1

JAGUAR

MEDICINE

AN

INTRODUCTION

TO MAYAN

HEALING

TRADITIONS

By

Kenneth

Johnson

&

Anita Garr

2

Published by Mystical Jaguar Productions

Momostenango, Guatemala

Copyright 2013 Kenneth Johnson and Anita Garr. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by an information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the publisher

3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments............................................................................. 4

Introduction....................................................................................... 5

PART I. THEORY

1. Body and Soul............................................................................... 9

2. Energies within the Body.............................................................. 19

3. The Call to Healing....................................................................... 28

PART II. PRACTICE

4. Healing with Herbs....................................................................... 42

5. Healing with Touch.................................................................... 75

6. The Sweat Lodge........................................................................ 84

7. Healing with Stones................................................................... 90

8. Healing with Dreams................................................................. 98

9. Healing the Soul........................................................................ 104

Our Sources: A Photo Gallery....................................................... 116

Appendix: The Day Signs of the Calendar.................................... 123

Bibliography.................................................................................. 131

The Authors................................................................................... 133

4

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Clearly, our first and foremost debt of gratitude goes to the healers who spoke with us,

hosted us, and taught us their ways. Listed here in alphabetical order, they are:

Lauro De La Cruz, San Cristobal de las Casas

Rigoberto Itzep Chanchavac, Momostenango

Maria Hernandez Ajanel de Itzep, Momostenango

Victoria Qiej Guix de Itzep, Momostenango

Javier Navarro, San Cristobal de las Casas

Crecencia Pu, Momostenango

Jos Sanic Chanchavac, Guatemala City

We would also like to thank Hector Jimenez and Luly Valdes of Monterrey, Mexico, for

serving as our friends and guides in San Cristobal de las Casas, with a special bow to Hector for

supplying us with his abundant notes on the Tzotzil.

Anita would also like to extend her thanks to the staff of the municipal library of San

Cristobal de las Casas for helping her to find a wealth of material on Tzotzil healing.

And last but not least, muchas gracias to all those who donated to this project, especially

to Wim and Aly Hospes, and to all those who helped us bring this book to completion.

Kenneth Johnson

Anita Garr

June 2013

5

INTRODUCTION

The world we explored while writing this book is a world in transition.

Before the arrival of the Spanish, there were schools that trained potential healers in

accordance with a cosmovision that was common throughout Mesoamerica. The early chronicler

Fray Bernardino Sahagn spoke with elderly Aztecs who had once been trained in these

calmecacs or wisdom schools. For millennia, Maya healers took care of the health of the people,

their energetic as well as their physical health. Archaeologists have even found remains of teeth

with inlays, serving as evidence that a type of dentistry was practiced among the Classic Maya.

When the European invasion took place, the schools of the healing arts were shut down.

Nonetheless, some of this knowledge was preserved and continued to develop. In the

midst of difficult and desperate circumstances, social resistance and survival strategies helped to

ensure the preservation of the ancient healing practices.

Sometimes, in the present day, traditional Maya healers find themselves in the role of

outsiders. The official health agencies often look down upon them and regard them as relics of

ancient superstition. Midwives who are not registered as part of the governments mandated

health system work undercover, as it were, and are often afraid of being found out by the

authorities.

At the same time, there is a groundswell of indigenous pride that exists in many Mayan

communities and which continues to grow stronger over time. People are once again becoming

proud of their culture. In this respect, many of the practices of traditional medicine are assured of

survival. Others are not; we hope that we may have played a role in preserving a few pieces of

knowledge that have not yet come to light among the general public.

According to Doa Crecencia Pu, 1

the administrator of Belejeb E, a Mayan womens

collective of healers which provides essential modern medical supplies to remote villages as well

as actively preserving indigenous healing methods: One goal or purpose of this type of

treatment is to avoid the pharmacy; if you have four different illnesses you might end up going to

four different doctors who prescribe various different medications, all of which are expensive.

Traditional Mayan medicine is very economical.

1 Personal conversation with the authors, January 14, 2013, Momostenango.

6

Indeed, the traditional healer seldom charges a large amount of money. His or her clients

are economically under-advantaged; they are the village Maya living in a Spanish-speaking

world. The traditional healer also considers her or his healing skills to be a gift, whether from the

spirits or from the energies associated with ones day sign, the Mayan Calendar day of ones

birth. And a gift is not a gift unless it is freely given; the healers life is a life of community

service. The healer receives a symbolic honorarium which is often left to the discretion of the

patient in small communities, everyone already knows who you are and how much you can

afford.

Doa Crecencia explains: People who live in towns or urban areas are more likely to go

to a Western doctor. Urbanized Maya have more access to Western medicine. Those who live in

rural areas see such practices as utterly foreign and rely more upon traditional or indigenous

medicine.

Our work was undertaken in two very different communities. San Cristobal de las Casas

in Mexico is a large city with a substantial population of what Doa Crecencia calls the

urbanized Maya. There are also a number of expatriates who frequent San Cristobal, and

therefore it is not unusual to encounter traditional healers who have also been influenced by

contemporary New Age philosophy. One of our sources, Don Lauro de la Cruz of the small

town of San Juan Chamula, near San Cristobal, is an excellent example of this cultural fusion.

His gift for healing manifested very early in his life, but his parents were evangelical Christians

who thought that their sons gifts were tricks of the devil. Consequently, they gave him up to the

citys most well known devil worshipers, the Tibetan Buddhist monks who have a colony in

San Cristobal. Sent to Dharamsala and trained there by Tibetans, Don Lauro is a cross-cultural

blend of different world traditions.

Momostenango, Guatemala, where the larger part of our research was conducted, is a

very different place indeed. It has long been known as a bastion of Mayan traditionalism, a place

where the rituals and ceremonies attendant on the ancient Mayan Calendar are still practiced, and

where indigenous medicine is far more common and available than its Western counterpart.

While some of our Momostecan sources are well traveled individuals, others have rarely been far

away from the Guatemalan highlands. It is not unusual to meet elderly people who speak no

Spanish but only Kiche Maya especially if they are from the villages rather than the town.

Despite the fact that foreigners have a lively interest in Mayan culture, there are many long-time

7

expatriates in Guatemala who have never even heard of Momostenango, despite the fact that its

reputation for preserving the ancient ways is well known among the Maya themselves.

It is the people of Momostenango and San Cristobal who created this book; we simply

made a record of what we witnessed and what we were told. If the book is somewhat lacking in

illustrations, it is because the clients of the healers were terribly shy; to flash a camera in their

faces while they had already been kind enough to allow two gringos to be present as they

received healing would have been the height of rudeness.

To the healers of the Maya world, therefore, we owe a great debt of gratitude. May their

paths continue to survive and to flourish.

8

PART I

THEORY

9

1. BODY AND SOUL

Every human being is a cosmos.

This concept lies at the very center of traditional Mayan healing:

In Mayan thinking, life is the result of the dynamic of all the energies of the cosmos. In

this sense, therefore, life is of the same energy as the cosmos itself, and of all the energy that

exists.2

In Mayan thinking, a persons physical body is identical to the cosmos itself. The

microcosm and the macrocosm are identical. As above, so below.

Since the body is a cosmos, it is a sacred entity. Like the cosmos, it is ensouled. In this

sense, Mayan medical philosophy differs profoundly from that of Western medicine, in which

the body is treated as a thing entirely separate from the soul if, indeed, the existence of the soul

is recognized at all. The Maya also differ from traditions such as Hinduism and Christian

monasticism wherein the physical body is perceived as something vile and disgusting and only

the soul is thought to be valuable and real.

The Mayan outlook on health and wellness bears a closer relationship with that of

traditional Chinese medicine, in which both body and soul are worthy of reverence and respect.

The human being may be a singular entity and an individual, but the individual cannot be

separated from the larger cosmos of which it is a part and with which it shares a fundamental

unity. Don Lauro de la Cruz, a Tzotzil healer from San Juan Chamula, says that this primordial

union of man and the universe is the order of things which was established by the gods

themselves at the moment of creation.

All traditional Mayan healers act within the framework of a cosmovision, a concept of

the universe. In the Mayan universe, there are four essential divisions of time and space. Long

before the arrival of the Spanish, the cross was a common symbol among the Maya to represent

the fourfold Tree of Life which defined their world view and their universe. Life itself is a wheel

comprised of four directions East West, North and South.

2 Sanic Chanchavac, Jose, Medicina Maya (Guatemala City, Consejo Maya Junajpu Ixb'alamke, 2012.), p. 13.

10

This concept of the universe or cosmos as a quaternity is virtually universal and can be

found in mystical systems all over the planet. Carl Jung taught that the human psyche itself is a

fourfold entity.

In Mayan cosmovision, each direction also corresponds to the four colors of corn, which

also celebrate the four races of humankind, and to the four elements: Fire, Earth, Air and Water.3

To the ancient Maya, the fourfold Tree of Life was the center of all things, the artery

between the terrestrial and celestial worldsthe souls of the dead climbed the World Tree into

the world of the gods. The Milky Way, its visible symbol, was sometimes perceived as a road that

the souls of the dead travel to reach the gateway to the Otherworld which lies at the center of the

galaxy, the juncture of Scorpio and Sagittarius.

From the central World Tree emanate the four cardinal directions: East, North, West, and

South. Many are familiar with the significance of the four directions in other indigenous

American traditions, for they form the basis of the Medicine Wheel among the tribes of the Great

Plains. Since this book is fundamentally concerned with the Maya, the scheme given below is

gleaned from Mayan sources.

Don Lauro remarks: The sun travels through the sky every day. The cardinal points are

the sides of the sun: the east is heat that grows; the west is heat that diminishes; it is the death

of a cycle. The entire cycle, which is part of the core concept of four directions, is like this:

East is the direction of sunrise and of the spring. It is a symbol of beginnings, of the

energy that gives birth to action and idea, just as the energy within the greening earth gives birth

to the flowers of spring or the first rays of the rising sun give birth to a new day; red is the color

associated with the eastern direction. When a Mayan shaman works his path, he typically faces

east; thus he is facing his future, in both the spiritual and material sense. Fire is the element of

the eastern direction and its Year Lord in the ancient calendar is Kej (Yucatec: Manik), the day

sign that symbolizes the four pillars of the universe.

West is the direction of sunset, the direction of autumn. In the west, all things come to an

end; creatures die, just as the sun takes its nightly death when it dips below the western horizon,

or as the leaves die and blow away in the fall. But what seems to be the end is, in fact, only one

3 These are, of course, the same four elements familiar to many of us from Greek philosophy and Western astrology.

It seems unlikely that the Maya would have happened upon just these same elements; one would expect quite a

different cosmovision, as we find with the Chinese. Are the four elements adopted from Western civilization? Some

Maya Daykeepers assert that the tradition of the four elements was quite anciently known to them. In any case, if

they were borrowed, they have certainly been a part of Mayan culture for a very long time.

11

stage in an eternal process. The leaves that die in autumn will be reborn in spring. An action

or idea which has its birth in the east may dip below the surface of the symbolic western

horizon and experience an Underworld sojourn, but it will rise again reborn. Hence west is the

direction of transformation. This is the place of the ancestors, of all who have come before us

and who stand behind us to give us their support. Black is its color; earth is its element. In the

Sacred Calendar, its Year Lord is E (Yucatec: Eb), the Road. This is the road that leads from

birth to spiritual transformation, the Road of Life.

Another arm of the directional cross runs from North to South. In Classical times,

north was not just a cardinal direction; it also symbolized the concept of "above," the place of

the sun at zenith. North has the meaning of wisdom, the wisdom we acquire from the ancestors.

Its color is white and its element is air. The day sign which corresponds to the northern direction

and serves as its Year Lord is Noj (Yucatec: Caban), a word which simply means thought in

Kiche. Our ideas and aspirations are here, in the north.

The South is symbolic of the mysterious generative power that comes from beneath the

soil and makes the plants sprout and grow. As north may symbolize above, south may

symbolize below. Its color is yellow, the color of the growing corn. Its element is water. In

the south is the generative power that gives life to all things. It is the direction of abundance. In

the Sacred Calendar, its corresponding Year Lord is Iq (Yucatec: Ik), the wind or divine breath.

Where do human beings fit into this cosmic scheme of the four directions?

In the tradition of the Tzotzil Maya who live in the vicinity of San Cristobal de las Casas,

Mexico, the soul is called the chulel. Don Lauro de la Cruz says that the chulel is in the heart

and blood of the human being and is given to us by the ancestral gods; and yet the chulel is not

exactly equivalent to the heart, for the chulel travels around the body through the blood, because

it is from the heart that the blood is circulated to all parts of the body.

There are any number of spiritual qualities or entities which surround the soul like the

layers of an onion Don Lauro asserts that there are thirteen layers, matching one of the most

important foundational numbers of the ancient Mayan Calendar. These overlapping layers may

be correlated with what we call personal environment or even character. All the so-called

spirits or layers of the soul must be in harmony with all of the four pillars or cardinal directions

in order for true health or wellness to be present. To be in harmony means to be in a state of

balance between the four directions; to be in balance is to be at the center of all things. This

12

harmony must exist on both spiritual and physical levels; thus Don Lauro says that we, as human

beings, must be at the center of the four directions in our own symbolic house or, to use his

own phrase, our milpa, a Spanish word which signifies cornfield as well as at the center of

our multiplicity of souls. A true human being (winak) is integral to the milpa, the sun, the stars

and the universe as well as to her or his own body.

The cosmic space inhabited by the human being is not static; it is constantly in motion.

Don Lauro asserts that this mystical rhythm is based upon the number twenty. Thus the human

being, with her or his ten fingers and ten toes equaling twenty, participates in the flow of the

universal rhythm embodied in the twenty day signs of the Sacred Calendar.

Because the Mayan cosmos is comprised of four directions, as in a Medicine Wheel, the

human being, a miniature cosmos, is structured in precisely the same way. And because there is

no clearly defined boundary between body and spirit, both the human being and the cosmos can

be represented by the same diagram, as shown by Don Lauro:

In Don Lauros diagram, the yin or feminine polarity of the universe is represented by a

circle; the masculine or yang polarity by a square. Here we see the center of all things depicted

by the circle, the symbol of the Divine Feminine, with the four directions emanating out from it

just as the four basic aspects of human consciousness emanate from the center of the World Tree

which is also the center of our being. If this reminds you of the suns orbs with four rays shining

13

forth in all directions, youre right the symbolism is not by any means accidental. Another

circle symbolizes the entirety of the cosmos.

While the masculine element or square is implied rather than depicted, Don Lauro insists

that we may add it to the basic diagram to create a more complete picture of Tzotzil cosmology:

The square represents the four pillars, the boundaries of time, space, consciousness and

the physical body which enclose the totality of being. As we have already mentioned, all the so-

called spirits or layers of the soul must be in harmony with the four pillars in order for true

health or wellness to be present. To be in harmony means to be in a state of balance with the four

pillars of the universe as well as the pillars of the human being.

How, then, do we achieve a state of true, authentic health or wellness? Here again, the

Mayan cosmovision differs from both Western and some Eastern models, though it often

corresponds closely with Chinese Taoist thinking. In the West, our health is a matter for the

individual. If we eat the right food, exercise regularly, and thus maintain our personal physical

health, we are regarded as healthy. Our relationship with other people and the cosmos is not

taken into account.

In many traditions that originate in India, one maintains health through fasting, yoga,

and meditation upon the identity between the self and the divine. Withdrawal from the outer

14

world and its problems is encouraged. But in Mayan thinking, we are not separate from the world

around us or the people in it. We cannot reach that state of balance which exemplifies true health

and wellness by ignoring the world or withdrawing from its concerns. Instead, we must sustain a

harmonious relationship with our total environment. In this sense the Mayan conception of health

differs from that of both India and the West.

Jos Sanic Chanchavac, an academic and a writer on Mayan medical traditions,

recognizes three aspects of authentic health and well-being.4

One aspect of well-being is good function of the body, good functioning of the physical

organism; you have no restrictions or limitations in terms of your job, your physicality, working

in the cornfields and so on.

The second aspect is good relationships with others in terms of developing respect, good

communication, good habits with others, and observing certain norms of communal behavior.

The third aspect is related to spirituality, a good relationship with Ajaw,5 a good

relationship with the cosmos, with nature, developing the values that strengthen our relationship

with nature, with the cosmos, the four elements, animals, plants, the different aspects of nature

that make up God.

To achieve these aspects of well being, he names five key factors which must be in

harmony:6

Our Mother the Earth (Kiche: Qanan Ulew), the physical world of nature its

valleys, rivers, oceans, clouds and breezes. We live upon the earth, and we fail to achieve true

health (balance) if we are out of harmony with it.

Our Ancestors (Kiche: Nan-Tat Kaminaqib), a concept which is interpreted quite

literally in traditional Mayan communities but which may also be taken in a modern

psychological sense as meaning our family system, the inheritance we bring with us into this life

from all of those who have come before us and contributed to the individual who is you.

4 Conversation with the authors, January 12, 2013, Momostenango.

5 Spelled as Ahau in Yucatec; this is the ancient, pre-Christian Maya term for the divine being.

6 Sanic Chanchavac, Medicina Maya., pp. 13-4.

15

Sanic Chanchavac says: 7

For us the ancestral component is something natural, logical,

and obvious as human beings that we remember past generations. We have the ability to

remember past generations and all the things that they have left to us. We accept this. The

ancestors lived in this world and had a physical presence in this world. They lived a life, they had

their sufferings and their joys and their problems. They had a physical existence. This is real. But

the Maya believe that there is an energy which emanates from the past and which continues to

exist now, an energy which is real and which persists. A person dies, and then there is a burial

and a set of ceremonies. On the next Ajpu day,8 we may do another set of ceremonies for this

person. This second set of ceremonies is done for the purpose of placing this person among the

ancestors, placing him among those who have already passed on and are in another life. We

believe in their existence. And we must live in harmony with them in order to maintain well

being, because being in harmony with them is one of the things that generates well-being. We

must take into account all the generations to achieve harmony and well-being.

We are now speaking of faith and spirituality because we believe that dead generations

have a relationship with those of us who are alive now. So we must maintain this relationship,

this harmony with them. We believe this energy is real. This implies that if we dont have a

relationship with them or if we abandon them, this has an effect.

Our Community (Kiche) Ajil-Tzaqat), meaning our neighbors and those with whom

we live in proximity. In this sense, the tradition of monastic withdrawal which exists in so many

religious traditions would not be considered holy in Mayan thinking; it would be considered

anti-social. We are all part of one community or another. Honor it. Work with it.

Grandmother Moon (Kiche: Qatit Ik). To be in harmony with Grandmother Moon

is a metaphorical way of saying that we must be in harmony with the waxing and waning phases

of nature and the cosmos of which we are a part.

7 Conversation with the authors, op. cit.

8 One of the day signs of the Mayan Calendar. See Appendix.

16

What does it mean to be in harmony with Grandmother Moon? Jos Sanic Chanchavac

says:9 We believe that a complete energy exists. We believe that different aspects of our lives

need to be in harmony with the cosmos. But we start with the belief in an invisible energy that

we can neither see nor perceive, although we have faith and belief in it. We can demonstrate the

existence of this energy by observing the functioning of the Moon, the phases of the Moon,

because our organism functions differently with each phase of the Moon. Thus we seek harmony

with these energies of nature.

The Nawales. This word may be familiar to readers of Carlos Castanaeda and other

writers on contemporary Toltec philosophy under its Nahuatl spelling of nagual; but the Kiche

Maya use the term differently. To them, the nawales are the spirits who govern the various day

signs of the ancient Mayan Calendar, still widely used by traditional Maya in many parts of

Guatemala especially in Momostenango, which was the main focus of our research for this

book. To be in harmony with ones nawal or day of birth in the Mayan Calendar is another way

of saying that we must be in harmony with the rhythms of sacred time. While ordinary time is

embodied in the phases of the waxing and waning of Grandmother Moon as well as in the cycles

of the seasons, there is a rhythm of cosmic or sacred time as well, and this is embodied in the

260-day chol qij, the ancient Sacred Calendar of the Maya. This ritual calendar is both

academically and popularly called by its Yucatec form, tzolkin , though the 260-day almanac is

no longer used in the Yucatn; in fact we dont know what the Yucatec Maya themselves may

have called it. The term chol qij is the one used by the contemporary Kiche.10

Sanic Chanchavac explains:11

Your personal nawal is the day sign upon which you were

born, your archetypal or mythic template. We should know it, study it, accept it, maintain it, and

feed it. There is a Kiche expression, katzuqik ri nawal, which means feeding the nawal. One

feeds and maintains the nawal by doing certain rites and ceremonies. It is important to accept

your nawal and in the process of doing sacred ceremonies and feeding your nawal you are also

observing and keeping the days of the Sacred Calendar.

9 Conversation with the authors, op. cit.

10

A brief introduction to the Mayan day signs can be found in the Appendix.

11

Ibid.

17

Mayan medicine recognizes cosmic or energetic causes of ill health that enter into

peoples bodies and cause illnesses that can be healed by those who know all the philosophical or

cosmic principles. The example of a persons nawal or day sign is an illustration of such

energetic or cosmic causes. If one does not actualize or exemplify ones archetype, if one does

not take on the power of ones uwach ukij (literally: the face of your day), if one does not

make use of ones potentialities and the capacities of the nawal granted to us at birth, it can be a

cosmic or energetic factor in illness.

The uwach ukij or nawal of ones birth places an individual within the context of a

certain type of service to ones community. But for various reasons sometimes including the

imposition of other, non-Maya cultural patterns many people do not understand the

potentialities connected with their nawal; or perhaps they simply do not want to recognize or

accept them. If so, the person may have to undergo a crisis, become ill, generally with a problem

which resists treatment by ordinary Western medicine. The person may also have to confront

failures, problems, blows, and losses.

Until the person assumes a commitment to serve his or her nawal, he or she will not be

healed. It is known and believed that everyone is destined from their day of birth for a specific

task. To not accept ones task in society is to not accept oneself.

Each nawal fulfills a specific function for personal and collective life and empowers

people of both sexes who make a commitment to safeguard balance and harmony in a person and

in society. The nawales may endow us with either significant gifts or significant problems. If

nawales contribute to health, they may also serve as causes of imbalance.

Here is an example given by Don Jos.12

One of the day signs or nawales is Ajpu

(Yucatec: Ahau), which is the day sign of the ancestors. This nawal may frequently bring ancient

family issues into a problematical prominence in our own lives. This often happens if one of the

parents is born upon the day Ajpu and therefore has a burden of family karma. Even if such a

person marries again, the problem will recur. With adequate intervention in time, the healers or

Maya priests may regulate such a family situation.

And just as every nawal has qualities which may place it out of balance, so does each one

have its special road to healing. In the example we have mentioned, the nawal Ajpu may be said

to be out of balance if a person born upon that day frequently leaves or doesnt attend to

12

Sanic Chanchavac, Medicina Maya, p. 28.

18

ceremonies at altars, whether household or otherwise the ceremonial places that the ancestors

have left behind. The nawal Ajpu may be said to be in balance if the native of that day sign

shows concern, respect and care for the sacred places of the ancestors.

These many factors all play a role in the Mayan definition of complete well-being. How,

then, can we achieve a state of balance with all these aspects of life which make up the totality of

our environment?

That is the goal of all traditional Mayan healing.

19

2. ENERGIES WITHIN THE BODY

Hot and Cold

In Mayan thought, there is a fundamental polarity which informs the universe and which

many have compared to the Chinese concept of yin and yang.

The Maya perceive the universe as an energetic whole made up of two opposing but

complementary polarities. Some writers describe this as dualism, but that is an incorrect term.

Dualism implies an absolute and irreconcilable difference between two forces such as good

and evil or God and the Devil. The Mayan pairs of opposites are more accurately an example

of polarities, meaning that the two cosmic forces are opposing expressions of a single unified

force. They mirror each other like opposites, but they are ultimately of the same essence.

Don Rigoberto Itzep Chanchavac, a traditional Daykeeper and teacher from

Momostenango, gives the following examples, first citing the masculine or yang

manifestation of the polarity, then its opposite feminine or yin principle:

Summer/Winter Health/Sickness Laughter/Weeping

Hot/Cold Birth/Death Capability/Slowness

Light/Darkness Joy/Suffering Gain/Loss

In a sense, the ritual ball game which was of vital importance all over Mesoamerica was a

symbolic combat between these two opposing principles of the universe, of the cosmos.

The concept of cosmic polarities may even be applied to the human soul. Though the soul

is a unity, it is a unity which encompasses the fundamental division of masculine and feminine.

Conceptions of the soul vary somewhat between different Mayan groups, though they all have

some ideas in common. Let us take a look at ideas about the human soul among the Kiche. The

Kiche Maya know the feminine polarity of the soul as uxlab. The Spanish word anima is often

used to describe this aspect of soul, since it is identical to what Catholic Christians perceive as

the soul. It is vested in the body and in breathing. It remains within the body until the moment of

our death.

20

The second or masculine aspect of the soul, the nawal, is quite different. As we have seen

in the previous chapter, this aspect of the soul is called uwach ukij in the Kiche language,

which literally means the face of his or her day. This is the energy template or imprint of the

day in the ancient Mayan Calendar upon which we are born. Our day sign soul is our nawal, our

spiritual essence, our archetypal imprint. And this is the soul which dreams. The anima may be

vested within the human body, but the nawal is not. It can roam freely through the astral world

while we are asleep; in that realm, it encounters many adventures (see Chapter 8).13

Since each human body is a cosmos, it must include these two universal polarities. The

primary way in which the cosmic polarities manifest within the body is through conditions or

states of being that are either hot (yang) or cold (yin). The ideal, of course, is to live in a

state of balance between the two, though in a certain way the human body itself is linked

primarily with one side of the polarity in the sense that it is essentially warm rather than cold;

most illnesses in the Mayan concept of disease are caused by an excess of cold rather than an

excess of heat.14

Therefore, we may say that the natural condition of the human body is primarily

one of balance between the two polarities but with a slight emphasis on warmth. Just as the

masculine polarity of yang originally referred in the Chinese language to the sunny side of the

mountain and the feminine yin to the northern or shady side of the mountain, so Don Lauro

asserts that men are slightly warmer by nature than women.

The daily verities of life in general may also be classified as hot or cold. In order to keep

our hot and cold elements in a state of balance, certain behaviors and eating habits are

encouraged, while others are considered a cause of imbalance.

For example, in our culture we might consider it refreshing to have a cold drink after

working or exercising in the hot sun. But in Mayan thinking, one ought not to switch too quickly

between one extreme and the other. When one is overheated, it is easier for cold conditions or

cold winds to attack the body. Therefore, Yucatec healers insist that the drinking of extremely

cold drinks or the eating of cold foods such as limes ought to be avoided; instead, more

13

Tedlock, Barbara, Zuni and Quiche Dream Sharing and Interpreting, in Dreaming: Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations, ed. Barbara Tedlock (Santa Fe, NM School of American Research Press, 1992), pp.

105-131.

14

Garcia, Hernn, Antonio Sierra and Gilberto Balm , Wind in the Blood: Mayan Healing and Chinese Medicine,

trans. Jeff Conant (Berkeley, North Atlantic Books, 1999), p. 4.

21

balanced or neutral foods should be taken. While we might think nothing of mixing hot food

with cold drinks, the Maya warn their children against the intake of these two extremes at one

and the same time. One should be careful when going outdoors immediately after a warming

massage or bath; if a cold wind is blowing, the contrast between the two polarities can create an

imbalance. Since menstruation is also considered to be a warm condition, women should avoid

sudden exposure to cold conditions at that time.15

Pregnancy is likewise a warm condition, and

cold foods should not be taken during pregnancy. Drunkenness and exhaustion, too, are regarded

as warm. Becoming too hot is avoided because it opens ones energetic system to the

opposite effect the acquisition of cold conditions or diseases.

People with a warmer constitution are stronger and more suited to hard work. Women

with cold hands or cold blood arent as good at cooking as the warmer women. A man with

cold hands is at a similar disadvantage: since all foods cooked by the h-menob or shamans for

agricultural rituals in the traditional Yucatec earth oven were regarded as sacramentally cold, a

man with cold hands or cold blood ought not to participate in the preparation of such foods it

adds too much cold.

People with a predominance of hot will be attracted to others who are the same; people

with a predominance of cold will have a similar attraction. People should marry someone else

who is of the same constitution mixing hot with cold does not create a balance.16 Instead,

mixed marriages are detrimental to the health of one or both partners and may become a cause

of family disruption and illness.17

A few examples may help to make these distinctions of hot and cold more clear. Bile or

biliousness (bilis) is a condition brought on by too many strong emotions, especially anger, and

therefore it is a hot condition. Cold remedies are required to heal it. One may recognize the

presence of bilis if nerves and irritability continue to plague an individual long after the event

which caused the upset. This leads to stomach problems, which in turn produce more anxiety,

15

Garcia et al., op. cit., pp. 42-3.

16

Kunow, Marianna Appel. Maya Medicine: Traditional Healing in Yucatan (Albuquerque, University of New

Mexico Press, 2003), pp. 63-4.

17

Redfield, Robert, and Alfonso Villa Rojas, Chan Kom: A Maya Village (Chicago, University of Chicago, 1962),

p. 163.

22

and the whole thing becomes a vicious circle. In the Yucatn, bilis is often treated with orange

juice, preferably taken before breakfast and often heated, with water and salt added to it.18

On the other hand, pasmo is a cold condition. Its literal meaning is a chill, but it can

manifest itself in a number of ways, including tetanus, convulsions, a twitching of the eyes, and

female infertility. It affects adults more readily than children. One ought not to mix hot and cold

elements in too radical a fashion, such as, for example, drinking an ice cold drink after working

profusely in the hot sun; pasmo may develop. In similar fashion, one ought not to eat too many

cold foods, as this too will be likely to induce pasmo, or at least a malaise, a weakness

characterized by anemia or loss of appetite. Since women are by nature colder than men, they

are much more likely to be afflicted with pasmo.19

All foods are either hot or cold. Hot foods include honey, coffee, and beef, with honey

commonly considered among the Yucatec Maya to be the hottest of all. Wild turkey, rice, boiled

eggs, papaya, limes, pork, squash, and deer are all cold foods; in the Yucatn limes are the

essence of cold, just as honey is the essence of hot though the authors have noted that the

classification is somewhat different among the Kiche Maya, with limes being regarded as only

slightly cold. Therefore, limes are very effective in reducing fever (especially according to

Yucatec healers). A healthy person may eat either hot or cold foods, so long as their diet remains

in balance and does not run to excess.20

Then, of course, there are foods which are equally hot and cold and therefore in a state of

balance, for example oranges, sweet potatoes, pineapple, tomatoes, sugar, beans, atole,

chocolate, and tortillas.

We can alter the nature of foods through our own conscious actions: If you add epazote,

marjoram or garlic all of which are hot spices to cold foods, they become neutral or

balanced.21

A person with a fever a hot condition should never eat hot things, but should rely

on cold or balanced foods. In much the same way, a person with a chill, or a woman weakened

18

Kunow, op. cit., p. 64.

19

Ibid., p. 65.

20

Redfield and Villa Rojas, op. cit., pp. 161-2.

21

Ibid., p. 161.

23

by recent childbirth, should eat only warm or neutral foods. The process of digestion is perceived

as a kind of cooking. Cold foods require more cooking to bring them into harmony with the

basic human condition of warmth; hence they should be eaten in the morning, so that they have

an opportunity to cook all day.

Since a cold remedy must be employed in cases of too much heat, it stands to reason

that herbs, like foods and diseases, must be categorized according to their hot and cold

properties.

HOT BALANCED COLD

Chamomile

Dill

Eucalyptus

Fennel

Fenugreek

Garlic

Holm Oak (Encino)

Marijuana

Mugwort

Pine (all kinds)

Red Sage

Rosemary

Rue

Shepherds Purse

Wormseed

Wormwood

Alder

Aloe

Avocado

Basil

Dandelion

Elderberry

Guava

Lemons and Limes

Marigold

Orange

Roses

St. Johns Wort (Pericone)

Boldo

Cancerina

Flax Seed

Anthropologist Marianna Kunow notes that she was able to elicit very little information

from Yucatec healers regarding the classification of herbs as hot or cold.22 We were more

fortunate; Doa Victoria Qiej, one of our principal Kiche sources, gave us the list shown here

of hot and cold plants. To this we have added, in Chapter 4, more information on hot and

cold remedies from sources published by the Institute for Traditional Mayan Medicine in San

Cristobal de las Casas (see bibliography). It will be seen that most healing herbs are categorized

as warming. This is in line with the essential concept of Mayan healing that physical illnesses

more often arise from too much cold rather than too much heat.

22

Kunow, op. cit.,p. 63.

24

If hot carries many positive connotations in terms of healing, it may carry quite

different connotations in terms of agriculture. In Yucatn the earth itself was sometimes said to

be either hot or cold. It used to be said that hot lands were those that dry out quickly after

the rain or those from which mists rise at night. Cold lands remain moist. On hot lands, trees

grow quickly, but they are also much more likely to wither and die quickly. On colder lands,

trees grow slowly but well. Plants that grow near cenotes are cold. In fact, most plants that are

green, grow near rivers, lakes and streams, and hold a great deal of water are likewise said to be

cold.

Just as a fever represents an imbalance or surfeit of heat in the body and is to be cured

with cold herbs, so a drought is regarded as a fever upon the body of the land; the

ceremonial foods once used in the Yucatn for agricultural ceremonies were all cold by

definition; they were a medicine against drought.23

The Winds

The concept of the winds is a rather complex one; different Mayan societies have

different attitudes about them. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that in ancient times it

was believed that human beings were possessed of an inner wind or breath that was, in fact,

the spiritual essence of their human vitality; the Hindu concept of prana appears to be quite

similar. Perhaps the best example of this is a reference to one of the kings of Yaxchilan; the

hieroglyphic inscription reads: His white wind became withered. The term white can also

mean spiritual, and wind also signifies breath. Therefore the inscription might be read as:

His spiritual breath became withered. This is simply a poetic way of saying that the king died;

the vital essence contained in his spiritual breath or inner wind diminished until it was

gone.24

For the most part, however, the idea of the winds in contemporary Mayan thinking is as

a cause of illness, of disease. There are winds that circulate like vital energetic forces within the

body and, if allowed to blow too freely, cause the kind of imbalance that leads to illness. There

are also the physical winds that blow through our environment; the Maya perceive some of these

23

Redfield and Villa Rojas, op. cit., p. 130.

24

Kettunen, Harri, and Christopher Helmke, Introduction to Mayan Hieroglyphs (Leiden, Wayeb & Leiden

University, 2005), pp. 13, 15.

25

winds as distinct entities of harmful spirits; in the Yucatn, some of these winds even have their

own names and characteristics. In general, villagers avoid being out in the wind if at all possible.

The Lightning in the Blood

A few words ought to be said regarding yet another energy within the human body. While

we have no knowledge of how widely known this energy may be among the speakers of various

other Mayan languages, it is a well known concept among the Kiche and usually called koyopa

in that language. In common speech, koyopa refers to sheet lightning of the type which flickers

above mountains and lakes. But this phenomenon of the natural world has its correspondence

within the human body; koyopa can also mean the body lightning or the lightning in the

blood. Spiritual seekers who have spent time among the Maya have drawn attention to the close

correspondence between the Mayan concept of koyopa and the Sanskrit kundalini. Both are

connected with serpent imagery. Yogic texts describe the kundalini as the serpent power. Bolts

of lightning are envisioned by the Maya as sky serpents.

The existence of a powerful bio-psychological energy within the human body has been

postulated by many civilizations; the Sanskrit kundalini is simply the best known example. The

kundalini is in essence a goddess just as much as it is a form of energy. It travels through

different energetic centers in the body, known as chakras, and can be manipulated through

meditation and spiritual practice. The feminine power known to Kabbalists as the Shekinah,

which also dwells in centers within the body, is an analogous concept.

The koyopa is an energy upon which shamans draw for some important rituals,

especially the divination ritual in which the day signs of the chol qij are represented by groups

of seeds from the sacred tzite tree. A shamans hand may literally shake with the power of the

koyopa as he holds it over the divining seeds. Sometimes the koyopa awakens as a pulsing in

ones leg or some other limb.

26

The koyopa, like the kundalini, is essentially feminine because it is associated with the

thirteen numbers of the chol qij or 260-day calendar, which are regarded as the wives of the

twenty day signs. Koyopa collects in reservoirs (Don Rigobertos term) which correspond to

the thirteen major joints of the human body, which thus form a Mayan analogy to the chakras. It

is from one of these thirteen points that the pulsing and hand-trembling will have their origin.

Since the koyopa dwells within the body, it is connected with the feminine, bodily soul or uxlab.

Here, then, we see a deeper esoteric significance at work. The day signs are a masculine

energy that represent the immortal soul or nawal, while the numbers are a feminine energy that

represent the indwelling power of the bodily soul and its koyopa.

Some people are born with the koyopa or lightning soul fully activated; other people either

develop it or have it awakened through powerful spiritual experiences. Some people never

experience it at all. But those whose koyopa is awakened dream differently than other people;

they have a greater capacity to experience archetypal or shamanic dreams.

Other people may experience an awakening of the koyopa due to unusual spiritual

experiences or because of formal shamanic training. If the koyopa is awake, the gods themselves

27

may contact us directly through our dreams, using the koyopa energy as a communicative medium

between their world and ours.

Don Rigoberto Itzep Chanchavac explains:25

In our cosmovision, the koyopa is a mode of

communication. In certain parts of the body it may give us messages, but it is different for

different people in each part of the body. When people develop their abilities and spiritual

powers, they receive messages and communications through the koyopa energy, and thus they are

transforming energy into communication.

A spiritual guide perceives the messages through the movements of energy in his or her

body like magnetic waves. This varies from body to body and is very individual. There are many

spiritual guides who understand these contacts and movements of energy; they use these energies

or manage them with great skill. Those who understand the signals know that there are messages

that represent past, present and future. There are other guides who have many energy movements

in the body but dont understand the messages. There are also some Maya people who have the

connection but are not spiritual guides.

We use the term koyopa (lightning); it hits you in a certain place as if you were struck by

lightning. There are three types. One goes up and down; another feels like being punched.

Another type feels as if it were pushing up and coming forth from the body.

The koyopa and dreams are both systems for diagnosing illness. In the case of dreams as

diagnosis, both the dreams of the guide and the dreams of the patient are taken into account. The

guide interprets the patients problem through dreams. These are two means of resolving the

patients problems.

25

Personal conversation with the authors, January 12, 2013, Momostenango.

28

3. THE CALL TO HEALING

There are several ways in which a person may receive the call to healing. Some are

peaceful and natural; others are intense and traumatic.

Don Jos Sanic Chanchavac explains:26

People receive the call to healing through some

manifestation of their life or existence. They start out not knowing or studying. But when

members of their community approach them and ask them for help with a problem or to cure an

illness, and then they try to help those who approach them and are successful, they begin to

understand that this is their destiny though they might already suspect as much in accordance

with their nawal or Mayan Calendar birth sign.

Life has called upon them to heal people and to liberate people from problems or

suffering. When they try to help, they see results. So they discover, little by little, that they have

the power and that it is their vocation to be a healer. They discover this on their own and through

their life experiences. A healers reputation is acquired mostly by word of mouth. They may get

patients in their own villages if someone has been successfully treated and healed by them.

Sometimes a person may help a co-worker who spreads the word to others. This process take

place more easily in villages or towns as opposed to large urban centers. The neighbor talks to

other people and tells everyone that so-and-so treated her and made her better. Therefore

someone with a similar problem will go there too; consequently it is a process that unfolds

automatically. It is simply destiny.

The potential healer may also undergo a process of self discovery. One may have dream

messages indicating that one is destined to be a healer. But it happens mainly through the

persons relationships with others and the type of comments and feedback that come from other

people in the community.

It starts with people who are well known, such as neighbors. The person with potential

manifests a certain energy; sometimes he or she or people close to them will simply know they

have this potential because of their nawal.

26

Personal conversation, op. cit.

29

The day upon which one is born may mark one as a potential healer; indeed, it may also

point toward a specific healing specialty.27

Jos Sanic Chanchavac writes28

that the day sign

most powerfully associated with traditional healing is Tijax (Yucatec: Etznab). The day Tijax

represents a double-edged obsidian blade. Two different types of individuals may wield the

knife; the warrior and the healer. Thus one of Tijaxs functions is medicine. It is the nawal of

Mayan medicine; healing is not possible without the decided intervention and help of the spirit of

the day sign Tijax. Tijax corrects imbalanced or negative energies that affect human health.

Day signs, like everything else in Mayan culture, may be either in or out of balance, and

when Tijax is out of balance it represents a state of psychic, physical, moral and social pain.

Thus it is said that, in its negative manifestation, Tijax shapes individuals who are quarrelsome,

angry, perhaps often in trouble or even in jail for fighting. But ultimately, in its positive

manifestation, Tijax is meant to correct bad actions, injustices that cause pain, problems and

suffering.

Those born on this day bring with them, from birth, a responsibility that they are

supposed to fulfill in terms of healing sick people or those in a state of suffering, trouble, and

pain, whether moral, physical or psychic. When someone born on a Tijax day is not guided and

educated about the healing destiny which marks the natives of that day sign, the person can

suffer all kinds of pain until she or he recognizes the necessity to take the healers path.

As well as representing the born-to-it healer, Tijax is also a day upon which important

healing rituals may be performed. On this day one invokes and supplicates the nawal or ruling

spirit of Tijax for good individual and collective health. On this day difficult illnesses are cured,

especially those that are hard to treat because they arise from not having observed the norms of

respectable behavior called awas, a word that can signify both the harmonious outlook toward all

the things we have mentioned (such as Mother Earth, Grandmother Moon, ancestors and

neighbors) as well as the behaviors which may place us out of harmony with all these things.

There are other nawales that contribute to the over-all, holistic nature of communal and

personal health and wellness. For example, the day Batz (Yucatec: Chuen) is useful for the

solution of marital problems. The nawales E (Yucatec: Eb) and Noj (Yucatec: Caban) signify

27

Those who are unfamiliar with the day signs of the traditional Mayan Calendar should consult the Appendix of the

present volume for a brief survey of the symbolism and meanings associated with the day signs.

28

Sanic Chanchavac, Medicina Maya, p. 18.

30

indigenous Maya priests who give spiritual guidance to the community; and it is part of

community collective healing to seek such advice upon those days.29

Most sources name the day sign Kawoq (Yucatec: Cauac) as a day with special energy

for female healers, especially midwives and herbalists. But Doa Victoria Qiej,30

a celebrated

healer or curandera of Momostenango, gives more subtle subdivisions of the healers art: she

states that Tijax is for male healers, Kej (Yucatec: Manik) for midwives, and Qanil (Yucatec:

Lamat) for herbalists. The nawal Kan (Yucatec: Chicchan) represents indigenous Maya leaders

who are charged with looking after community well being and social justice, the peace of a

harmonious town. While Victoria links Kej with midwives, Sanic Chanchavac asserts that this

day sign does double duty as yet another representative of those who watch over the peace and

harmony of the village or the town.

Of the seven Yucatec healers extensively interviewed by Marianna Appel Kunow, four

were taught by older and more experienced healers, while three were taught primarily by spirits

who came to them in dreams.31

The dream teachers were always of the same sex as the dreamer,

and were always elderly people dressed in archaic clothing, as if they had lived a hundred years

ago or more. In every case, the dream teacher visited the apprentice on a regular basis,

sometimes even every night over a period of two or three years.

The apprentice healers were instructed by their dream teachers in very specific matters

which herbs to use to cure certain diseases, where such herbs could be found, the proper chants

and ritual gestures for particular ceremonies, and so on. All the healers asserted that the right

herbs were generally to be found growing in the exact locations indicated by their dream

teachers.

One of the most important tools for Yucatec healers is the sastn or seeing stone,

which is often but by no means always a quartz crystal. The healers reported that they had

been guided to their sastns by their dream teachers and that they always found the right stone

just where the dream teacher indicated it would be, even if it were embedded in the fork of a tree.

29

Ibid., p . 20.

30

Personal conversation with the authors, January 2013.

31

Kunow, pp. 35-9.

31

Such dream teachers are often linked in Yucatec folklore with nature spirits known as

balams. These spirits, like the dream teachers of the healers, are perceived as little old men

with white hair,32

dressed in the garb of people from long ago. Sometimes called guardian

spirits, the balams are also known as Jaguar Lords, and indeed, the word balam can

commonly mean jaguar in Yucatec Maya. These spirits are sometimes helpful, as when they

give instruction in dreams, but they also have a dark side, and some villagers believe that they

steal children and replace them with changelings who are crippled or mentally deficient.

Wounded Healers

Another way in which people are commonly called to healing is through an illness. It is

believed that many of those who suffer from intense or unusual illnesses have become afflicted

because they themselves are meant to heal; and their first duty on the healing path is to heal

themselves.

Thomas Hart records the following story33

from the Mam people of the Cuchumatanes

Mountains:

She had fallen ill with cramps, and she had these cramps in her hands, her

feet, her stomach, with the result that she could only get about doubled up, and

she couldnt very well stretch herself. Thats how she was until she began to practice; she [previously] had some

knowledge of medicine, but women would come to her, and ask if she had time to

go to their homes and do cures, but she would refuse and say to them, No, I dont

have the time, or I cant do much. So she suffered a great deal, she fell ill. So then she got to thinking, Why do I have this illness? Where does it

come from? So, without having a consultation about her gift, that is, without

consulting any [Mayan] Priest, she got to thinking, Well, I suppose Ill do it, Ill accept it, Im going to have to start curing.

So people came, and they called for her and asked, Can you cure this for

me? Ah, fine. So she dedicated herself to curing. And little by little, her

illness went; it left her.

32

Kunow, ibid., points out that the balams are never recorded as being female, though the female healer she

interviewed who learned from a dream teacher asserted that her teacher was a little old woman, likewise dressed in archaic garb.

33

Hart, Thomas, The Ancient Spirituality of the Modern Maya (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press,

2008), p. 127.

32

Barbara Tedlock34

supplies some information on specific types of illnesses which are said

to indicate that the sufferer ought to become a healer:

Snake illness, which is characterized by sudden, painful cramps in the arms,

legs, torso, wrists, elbows, ankles, knees and neck.

Before the horse, characterized by extreme muscle cramps, especially in the

arms and legs.

Twisted stomach, the symptoms of which are a churning of the stomach and/or

intestines.

Dislocated bone, suffered by people who are constantly falling down and

hurting themselves.

Inebriation, which is just what it sounds like. The rationale seems to be that

those who drink to excess clearly want to live in the Otherworld rather than this

one, but they are simply going about it in the wrong way.

Loses his money, in which the sufferer is the constant victim of shysters, con

artists, and bandits.

But of all the tales of wounded healers that abound in the literature, the most

extraordinary story we have heard is one that we recorded ourselves in Momostenango on

January 14, 2013.

My story was very sad. I suffered much in the process of discovering my gift for healing.

Much poverty, much suffering, many problems. In the process of all this hardship and suffering I

discovered that I had a gift.

I lived in much poverty and had many problems in my life. There were problems with my

husband. All my sons died. My husband suffered much. He had many failures in his life; he also

had an accident. He was left sick after that.

I suffered for twenty-five years. Poverty, death, much suffering.

For three years I was very sick. I had two years of hemorrhaging because of all the

suffering I had. I even became blind. My feet and my stomach were swollen. My hands shrank.

All my hair fell out. I could not get out of bed. I could only crawl upon the ground.

34

Tedlock, Barbara, Time and the Highland Maya (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1982), pp. 54-8.

33

I consulted different aj qijab [daykeepers] and asked why is this happening to me. Why?

Why am I suffering? The aj qijab told me that I was a Maya priestess and a curandera, a

midwife, and that was the reason I was suffering, because I was destined to become these things.

When we succeeded in investigating the situation, the nawales [spirits of the day signs of the

calendar] wanted me to be their lawyer or advocate.

Once I succeeded in discovering the truth and the reason for all my suffering, I began

learning and working toward my vara sagrada [sacred bundle]. Once I received my mesa35 and

my vara sagrada, I became well. I recovered by receiving my gift from El Ajaw [ancient (and

non-Christian) Mayan term for the divine power]. Now I have no illnesses. No nothing. I got

healthy once I started working as a spiritual guide.

I began to do ceremony and helping our people, our sick people. I started helping people

who were in jail and businessmen as well. I healed children, young people, and men, all with

natural medicine. I healed the children and the women with massage and washes and plants.

I give people medicine, I do massage, I do ceremonies for people. I am a Maya doctor of

natural medicine. My work is to be an aj qij and a curandera, a midwife and a huesera [bone-

setter], as well as a promotora, an educator in natural medicines and alternative healing. I also

have training in Western nursing, but most of my training is in natural medicine and the use of

medicinal plants. I make capsules, salves, tinctures, and I also make natural shampoos and

soaps from the medicinal plants themselves.

I can transform plants into medicines. How does this transformation take place and

what is the history of the plant? One must know how one sows the plant and how one cuts it. One

must pay attention to the phase of the moon and the nawal upon which it is gathered. One must

know how to dry the plant and disinfect it, how to prepare the salves and the rubs.

Each plant has its function in healing. The calendar is related to all of these functions. It

all has to do with the calendar.

I have been upon the medicine path for fifteen years, and I give thanks to Ajaw for all the

medicine knowledge that I have.

Doa Victoria Qiej Guix de Itzep

35

Literally table, the term has many uses. While in Peru it may a simple blanket where the shaman performs his operations, among the Kiche it usually signifies ones household altar or shrine; in this instance, howeveer, Doa Victoria is referring to an initiation into a specific rank as a priestess.

34

Healing Practitioners

Healers are drawn to their profession either voluntarily, and thus taught by older, more

experienced practitioners, or else involuntarily, for example through a shamanic illness or

through an archetypal or revelatory dream. In the Yucatn, such dreams are believed to be sent

by supernatural beings called balams, who use divining stones or crystals (commonly called

sastns) in their dream teachings.36

Many, or perhaps most, healers specialize in a particular style of healing. All the same,

the categories listed below should not be regarded as mutually exclusive. Some healers practice

two different styles, or even more; Doa Victoria is an herbalist, a midwife, a bone setter, and a

prayer maker. Thus one might call her an ilol, one who is skilled in all branches of healing.

The words and terminology of the various healing specialties may vary from place to

place and from language to language; the healing vocations of the Yucatn may be listed

somewhat differently than among the Maya of the western highlands. All the same, most of the

categories of healers are similar. Our information here comes from our two principal research

locations: Momostenango and highland Chiapas.

The Herbalist

The vocation of herbalist may be the quickest and simplest to describe, but as we shall

see in Chapter 4, the herbalist possesses a great arsenal of remedies, perhaps more abundantly

than any other healing specialist.

Herbalists walk in the mountains and gather medicinal plants. The Maya have their own

taxonomy of the various classes of plants, quite different from our own. Their categories are

based upon the illnesses for which the plant is a remedy, whether the herb is cold or hot, strong

or weak, for children or women, for a shorter or longer time. Sometimes the whole plant is used;

sometimes just a part of it. There are plants that one boils or that one mashes up raw, others that

are heated up on the housheold comal37or tortilla griddle. Herbalists keep all the secrets of the

plants in their heads.

36

Kunow, op. cit., p. 2.

37

This is a large, rounded metal griddle used for making tamales and tortillas in traditional Mayan households.

35

The Midwife

Women healers play an essential role in Mayan society; and if there exist both men and

women who carry out various healing practices, it is only the women who are in charge of all

cases related to pregnancy and birth. Most midwives are women over forty; many speak only

Maya. They have obtained their knowledge through an informal apprenticeship and they have the

respect and recognition of the community, sharing their vision of the world with it. Many of

these women have other specialties in the health field; they can also be herbalists, iloles, or bone

setters.

The social responsibility of helping women to give birth falls completely on the midwives

because of the fact that they share the culture and the condition of being a woman. Because

midwifery is related to parts of the body considered intimate and surrounded by rules and taboos,

the experience of giving birth is more easily shared with someone that has already lived the same

situation, above all a woman that has similar concepts about the body and the natural or

supernatural phenomena that influence its functioning. In the highlands of Chiapas and

Guatemala, attention to birth is generally carried out by midwives in urban areas as well as rural

ones. In towns, they attend to 70% of the births, while in the villages they attend to practically

all of them.

Midwives are the repository of a community-generated knowledge that has been

transmitted from generation to generation and includes the lore of herbalism, the rites necessary

to conquer evil spirits, and a system of care and advice that must be offered during pregnancy,

birth and postpartum. This knowledge is shared with the women of the community.

Learning through family relations is habitually the path to becoming a midwife, joined

with an inheritance or gift that they bring with them from birth. Many midwives assert that

family tradition has been decisive in the start of their practice. Our friend Doa Lidia learned the

art from her mother, Doa Victoria.

If we analyze the type of care that the midwife provides during pregnancy and normal

childbirth, we can see that the identification of signs and symptoms she handles and the care she

provides are essentially similar to the concerns of allopathic medical practice. There is nothing

involving the complications of pregnancy, childbirth and delivery that the midwife isnt capable

of resolving with the resources and knowledge at her disposal.

36

The services of the midwife start at the very beginning of the gestation process itself; the

midwife begins to counsel and help the mother-to-be from the earliest days of her pregnancy. In

Momostenango, the healing visits of the midwife during the prenatal period take place every

twenty days, in accordance with both the Mayan Calendar and the phases of the moon.38

The

midwives learn to diagnose the position of the new being that lives in the mothers abdomen;

they use massage to keep it in the proper position within the uterus.

During this period, the pregnant woman is advised about what to eat or not eat. She is

warned not to carry heavy loads, but to go ahead and satisfy her peculiar food cravings.

However, she is not to contradict elders of either sex, and she is to avoid problems, upsets, and

enemies. These health and lifestyle recommendations that the midwife gives to the pregnant

woman are aimed at protecting her, at least during the pregnancy, from certain innate influences

of negativity that exist in the world all around us. It is for this reason that they stress the

importance of the man being happy with the pregnancy so that the woman and the child are

healthy.

When the moment of birth arrives, the midwife offers services of moral and material

support. Childbirth care is carried out in the intimacy of the home and the participation of the

husband, parents and/or in-laws of the pregnant woman is fundamental; this type of personal,

loving care cannot be provided by medical services or health institutions. Only traditional

customs and lifeways can fill ones surroundings with the necessary loving-kindness.

To the extent that complications appear, as in cases of miscarriage, prolonged labor or

retention of the placenta, the difficulty falls upon the shoulders of the midwife, who may invoke

either natural causes or supernatural phenomena, including being out of harmony with the

collective awas, the lifeway of the community. Illness can be caused by spirits, by envy, or by

selfishness; the spirits can be anywhere, in the wind or in the water, on the mountain or on the

road.

Therapeutic elements are varied; the midwife more often than not has a strong command

of herbalism; she utilizes it for hastening labor if prolonged, against the threat of miscarriage

or breach birth, and against the retention of the placenta. In Chiapas it is said that midwives also

38

The association of the moon with the number 20 goes back to the Classic Period (200-800 CE); the hieroglyph for

the moon can double as a marker for the number 20. There are 20 days from the old moons disappearance until the next full moon.

37

use resources of animal origin such as powders from rams horn, armadillo shell and possum tail

to manage the birth, though we did not hear about any such practices in Momostenango.

Prayer plays a fundamental role from the start of the pregnancy and during childbirth. In

the Chiapas highlands, it is often necessary to light candles for several days in the house and in

the church. Spirituality is a fundamental healing element during the complications of childbirth;

thanks to her divine gift, the midwife ilol pulses the pregnant woman in order to make a

diagnosis; once this is done, Chiapas midwives may light a white, green or red, large or small

candle, depending on the cause of the problem.

Birth is a family and social event that constitutes a whole process of activities. At birth,

the baby is washed and received in clean clothes. The placenta and the umbilical cord will be

buried in a special place this varies according to the local customs of ones community. In any

case, the placenta is never thrown in the garbage, as this would place the child outside of the

community norms called awas, which could create social problems later on. Some people bury

the placenta behind the sweat lodge or temescal. The umbilical cord is often tied in the highest

part of a tree that stands near the family home it is said that a cypress is the best. It is also said

that if the umbilical cord is placed high in a tree the child will never suffer from fear of heights

and will also become strong in life, just like a tree.

For nine days, the mother will bathe in the sweat lodge, called a tuj in Kiche or

temescal in Spanish (see Chapter 6). During this time, she will take special care to avoid cold

water. After nine tuj baths, the process of rejuvenation will end with a final bath, not in the tuj

but in hot water. It is said that bathing in hot springs is the absolute best thing to do.

In the meantime, an aj qij or indigenous priest (commonly known in popular literature as

a Daykeeper) who is a member of the family or at least a close friend will visit the family altars

and, in ceremony, he or she will inform the cosmic energies that there is a new being in the

family. Nine days after the birth, the child is ceremoniously presented at the main family altar

where he or she had been previously announced by the indigenous priest.39

The midwife is a pediatrician as well as an obstetrician; the care of the children from the

beginning of postpartum until well past the toddling stage is a part of the profession. It is during

these early years that children may suffer from what is called a falling of the fontanel, which is

39

Sanic Chanchavac, Medicina Maya, pp. 65-7.

38

its failure to close or mature in the right way; it is during these years that children are most

susceptible to mal ojo or the evil eye.

The Huesero (Bone Setter)

The profession of bone setter has been practiced since Pre-Columbian times; bone setters

are specifically mentioned in the Popol Vuh or Mayan Creation Epic. The bone setter is

responsible for alleviating fractures or broken bones, zafaduras (a colloquial Spanish term for

dislocated joints), sprains, inflammation or swelling, bone pain and the breakages/fractures of

the soul.

The hueseros treatment a kind of indigenous chiropractic or massage therapy is

aimed at re-aligning the bones or the dislocated joint through pressure maneuvers, traction and

counter-traction, and rest. Some healers (hueseros) know how to re-position the fracture. This

takes away the pain and reduces the swelling. With more serious fractures, the person needs a

plaster cast and recourse to Western medicine.

Some hueseros carry out diagnosis through the pulse in order to recognize when its a

matter of a fracture, sprain, or cold or hot inflammation. The principle of opposites is also

applied here: a hot plant is applied for a cold sprain; if the bone pain is because of heat, healing

plants or flowers are mashed up in cold water. Touching, blowing, whistling and praying are the

four fundamental elements of treatment. In general, bone setters have a limited knowledge of

herbalism, except in the case where they are also iloles.

Hueseros learn to heal by observing and assisting an older healer, but they also say that

their knowledge can be acquired through dreams, by inheritance, through their intelligence,

and occasionally by the same process we described earlier an illness or accident may alert one

to the need to become a healer.

The Prayer Maker

The prayer maker is a Tzotzil specialty, called a koponej witz in that language and a

rezador de los cerros or mountain prayer maker in Spanish. These healers climb to the tops of

mountains to offer up prayers of protection for the community against illnesses and natural

disasters.

39

In Tzotzil society there are afflictions caused by the transgression of the social and moral

rules of the group the concept of awas we have already mentioned from our Kiche sources.

According to Tzotzil tradition, people suffer these illnesses only once in life and they appear in a

cyclical manner; among them are measles, chicken pox, small pox, whooping cough, and fever.

This type of affliction can be prevented by prayers in the church, on the hills, or at springs; the

treatment should be performed three times a year and the prayer maker is the one responsible for

praying to prevent these diseases. He also prays in a few caves or hills where the gods reside,

and his prayer requests serve to help the community avoid poverty and cold so that there is

sufficient corn, beans, vegetables and water. He asks forgiveness for the sins of the people so

that epidemics dont appear; he also prays when disasters actually do occur. He lights candles

and incense, and during the ceremonies conducted by prayer makers there are songs, chants and

celebration.

The mountain prayer maker participates in various ceremonies that are performed before

planting and after the harvest; the people of the community collaborate and help with these

rituals. One of the most important such ceremonies in highland Chiapas is the one on May 3rd,

the day of the Holy Cross. The wooden cross is regarded as the god that guards the home, the

altars, the streams, and the ceremonial center, and people relate it to well-being and the recovery

of health. The prayer maker also prays for the purpose of freeing people from all the illnesses of

sorcerers (brujos). He prays to the god of the sky not to send punishments to the people, not to

afflict them with measles and fever.

After such a prayer, he goes to the hills, to the rocks where the angels and the gods are

the nature spirits who serve as shepherds of bulls, horses, pigs, chickens and turkeys. He asks

the spirits to tolerate what these animals do, to free them from all harm, illnesses and plagues.

He offers candles, fireworks, copal and music with drums and flutes to the angels. In June,

when the corn starts to grow, he goes to the cornfield and offers candles, fireworks and music to

the angels of the land in order to free them from the four cardinal winds.

The mountain prayer maker is one of the specialists in shortest supply in the region of

highland Chiapas, though it could be argued that, since prayers in Kiche society accompany all

rituals and frequently take place on hill tops, this art is alive and vitally well among the Kiche.

40

The Ilol

In Kiche the term ilol literally means one who sees, but the vocation or office is much

wider than the literal translation would imply. An ilol not only sees but observes, diagnoses,

and understands; he knows and analyzes. In Tzotzil, the term specifically refers to one who

diagnoses through reading a patients pulse, though once again, in reality the word has a much

broader application.

The ilol is recognized as the healer who possesses the widest range of knowledge which

allows her or him to heal those who are ill, whether in body or in soul. She or he provides care

to patients with chronic, acute and serious illnesses; the ilol knows which illnesses have been

caused by a wind, by lightning or water, and whether they have been acquired through dreams,

envy, food or socially unacceptable conduct. An ilol is, first and foremost, an energy healer.

An ilol may be either a woman or a man. An ilol may also be a midwife, bone setter, or

prayer maker. Normally the iloles are people of mature age; the presence of young iloles is rare,

in spite of the fact that healers often receive the call while they are still children Don Lauro

de la Cruz began to heal when he was only five years old. Even though many of them have

acquired their gift through dreams, there are other forms of achieving knowledge, such as

through sheer intelligence or being taught by an elder. What is certain is that among all these

healers there was a deep desire to be an ilol; some prayed or lit a candle asking God or Ajaw to

grant them grace.

The ilol considers illness to be the product of an imbalance between the patient and her

or his social or supernatural surroundings, as detailed in Chapter 1. The diagnosis is often carried

out by palpation of the radial pulse; through such simple means, the ilol is able to know

everything related to the sick person, from the illness that afflicts him to the social rules that he

has transgressed; through the heartbeat, the ilol feels a current of blood that goes from the heart

to the thought. Everything is known through the pulsing of the blood.

After feeling and reading the heartbeat and pulse, the ilol asks questions about the

patients life and activities, symptoms, dreams, and so on. Keeping in mind that transgression of

social rules and regulations is regarded among many Mayan communities as a principle cause of

illness, the ilol must use her or his power with integrity, as she or he may cause harm by

knowing so many of the patients hidden desires and the revelations contained within ones

dreams.

41

The ilol is the mediator between cosmic energies and social ones, and heals on both

levels integrally. It is commonly believed that certain illnesses cannot be healed by allopathic

medicine but only by the skills of an ilol. Disturbing sexual dreams, mood swings, susto or

fright, illnesses caused by witchcraft or harmful winds fall within the world view of the ilol but

not the medical doctor. The same may be said of the evil eye, or diseases caused by frolicking

spirits.

The common factor in spiritual illnesses is that they are attributed to loss of soul,

which may occur when a person has an unpleasant experience that results in the abandonment of

the spirit; examples are falls, meteorological phenomena (like rain or wind), the closeness of

dangerous animals, or the witnessing of unpleasant things such as cadavers. Another form of

loss of soul occurs when the soul is kidnapped by a spirit of nature or through bad air or

an evil wind.

The ilol, as a complete energy healer, uses a wide range of resources for treatment: