Tales From the Yucatan Jungle: Life in a Mayan Village by Kristine Ellingson

Author:Kristine Ellingson [Ellingson, Kristine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Anthropology, Autobiography, Biography, Cultural & Social, Cultural; Ethnic & Regional, Mexico, Social Science, Travel
ISBN: 9780975469187
Google: OE-fpwAACAAJ
Publisher: Suntopaz Llc
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Santiago and I look at each other and I laugh.

“Doctor, these people have been treating me round the clock for weeks now, they don’t need it.”

The doctor’s protests do no good. As Santiago says, he grew up eating dirt. It can’t poison him. Any weak one would have died of such things years ago. I am the weak one.

I begin to wonder, “Will I survive this country?”

* * *

Do I now believe in witch doctors, curanderos? I can’t say. Over the years I have seen scorpions tails collected and saved, brewed and bound over warts—and the warts disappeared. Black scorpions are best, they say. I have heard, but not seen, cures where you, the “afflicted,” take an egg from your house, and a black and white chicken, a white cloth, and sometimes other things to the curandero. The two favored curanderos, depending on your problem, whether it is a “curse” set upon you by another person or an illness, are more than an hour away. We have taken many people to both, but I have never been witness to the entire ritual. But each time, out of the egg you have brought, comes a needle, a scorpion, or a bit of bone. This then helps determine your “cure,” what you must do, which herbs or powders will be used, and if you will need to return and when. I have seen it work and not work. Epilepsy with gran mal seizures is a tough nut to cure.

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