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(03/06/23)
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Junglepixiebelize - Recollections of a Gringa Pioneer
Nancy R Koerner - Copyright@2023 - All Rights Reserved
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
"Don Elijio & the Dairy Queen"
Having arrived in Belize a year-and-a-half earlier in 1976, I had only realized, after-the-fact, what it blessing it had been to be a nursing mother. If I’d had to find formula or baby food for my son back then, would have been impossible. After all, the tropics have never been known as “dairy-country,” and pioneer life had been hard enough without worrying about sterilizing bottles at midnight. My world, up-river on the Macal, had been one without refrigeration or electricity. But now, I was reaching the end of my patience as a dairy animal. Yep. This nursing thing was getting old.My right breast had stopped producing, and it was back to its original size.
But the other breast was still producing like a fire hose. In fact, it was SO big, the mangos were jealous. But what to do? After all, lactation wasn’t something I could just turn off, at will, like a spigot. Worse yet, my now almost two-year-old son had gotten into the habit of toddling across the room – any room, at any time, no matter who was present – casually lifting my shirt, and helping himself like a drunkard “bellying up to the bar.”
The local women from Cristo Rey all told me the same thing: go visit the Mayan shaman, Eligio Panti. He could help. So, I saddled my horse, and made the slow ride from Macaw Bank to San Antonio. It was a tiny place back then, barely a village, consisting of perhaps no more than twenty modest thatch houses. And there, at the one-and-only tiny tienda, I inquired after Don Eligio.
I’m only 5 foot 3 inches tall. Let’s face it. I’m short. But when I met Don Eligio, I towered over him like a basketball player. And, despite his small physical stature, he also just didn’t seem to measure up to my previous mental picture. I had, at least, expected a dynamic personality – a man who projected magnificence, or some kind of ineffable power. But no. This diminutive, self-effacing man, at 4 foot 10 inches, did not seem to exude any grand sense of “presence” either.
No doubt, I was still too young to recognize the subtleties of this man’s inner life-force. I only reasoned later that Don Eligio did not project an obvious, ego-driven personality, because his spirit was so much a part of his environment. He blended. So attuned was he to all components of the physical and spiritual world – its people and creatures, trees and plants, its season and elements – that they were merely extensions of his very being. He was connected. And, make no mistake – he was powerful.
Somehow, I had assumed Don Eligio probably spoke at least a little English, but when my attempts proved fruitless, he waved over a young boy to translate:
“I speak Spanish and Maya. If you want to talk with me, you must speak Spanish or Maya,” Don Eligio said, simply.
Unfortunately, my Spanish was limited to a few useless phrases I’d learned in 7th grade – like “Donde esta la bibliotheca?”(Where is the library?”) and “No me gusta las albondigas,” (“I don’t like meatballs.”) And since my linguistic skills were non-existent in Maya, it looked like our young translator would stay. (Great. Nothing like talking to a Mayan healer about breast feeding, through a nine-year-old.)
The tiny shaman invited into his house, and offered me a simple wooden chair. The room was so dim, I could see dust motes floating in the single ray of muted light from the window. There was a table with a kerosene lamp, a hammock, and a wooden workbench that ran the length of one wall and was solidly attached to it. The top was a solid slab of mahogany, and most of it was covered in a piles of fresh greenery. Around the room, bundles of herbs hung from the rafters, fat crocus bags stuffed with woody vines leaned against the wall, and a bundle of long sticks, bound with a piece of rattan, poked up in another corner. In the middle of the floor was a piece of plastic Don Elijio used as a ground cloth. On it was a substantial pile of tree bark, and next to it sat a low three-legged stool, and a short machete. These were the tools of a master herbalist.
The old shaman took a ragged piece of fibrous sheathing (the kind you see between palm fronds) and pinched a small quantity of three different kinds of herbs into it, then twisting and lashing it with a short length rattan string. He motioned for me to cup my hands together, placed the medicine bag in my hands, and then cupped his hands over and around mine. Pausing, he closed his eyes, and mumbled a short prayer in Maya. This, he repeated nine times.
Then he asked me if I had a hair comb. Yes. But I didn’t bring it with me. So he picked up a short stick, leaned forward, and gently mimed what I should do:
I was to start at the top of the breast, and comb the skin, from the top down, towards the nipple. One direction, nine times. Then start from the left side, and comb the skin sideways, again towards the center. Then underneath and upwards. Then from the right side. Same. I was to comb one direction, not back and forth, doing each movement nine times. Then Don Elijio said:
“Because you will not remember the words of my prayer in Maya, think of me praying them for you. Drink the tea three times
a day. In two days, your milk will be gone.”
It was not unusual for the shaman to be paid in produce, or a chicken, or eggs, or whatever his patient could afford.Instead, I had brought money. As I made to pull out a black $10 BH bill to pay him, he shook his head, and pointed to the red $5.
The effort was not in vain. When I returned home, my son came running – to take advantage of his last meal “at the bar.” Drained of my burden, I drank the tea, and went through the combing ritual, as prescribed, imagining Don Elijio saying the prayer. I followed his advice to the letter -- and it didn’t take two days to get a result.
When my son next lifted my shirt, he glanced up at me with a confused look, then he glanced down again, and then back up again, questioningly.
I gave him his bowl of white rice and beans, and his spoon, and that was the end of that.
I’m only 5 foot 3 inches tall. Let’s face it. I’m short. But when I met Don Eligio, I towered over him like a basketball player. And, despite his small physical stature, he also just didn’t seem to measure up to my previous mental picture. I had, at least, expected a dynamic personality – a man who projected magnificence, or some kind of ineffable power. But no. This diminutive, self-effacing man, at 4 foot 10 inches, did not seem to exude any grand sense of “presence” either.
No doubt, I was still too young to recognize the subtleties of this man’s inner life-force. I only reasoned later that Don Eligio did not project an obvious, ego-driven personality, because his spirit was so much a part of his environment. He blended. So attuned was he to all components of the physical and spiritual world – its people and creatures, trees and plants, its season and elements – that they were merely extensions of his very being. He was connected. And, make no mistake – he was powerful.
Somehow, I had assumed Don Eligio probably spoke at least a little English, but when my attempts proved fruitless, he waved over a young boy to translate:
“I speak Spanish and Maya. If you want to talk with me, you must speak Spanish or Maya,” Don Eligio said, simply.
Unfortunately, my Spanish was limited to a few useless phrases I’d learned in 7th grade – like “Donde esta la bibliotheca?”(Where is the library?”) and “No me gusta las albondigas,” (“I don’t like meatballs.”) And since my linguistic skills were non-existent in Maya, it looked like our young translator would stay. (Great. Nothing like talking to a Mayan healer about breast feeding, through a nine-year-old.)
The tiny shaman invited into his house, and offered me a simple wooden chair. The room was so dim, I could see dust motes floating in the single ray of muted light from the window. There was a table with a kerosene lamp, a hammock, and a wooden workbench that ran the length of one wall and was solidly attached to it. The top was a solid slab of mahogany, and most of it was covered in a piles of fresh greenery. Around the room, bundles of herbs hung from the rafters, fat crocus bags stuffed with woody vines leaned against the wall, and a bundle of long sticks, bound with a piece of rattan, poked up in another corner. In the middle of the floor was a piece of plastic Don Elijio used as a ground cloth. On it was a substantial pile of tree bark, and next to it sat a low three-legged stool, and a short machete. These were the tools of a master herbalist.
The old shaman took a ragged piece of fibrous sheathing (the kind you see between palm fronds) and pinched a small quantity of three different kinds of herbs into it, then twisting and lashing it with a short length rattan string. He motioned for me to cup my hands together, placed the medicine bag in my hands, and then cupped his hands over and around mine. Pausing, he closed his eyes, and mumbled a short prayer in Maya. This, he repeated nine times.
Then he asked me if I had a hair comb. Yes. But I didn’t bring it with me. So he picked up a short stick, leaned forward, and gently mimed what I should do:
I was to start at the top of the breast, and comb the skin, from the top down, towards the nipple. One direction, nine times. Then start from the left side, and comb the skin sideways, again towards the center. Then underneath and upwards. Then from the right side. Same. I was to comb one direction, not back and forth, doing each movement nine times. Then Don Elijio said:
“Because you will not remember the words of my prayer in Maya, think of me praying them for you. Drink the tea three times
a day. In two days, your milk will be gone.”
It was not unusual for the shaman to be paid in produce, or a chicken, or eggs, or whatever his patient could afford.Instead, I had brought money. As I made to pull out a black $10 BH bill to pay him, he shook his head, and pointed to the red $5.
The effort was not in vain. When I returned home, my son came running – to take advantage of his last meal “at the bar.” Drained of my burden, I drank the tea, and went through the combing ritual, as prescribed, imagining Don Elijio saying the prayer. I followed his advice to the letter -- and it didn’t take two days to get a result.
When my son next lifted my shirt, he glanced up at me with a confused look, then he glanced down again, and then back up again, questioningly.
I gave him his bowl of white rice and beans, and his spoon, and that was the end of that.