Infusions of Healing: A Treasury of Mexican-American Herbal Remedies
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Infusions of Healing: A Treasury of Mexican-American Herbal Remedies
368Paperback(Original)
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Overview
When the Spaniards conquered the Aztecs, they stumbled upon a treasure trove ultimately more valuable and lasting than the glittering mounds of Moctezuma's gold — the herbal remedies and medicines developed by the Indians, which in many ways surpassed the rudimentary medicine of the Old World. The remnants of these cures, potions, infusions, and tonics form the basis of the countless natural remedies still used in many Mexican-American households today. Now, these healing herbs and remedies are brought together in a volume that is as practical as it is fascinating. In Infusions of Healing you'll find:
* The intriguing story of how this long-suppressed ancient knowledge was passed down over the course of five centuries.
* Hundreds of safe, effective herbal treatments for everyday ailments — teas, liniments, compresses, salves, and soothing baths for headaches, colds, fevers, digestive disorders, menstrual cramps, skin problems, aches and pains, and much more.
* An alphabetical listing of more than 200 herbs and plants, from abedul (birch) to zarsaparilla (sasparilla), including their English, Spanish, Nahuatl (Aztec), and botanical names, with extensive notes on their histories and healing properties.
* Expert advice from today's traditional healers and practitioners of Mexican-American herbal medicine, many of their remedies recorded in print for the first-time.
Thorough, well organized, and rich with history, Infusions of Healing is a practical handbook for anyone interested in natural remedies, as well as an invaluable contribution to the preservation of a tradition deeply embedded in Latino culture.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780684854168 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Atria Books |
| Publication date: | 10/05/1999 |
| Edition description: | Original |
| Pages: | 368 |
| Sales rank: | 707,688 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Infusions of Healing
A Treasury of Mexican-American Herbal RemediesBy Joie Davidow
Fireside
Copyright © 1999 Joie DavidowAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780684854168
Part I: Five Centuries of Healing
¿Qué mágicas infusionesde indios herbolarios
de mi patria, entre mis letras
el hechizo derramaron?
What are these magical infusions
of the Indian herbalists of my homeland,
that spill enchantment
over my pages?
-- Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695)
Traditional Mexican-American medicine is un rico menudo, a rich stew, with a long list of ingredients: sixteenth-century Arab and European herbal medicines, ideas that date back to Hippocrates, twentieth-century patent medicines, plant medicines from Africa, herbal wisdom from North American native tribes. But the key ingredient is as old as Mesoamerica -- the living legacy of the Aztecs, remnants of a vast treasury of herbal knowledge that has nearly vanished.
War Of The Worlds
When Hernando Cortés and his 553 men landed at Vera Cruz in 1519, they came face-to-face with a culture so vastly different from the one they had left in Europe, it was as though they had traveled by spaceship to a distant galaxy. The people of the Aztec empire viewed reality from a perspective that was almost incomprehensible to the Spanish. And the Aztecs were equally confounded by the Spaniards, whom they regarded as half gods, half monsters.
It could be argued that the more advanced culture lost the war,that the Spanish did not bring civilization to the New World but effectively demolished it. The Aztecs reigned for little more than a century, but during those decades, through constant warfare that expanded the boundaries of the empire from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific and trade routes that extended south through Honduras and Nicaragua, they acquired much of the collective knowledge of all the Mesoamerican peoples, inheriting the cultures of the Toltec, the Zapotec, the Mixtec, the Huaxtec, the Maya.
They were extraordinary astronomers who had developed a yearly calendar accurate within eleven minutes, and charted the movements of the stars, using only their own eyes to scan the skies. They were advanced mathematicians, spectacular craftsmen, accomplished architects and engineers. The Aztecs were artists -- musicians, painters, sculptors, dancers. All members of the elite classes were poets. They valued skill with words as highly as skill with weapons and considered both to be necessary attributes. Vast libraries housed exquisitely painted fanlike volumes of fig-bark paper in which they recorded their philosophy, history, religion, literature, law, and scientific findings.
The conquistadors, marching into the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, were so overwhelmed by its splendor that they asked one another if they were dreaming. Crossing a wide causeway they entered a city of vast plazas, fountains, sculpture, and architecture of heroic proportions brightly decorated with colorful murals and glyphs. Floating gardens swayed in the lagoon. Flowering vines cascaded over the terraces of the townhouses. In one of his historic long letters to the king of Spain, Cortés expressed fear that no one would believe his description of a city so full of wonder that even the conquistadors themselves could hardly grasp what they were seeing. It has been called the Venice of the Americas because, like Venice, it was a magnificent city built on a series of canals. But it was more beautiful than Venice in one very important aspect: It was clean. So clean that a Spanish chronicler remarked that walking its streets he was "in no more danger of soiling his feet than he was of soiling his hands." A thousand workers washed and swept the streets and plazas each day. Clean water was brought into the city through aqueducts. Human waste was picked up from the houses daily, and public toilet facilities were placed at intervals along the great causeways that led into the city.
The Aztecs were meticulously clean in their person as well. They were offended by body odor, bathed daily, and used herbal deodorants and breath fresheners. Middle-class houses had private bathrooms, and there were public bathhouses throughout the city. Motecuhzoma II had more than a hundred bathrooms in his vast palace. He reportedly bathed and changed his clothes several times a day, never wearing a garment more than once.
The great capitals of Europe at that time, and for centuries afterward, were full of filth and misery. The rat-infested alleys were strewn with garbage and human waste. Chamber pots were emptied onto the streets, and clean running water was not even conceived of. The old adage that a man takes three baths in his lifetime, one at birth, one on his wedding day, and the last when he is a corpse about to be buried, was not far from the truth. The Spanish conquistadors were impressed that the Mexicans always greeted them by fumigating them with incense, which they took as a great honor. But we can only imagine what these men, unwashed and sweating in their heavy clothing and armor, must have smelled like to their fastidious hosts.
The Aztecs and the Spanish viewed one another with horror and awe, and each saw the face of a barbarian.
The Glory of the Ancient Gardens
If their civilization had not been destroyed during the conquest, the Aztecs, like the Chinese, might have made a great contribution to the world through their vast and ancient knowledge of herbal medicine. Within its borders, Mexico has arguably the greatest variety of plant life on earth. Its geography includes rugged mountain ranges and lush valleys, tropical jungles on the Caribbean coast and arid deserts that stretch to the Pacific in the north. The Aztecs had survived centuries of wandering from one terrain to another before founding their capital at Tenochtitlán. They had, of necessity, become expert botanists during their travels, forced to use whatever they could find growing around them for both food and medicine.
As the empire prospered, they became magnificent horticulturalists. In 1467 the great Motecuhzoma's grandfather, Motecuhzoma I, established an immense botanical garden at Huaxtepec, which his grandson later revived. It may well have been the first botanical garden on earth, and the most extensive collection of plants the world had ever seen. Trees, shrubs, herbs, and flowers were imported from all over the empire, along with gardeners trained in tending them. There were nearly two thousand varieties of plants in the garden -- fruit trees, orchids from the tropics, stands of ahuehuete cypress -- all artfully arranged to provide pleasure to the senses and planted for fragrance and color, light and shade. Pools, waterfalls, fountains, an aviary full of colorful exotic birds, and a zoo graced the grounds.
Although the garden at Huaxtepec was the largest in the empire, Motecuhzoma II also maintained a luxuriant garden at his palace in Tenochtitlán, another just outside the capital in the hills of Chapultepec, and yet another at the suburban palace in Ixtapalapa. In the allied state of Texcoco, the great "poet king," Nezahualcóyotl, maintained a glorious garden of his own. The Texcocan king was devoted to the study of plants and commissioned artists to paint examples of the various species for his library.
In all these gardens, medicinal plants were cultivated and studied. Aztec doctors used the gardens as laboratories, conducting experiments subsidized by the nobility and by the imperial government. The medicinal plants grown in the gardens were intended for the medical needs of the nobility, but commoners were invited to be treated at the gardens free of charge, in exchange for reporting the results to the medical researchers who practiced there.
Basic knowledge of herbal medicine was common. Nearly every family grew its own herbs and vegetables in a garden called xochichinancalli, literally "flower place enclosed by reeds." Even in the cities, families maintained roof gardens where they grew plants for food, medicine, and ornament.
Decades after the fall of the Aztec empire, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who had been a soldier in the company of Cortés, remembered the gardens at Ixtapalapa in his memoir, The True Story of the Conquest of New Spain. "I could not get enough of it, of the variety of the trees and the aroma that each one had, of the terraces full of roses and other flowers, and the many fruits of the land...and I say again that as I stood there admiring it all, I did not believe that in the world there was any land such as this one....Now all this is fallen, lost. None of it remains," he wrote sadly.
In the final assault on Tenochtitlán most of this glorious city was destroyed. What was left of the Aztec civilization was soon attacked by the Church. In 1528 the first archbishop of Mexico, Don Juan de Zumárraga, in his zealous determination to wipe out all traces of pagan religious practices, ordered the destruction of every book, every codex, every scrap of a hieroglyph. The great libraries of Texcoco, with their wealth of information about the medicinal plants, were piled onto an enormous bonfire. Spanish soldiers were instructed to seek out every book they could find to add to the pyre. It was a fervent reflection of what was going on in Spain at the time. Twenty years earlier, hot on the heels of the expulsion of the Moors, the Grand Inquisitor, Cardinal Ximenes, had ordered the same fate for every Arabic manuscript in Granada.
But in New Spain the Church must have been even more compelled to vanquish the demon, who they thought must be everywhere. The Spanish clergy saw a hellish, godless land where the people worshiped hideous idols to whom they offered bloody human sacrifice. The Church soon realized that every trace of Aztec culture would have to be demolished, because Aztec religion pervaded all of it.
The Fifth Sun
The Aztec practice of medicine, like every other aspect of Aztec life, was inseparable from their concept of the cosmos and their religious beliefs. Their very word for doctor, tepati, was derived from teo, sacred, and patli, medicine.
Religious mythology varied from region to region, but at the basis of Mesoamerican belief systems was the notion that the earth had been destroyed and recreated four times. The Aztecs believed that the first world was destroyed by ocelots, the second by hurricanes, the third by fiery rain, the fourth by floods. During the time of each of these four worlds, one of the sun gods reigned, each corresponding to one of the four elements: earth, wind, fire, and water. According to this system, we are now living in the fifth incarnation of the world, which is destined to be destroyed by earthquakes.
It was the Aztecs' mission to postpone this inevitable fifth cataclysm through their efforts on earth. All the previous worlds had been destroyed by warring gods. It was the job of the Aztecs to make sure that the current sun god, Tonatiuh, was kept well fed and in place so that the fifth world could continue.
There are many variations of the Aztec creation story, but it most commonly goes something like this: The gods built the current world in darkness. When their work was complete, the gods still felt lonely. They missed men and women, all of whom had perished in the destruction of the fourth world and whose remains were now in the lower region of Mictlán, which was presided over by the god and goddess Mictecacíhuatl and Mictlantecuhtli. So the plumed serpent god, Quetzalcóatl, journeyed down to the underworld to retrieve the bones of humanity. Mictecacíhuatl and Mictlantecuhtli agreed to release the bones, but then they tricked Quetzalcóatl by frightening him on his way back to the heavens. Quetzalcóatl dropped his bag of bones, and they all shattered. The poor god wept bitter tears. When he arrived at the celestial level of Tamoanchan, the place of birth, he didn't know what to say to his fellow gods. It was decided that the bones should be ground into powder. Then the gods pierced their male organs with maguey thorns so that they bled, and they sprinkled the powdered bones with their own blood. From this they made a paste, which they fashioned into human forms. Because they had been pasted together with shattered bones, these new men and women were weak, subject to death and disease. This fifth incarnation of humanity was a combination of the earthly, the old bones, and the divine, the blood of the gods. The gods had sacrificed their blood to recreate humanity, and now mankind would be forever in their debt, obliged to make blood sacrifices of their own in retribution. But man's debt to the gods was even greater. Humanity also owed the gods for the sun and the moon.
The earth had been recreated and repeopled, but all was still in darkness. So the gods gathered in the sacred city of Teotihuacán, where they built a big bonfire. In order to create a new sun to light the world, one of the gods would have to sacrifice himself by jumping into the fire. For four days the gods sat by this divine hearth, the teotexcalli. Nanahuatzin, a poor little pimply-faced god, volunteered to sacrifice himself. But the wealthy god, Tecuciztécatl, claimed precedence. Four times the wealthy god stepped up to the flames, but each time he lost his courage and stepped back again. At last it was the little pimply-faced god's turn. He stepped up to the fire and without hesitating leapt in. Great flames rose up, igniting the heavens in an explosion of red. The gods looked up to see the god Nanahuatzin emerge in the east. The new sun had risen.
Now Tecuciztécatl, the wealthy god, was ashamed and hurled himself into the bonfire. But by this time the fire was dying down, so the wealthy god burned slowly, emerging as the sun's pale reflection, the moon. The other gods looking on were so disgusted by the wealthy god's cowardly behavior, they threw a rabbit at him. When the Aztecs looked up at the moon, they saw on its surface the face of a rabbit where we see the face of a man.
Now the sun was in the sky, but it stood still. The gods asked it, "Why aren't you moving?" To which the sun replied, "Because I demand your kingdom and your blood." Hearing this, the gods fell down at once, sacrificing themselves to become the stars. But this still wasn't enough to keep the sun moving through the sky. It was now the job of mankind to make sure that the sun had enough energy to rise and set by feeding it with blood sacrifices.
According to the Judeo-Christian belief, humanity entrusts the world to an almighty God. We depend on God and are grateful for the earthly treasure that has been given to us. But the Aztecs' relationship with their gods was interdependent. The continued existence of the sun and moon, wind and rain, depended on mankind's ability to feed and appease the gods. At any time the gods could destroy the world just as they had done four times before. The Aztecs believed that they had been chosen to keep the gods well fed and happy. It was their mission to postpone the inevitable fifth cataclysm. Theirs was the struggle of good over evil, of light over darkness.
The Aztecs, like the Spanish, used their religious convictions to justify their imperialistic wars. The Aztecs went to war on the premise that it was their sacred duty to take captives for sacrifice to the gods. The Spanish went to war with the holy mission of proselytizing the Catholic faith, on the premise that it was their sacred duty to save the heathens. In very different ways they each made holy offerings of the souls of the people they vanquished.
Kingdoms of the Cosmos
Western thought divides the natural from the supernatural, the miraculous from the ordinary, but to the Aztec mind it was all one and the same. The visible and the invisible, the spiritual and the material were all equally real.
Just as Christianity preaches that God is everywhere, the Aztecs believed that a multiplicity of gods was everywhere. Everything in the world had a divine origin, and the spirit of the gods was in every earthly thing. There were thirteen major deities and more than two hundred minor deities. Each god could have various names and manifestations. As the Aztecs conquered new territories, they absorbed the gods of the other Mesoamerican tribes so that their pantheon was always expanding.
The Aztec worldview was based on the concept of opposite but complementary halves, somewhat like the Chinese concept of yin and yang. The Gods were dualities, both male and female, good and evil. The same god could create and destroy, tempt a man to sin and forgive him for sinning. Everything had its opposite, and these two opposing forces were in constant conflict.
This duality ruled the cosmos, which was divided horizontally in half, with nine celestial levels above and nine underworld levels below. The levels above were the kingdoms of the sun, who is the father of us all. His realms were light, hot, and dry, and ruled by fire. The underworld levels were the kingdoms of the earth, who is the mother of us all. Her realms were dark, cold, and wet, and ruled by water.
Man lived on four earthly levels that were visualized as a great disk surrounded by water, suspended between the nine upper and nine lower realms. This earthly plane was the kingdom of the four directions, divided into four quadrants corresponding to the four cardinal points ruled by the four sun gods. The black sun ruled the north, the blue sun the south, the white sun ruled the west, and the red sun the east. Four immense ceiba trees supported the sky, one in each of the four quadrants. The fifth direction, a vertical up and down, was located in the center of the quadrant. It was the very center of the universe.
Like the Aztecs themselves, the cosmos was always at war. Nature was violent. The Aztecs believed that each night the earth swallowed the sun. And each morning as the sun rose in the sky, it killed off the moon and stars. The very survival of the world was in constant jeopardy, dependent on the mood of the gods. For the cosmos to remain intact, for the sun to continue to rise and set, the opposing forces of light and dark and day and night had to be kept in balance, through ritual, prayer, and sacrifice.
An invisible conveyor belt moved through the cosmos, carrying the gods and the forces of nature that they controlled from level to level. Gods traveled from the heavenly and underworld levels to converge on the earthly plane, bringing blessings or harm. Man had to be ever vigilant, protecting himself from the displeasure of these invisible invaders.
Three Centers of the Spirit
These levels, the celestial, earthly, and underworld planes, were manifested in the human body and informed the Aztec method of diagnosing illness. The Aztecs believed that the spirit resided in three centers of energy, which, like the universe itself, must be maintained in a state of balance.
The tonalli, corresponding to the celestial levels, was located in the head. Its name comes from the Nahuatl word for heat, tonal. Its patron is Tonatiuh, one of the names for the sun god. Loss of tonalli resulted in death. A corpse is cold, a living body warm, so the warmth of tonalli was the essence of physical life.
Tonalli could be strengthened or weakened. Illness, drunkenness, and excessive behavior weakened tonalli; bravery in battle strengthened it. Since tonalli was temporarily lost during sexual intercourse, celibacy made it stronger. Tonalli could also be strengthened by inhaling fragrances. Aztec doctors prescribed pleasant odors to relieve melancholy, stress, and fatigue, making them forerunners of today's aromatherapists.
Members of the nobility, the pipiltin class, believed that they had been born with greater tonalli than commoners. They increased their tonalli even more by postponing sexual activity until a relatively late age. For noble and commoner alike, tonalli increased with age, wisdom, and circumstance. The very old were held in high esteem, since they were full of strong tonalli.
Aztec shamans, called nahualli, under the influence of hallucinogenic plants, had the power to send tonalli out of their bodies and into the bodies of animals.
The second center of the spirit, the teyolia, was located in the heart, corresponding to the earthly plane. Thought, personality, and creativity were in the teyolia. Artists and poets had particularly powerful teyolia. Like tonalli, the teyolia could be harmed by carnal excess or immoral behavior. It could be strengthened through confession and penance, which was permitted only once in a lifetime.
The teyolia was the spirit that survived in the afterlife. The fate of a person's teyolia depended on the manner of death. The teyolia of a person who was sacrificed to the gods enjoyed the best fate of all. It shot straight up to a magnificent heaven. Next best was the fate of the teyolia of a warrior who bravely died in battle. His teyolia accompanied the sun on its journey from daybreak to noon for four years, after which it was reincarnated as a butterfly or a hummingbird. The teyolia of a woman who died during the birth of her first child was also honored. Her teyolia accompanied the sun from noon to sunset for four years, after which she became a powerful ghost who haunted the earth on certain days.
The teyolia of those people whose death was caused by the water god Tláloc -- by accidents such as drowning or being struck by lightning, or through diseases related to excess water in the body such as rheumatism and dropsy -- were sent on an arduous journey to the watery paradise of Tláloc and his female counterpart Chalchiuhtlicue. The teyolia of an infant who died while still nursing was returned to the heavens where it awaited another chance at life on earth. The teyolia of everybody else went to Mictlán, the underworld.
The third energy center was the ihiyotl, located in the liver, corresponding to the lower plane of the underworld. It was the center of vigor, of the breath, of all sorts of passions -- envy, anger, carnal desire. An ill or damaged liver exuded a dangerous gas that spread disease. Laziness was associated with a weakened ihiyotl. Just as we say of a cowardly person, "Oh, he doesn't have the guts," the Aztecs would say of a lazy person, "Oh, he doesn't have the liver."
Since these three centers of the spirit were located in the body, diagnosis of an illness was spiritual as well as physical. A head injury or a chill could result in loss of precious tonalli. Certain emotional traumas could result in damage to the ihiyotl, causing liver problems. A Nahuatl definition of rage was "swollen liver," which could explain the Mexican-American folk disease bilis, a liver-related ailment caused by coraje, excessive anger.
Magic and Medicine
The Aztecs believed that just as the balance of the opposing forces in the cosmos must be maintained, imbalances in the human body led to disease. Since human beings were created from the opposing elements of heaven and earth -- the blood of the gods and the crushed bones of a former race -- it was essential to maintain balance in the body. Bodily imbalance could be caused by excessive behavior, by infractions of the strict Aztec moral code, or by poor eating habits. An accident of any kind could unbalance the body, resulting in illness.
Disease could be inflicted by one of the many gods, as punishment for bad behavior, or it could be inflicted by a person with special powers. It was believed that some people, through no fault of their own, could involuntarily cause disease simply by looking at someone. Disease could also be caused by the malicious machinations of mortal sorcerers and witches.
These ideas have persisted over the centuries. Many people still believe that immoral or excessive behavior can lead to illness. Markets and botánicas still sell amulets to protect against the ojo fuerte or mal de ojo, the strong or evil eye. To this day in some Mexican-American neighborhoods it is commonly believed that anyone who looks admiringly at a child must also immediately touch that child, to negate the risk of accidentally inflicting the mal de ojo. And there still are professional brujas, good witches, who are hired to undo the evil spells of sorcerers.
The Aztecs knew that disease could also be caused by uncleanliness. Long before the invention of the microscope revealed the existence of microbes, they realized that disease could be passed invisibly from one person to another, by touch or through the air.
Aztec doctors were highly trained professionals. Like other trades, the practice of medicine was passed from father to son, mother to daughter, just as this gift of healing is handed down among generations of curanderos today. There were two kinds of Aztec doctors; all were specialists, each with an area of expertise patronized by one or more of the gods. The tepati treated illness on the physical level. The tictli treated illness on the spiritual level and were often trained in schools maintained by the priests. The services of both types of doctors might be required to remedy an illness.
The tlamatepatli were herbalists who treated gastrointestinal illnesses, respiratory and genito-urinary infections, and cardiac problems. Aztec dentists used herbs to treat inflamed gums, pulled teeth, and also did their share of cosmetic dentistry, setting precious gems into the teeth of the wealthy.
The midwives, forerunners of the parteras of today, were known as tlamatquiticitl, meaning doctors who tap with their hands, because of their skill at palpating the bellies of their pregnant patients. They provided an excellent level of prenatal care, and partly because of their insistence on absolute cleanliness, the Aztec rate of survival in childbirth substantially exceeded that which prevailed in Europe where women routinely died from infections.
Aztec military surgeons were far more advanced than their European counterparts. Amazingly, Cortés and his men arrived in Mexico with a friar on board but no professional physician. The conquistadors dressed their battle wounds by searing them with hot oil. When they had no oil available, they cut the fat from the body of a slain opponent and melted it down to use as a dressing. If the wound began to ooze pus, they considered it a sign of healing.
The Aztec military surgeons first cleaned battle wounds with some sterile liquid; if nothing else was available, the urine of a healthy warrior would do fine for this purpose. Then they dressed the wound with maguey sap or pine oil, which discouraged infection. They stanched the bleeding with the herb coapatli (Commelina pallida), an effective styptic. They reduced swelling by applying the juice of the papaya or the prickly pear.
While European surgeons had no anesthetics to ease the suffering of their patients, the Aztec surgeon could choose from a selection of narcotic plants. They made their incisions with razor-thin obsidian knives and sutured them with human hair. Some Aztec doctors were highly skilled at setting bones, using feathers and the sap of a tree called liquidámbar to make a plaster.
But perhaps the most important of these specialists were the papiani or panamacani, the pharmacists who dispensed herbs and advice from their stalls in the tianguis, the great marketplaces. Cortés wrote to the king of Spain that in the great market at Tlateloco he had seen "herbalists selling all the many roots and medicinal plants that are found in the land. The apothecaries have houses of a sort there, where they sell medicines made from these herbs, for drinking and for ointments and salves." He could have been describing Mexico City's Sonora Market today.
Body and Soul
Since the Aztecs treated the body and spirit as one inseparable entity, they were, in a sense, holistic healers. In making a diagnosis, the Aztec doctor looked for the spiritual as well as the physical source of an illness. For example, if a man were to fall ill after having been exposed to a cold wind, the Aztec doctor, the teopati, might treat the symptoms caused by the chill. The spiritualist, the tictli, might try to discover which of the gods had inflicted the cold wind. He might divine the source of the illness by tossing corn kernels on a mat or into a vessel of water. Or he might ingest a hallucinogenic plant to put himself in an altered state so that his spirit, his tonalli, could travel through time and space to find the root of the illness.
In accordance with the Aztec dualistic worldview, the same god who caused an illness had the power to cure it. The doctors would treat the patient's physical symptoms, but they might also find it necessary to appease the god who caused them. In this way doctors and patient worked complicitously to remedy the illness through their shared belief system. The patient, believing that the appeased god would remove his illness, was psychologically primed to aid in his own recovery. This combination of the pharmaceutical and the spiritual added up to very effective medicine.
But these were no mere psychosomatic cures. We know this because the physical aspects of the treatment worked on the Spanish, who were firm nonbelievers. The sixteenth-century Spanish chronicles abound with tales of the Aztecs' medical superiority. The Franciscan friar Toribio Motolonía wrote, "Some of the Indians are so experienced that they have cured many old and serious infirmities which the Spaniards have suffered many days without finding a remedy." And Cortés reputedly wrote to King Carlos I telling him not to bother sending any physicians to New Spain, as the native ones there were far better than those he knew at home.
The Gods Must Be Dead
The Aztecs feared that their gods had abandoned them. Huitzilopochtli, the sun god who had led them to victory after victory, now permitted them to be defeated and humiliated by the Spanish. Nanáhuatl, who had protected them from loathsome diseases, now allowed them to suffer the horrors of a lethal and disfiguring scourge, as smallpox swept through every household in the capital of Tenochtitlán. Tonantzín, the grandmother, the earth goddess, goddess of medicine, who had watched over and nurtured them, now allowed them to be impoverished and enslaved. Still, they were unwilling to relinquish their will and their lives to the god of the Spaniards.
After the initial fury that resulted in the destruction of the ancient archives, the Church realized that the tactics of the Inquisition were not serving their purpose. Despite the public floggings and burnings of heretics, forced conversion was not going well at all. The specter of physical torture had done little to enhance the appeal of Christianity. In 1538, King Carlos I issued a decree that suspended the jurisdiction of the Inquisition over the "Indians" and limited the corporeal punishments that could be inflicted on them. A more tolerant approach was called for if the glad tidings of Christianity were to be received.
In 1524, twelve Franciscans from Cortés's home region of Extrema
Continues...
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Table of Contents
ContentsIntroduction
Part I
Five Centuries of Healing
War of the Worlds
The Glory of the Ancient Gardens
The Fifth Sun
Kingdoms of the Cosmos
Three Centers of the Spirit
Magic and Medicine
Body and Soul
The Gods Must Be Dead
The Friars' Legacy
Trafficking in Herbs
The Four Humors
The Mystery of the Lost Volumes
Joyful News from the Newfound World
Mestizo Medicine
Aztec Revivals
Curanderismo en el Norte
Los Santos Curanderos
Santa Teresa de Cabora
Don Pedrito
El Niño Fidencio
Profiles: Las Abuelas
Ofelia Esparza, Concha Talavera, Fidela Gutiérrez — Yerberas (East L.A., California)
Part II
Plantas Que Curan: Healing Plants and Their Uses
Introduction
Instant Aztec: The Nahuatl System of Identifying
Plants
The Plants
Profiles: Professional Healers
Lee Cantu's Healing Center (Austin, Texas)
Socorro Vázquez, Componedora (Pico Rivera,
California)
Bonnie Ochoa, Yerbera (Las Cruces, New Mexico)
Part III
Preparations for Herbs
Herbal Teas
Steeped Teas: Infusions
Simmered Teas: Decoctions
Cold Infusions: Macerations
Tinctures
Measuring and Dosage
Infused Oils
Salves and Ointments
Liniments
Compresses
Poultices
Part IV
Los Remedios: Traditional Treatments for Common Ailments
Herbs for the Digestive System
To Aid Digestion
Colic and Stomach Cramps
Constipation
Empacho
Intestinal Inflammations
Diarrhea
Lack of Appetite
Nausea
Intestinal Parasites and Amebic Dysentery
Herbs for the Urinary Tract, Kidney, and Liver
Water Retention and Urinary Tract Disorders
Kidney Problems
Adult-Onset Diabetes
Bilis
Herbs for the Respiratory Tract, Fever, Flu, and Sore Throat
Asthma
Bronchial Congestion, Chest Colds, and Cough
Head Cold and Stuffy Nose
Colds with Fever and Flu
Fever
Sore Throat and Hoarseness
Herbs for the Ears and Eyes
Earache
Sore, Irritated Eyes
Herbs for the Mouth, Teeth, and Gums
Toothache
Gum Inflammation
Canker Sores and Cold Sores
Herbs for Aches and Pains
Headaches
Migraines
Arthritis and Rheumatism
Sciatica and Backache
Sore Muscles
Bruises
Soothing Compresses
Hemorrhoids
Sore, Swollen, or Tired Feet
Chilblains
Herbs for the Skin
Skin Irritations and Rashes
Wounds and Abrasions, Cuts and Scratches
Stings and Bites
Boils and Abscesses
Burns
Sunburn
Herbs to Soothe the Spirit
Nervousness and Insomnia
Depression
Herbs for Women
Premenstrual Syndrome
Delayed Menstruation and Cramps
Excessive Menstrual Bleeding
Menopause
Vaginal Inflammations
Infertility
Childbirth
Postpartum Discomfort
Nursing
Herbs for Babies
Caída Mollera (Fallen Fontanelle)
Diaper Rash
Colic and Diarrhea
Sticky Eyes
Teething
Bathing
Herbal Tonics
Herbs for Dextoxifying
Herbs for Hangovers
Herbs for Baths and Soaks
To Prepare an Herbal Bath
Soothing Soaks for Arthritis, Rheumatism, Aches, and Pains
Soothing Baths for Irritated Skin
Herbs for Beauty and Hair
Pimples and Skin Eruptions
Skin Creams and Fresheners
Hair Care
Hair Loss
Deodorant
Weight Loss Aids
Herbs for Insecticides
Profile: A Modern Curandera
Elena Avila, M.S.N., R.N., Curandera (Rio Rancho, New Mexico)
When the Remedy Is a Limpia
Where to Find Mexican-American Herbs
Resources and Further Reading
Appendix: Herb List
Index