know that he<br />
could or would do such a thing, but he explained that the charm only works<br />
if the defendant tells the absolute truth. If he has lied, the charm is broken.<br />
The special prayer for court cases ensures that the defendant is set free after<br />
telling the truth because the judge or the lawyers can’t find a document<br />
crucial to the conviction. Thus the case is dismissed.<br />
Then Panti did something else that surprised me. He brought out the<br />
flour sack he’d carried <strong>with</strong> him from San Antonio and whispered, “This<br />
bag has my money in it. Hide it for me until we leave.”<br />
I carried the bag into the main house wondering where to hide it.<br />
Peeking inside the bag, I saw stacks of neatly piled and rubber-banded bills<br />
in every denomination. I shook my head in amazement and stashed the little<br />
bag on a shelf over our bed.<br />
Distractions aside, I went back to the kitchen hut and helped Claudia<br />
stoke up the wood stove to boil the blue corn. The setting sun signaled that<br />
the start of the Primicia was fast approaching.<br />
Panti tested and retested the boiled corn until he was sure it was the<br />
right tenderness. Claudia had never participated in a Primicia before this<br />
day. Her Guatemalan village had completely converted to Protestant<br />
fundamentalism when she was just a baby in the 1930s.<br />
She and I put the boiled blue corn through a hand mill and reboiled it<br />
<strong>with</strong> water and brown sugar. On the altar, we arranged nine white flowers—<br />
one for each of the Nine <strong>Maya</strong> Spirits—and vases of flowers and bowls of<br />
fruit. Two wooden angels I had brought from Mexico graced either end of<br />
the altar <strong>with</strong> their delicate wings outstretched and their hands folded in<br />
prayer. Four candles were burning under umbrellas, and beneath the altar<br />
were clumps of the sticky, resinous Copal incense smoking on a bed of<br />
coals. Its rich, spicy smoke swirled up and billowed in the damp winds, as a<br />
light drizzle fell.<br />
Panti and I went to search for Tzibche leaves for protecting the<br />
participants. We found them just yards into the jungle on our property. He<br />
marveled at how much medicine we had growing wild behind our huts.<br />
Returning to the altar, we placed photos of loved ones and people <strong>with</strong><br />
health or spiritual problems whom we wanted to be blessed by the <strong>Maya</strong>