Part 37 (1/2)

The Healer also told me I needed an Aztec name.

I removed my mouth from the carca.s.s of the duck I was gnawing and wiped duck fat from my chin. ”What should my Aztec name be?”

”Nezahualcoyotl.”

I recognized the name. Next to Montezuma, he was the most famous indio king. There were many tales about Nezahualcoyotl, the king of Texcoco. He was famous for his poetry and wisdom. But from the amused glint in the Healer's eye when he bestowed the name upon me, I realized I was not being honored for my wisdom or literary talents.

The name meant ”Hungry Coyote.”

Along the road the Healer showed me vegetation-plants and trees and bushes-that were useful in the healing arts, and the ways of the forest and jungle and the animals and people that inhabit them.

”Before the Spanish came, the revered speakers, what we called our Aztec emperors, had not only a great animal and serpent zoo, but vast gardens in which thousands of plants were grown that were used by healers. The potency and healing powers of the plant were determined by using them on criminals and prisoners who were to be sacrificed.”

The great medical gardens and books suffered the same fate most Aztec knowledge did-the priests who followed the conquistadors destroyed them. What had the fray said about such ignorance? What they didn't understand, they feared and destroyed.

The Healer showed me plants that were used for wounds and ulcers, to heal the blisters of burns, reduce swelling, cure skin diseases and eye problems, cool fevers, soothe the stomach, calm the heart when it is too active and stimulate it when it is too quiet. Jalop was used to unlock the bowels, a plant called ”urine of a tiger” to make water come when urination was difficult.

”Aztec doctors sewed up wounds with human hair. They set broken bones with pieces of wood and put a gum of ocozotl tree with resin and feather over the wood.”

Not even the fish were free from the influence of Aztec herbs. Indios crushed a plant called barbasco and threw it into rivers and lakes. The herb stunned the fish and forced them to the surface, where the indios grabbed them.

Children were instructed to keep their teeth clean to avoid decay; salt and powered charcoal were used with a wooden instrument to clean teeth.

I saw an amazing example of Aztec tooth remedies in a village where another traveling healer had stopped at the same time we did. This healer's specialty was removing painful teeth-painlessly. He applied a substance to the teeth that instantly deadened the tooth. Within hours, the tooth had fallen out.

I asked the Healer what the man had applied that worked so well.

”The venom of a rattlesnake,” he said.

The Healer told me not all the products of plants were used to heal. Veintiunilla, the ”little twenty-one,” caused death in exactly twenty-one days. Persons given the plant developed an insatiable thirst for potent drinks like pulque and cactus wine, and drank the intoxicating beverages until they died.

”Evil Aztec wh.o.r.es tricked men into drinking macacotal, the steeping from a snake. Ayyo, these men engage in ahuilnema with six or seven women, one after another, and moments later are ready to have ahuilnema with even more women. This goes on and on, with the man unable to control his urge, giving anything he owns to the wh.o.r.es, until the life is gone from him and his flesh hangs from his bones.”

To have power to satisfy so many women. Muy hombre! What a way to die, eh, amigos?

Another indio aphrodisiac was the ”witches rose.” Medicine women used magic words to make roses open before their season. These were sold to men for a wicked purpose: the seduction of women. The rose was hidden under the woman's pillow. When she inhaled the scent, she became intoxicated with love for the person who put the rose there and called his name.

I asked him about the drugs that robbed one of their mind. His expression never changed, but when he was amused by something a glint came to his eye and he would emit a quiet, birdlike chuckle. He did so as he told me about yoyotli, the dust that made one so happy and pliable that you danced gaily to the sacrificial block where the priest was waiting with an obsidian knife to cut your heart out.

”Flower weavers are the sorcerers who bring our minds into contact with the G.o.ds,” the Healer said. Peyotl, from the buds of cacti that grow only in the Place of the Dead, the northern deserts; and brown seeds from ololiuqui, a plant that climbs and clings to other plants, were used to ”take people to the G.o.ds,” which I understood to mean that the person entered a dreamlike state. From the babbling uttered and visions the person experienced, a healer could determine the person's malady.

Teunanacatl, a bitter black mushroom, was called the ”flesh of the G.o.ds.” Occasionally served with honey at feasts, it also took one to the G.o.ds, but the hallucinations were less than those created by peyotl. ”Some people laugh hysterically, others image they are being chased by snakes or that their bellies are full of worms eating them alive. Others fly with the G.o.ds.”

A plant that could be smoked was called coyote weed by the Healer. ”It makes the smoker feel calm and soothes deep pains.” A small smile on his face hinted that some of the tobacco he smoked was of the coyote weed variety.

The most powerful substance was teopatli, the divine ointment. The Healer spoke of it with a tone of awe. To the seeds of certain plants ”are added the burnt ashes of spiders, scorpions, centipedes, and other noxious insects, petum to make the flesh painless, and ololiuqui to lift the spirits.” When applied to the skin, it made the person invincible, as if an invisible s.h.i.+eld was held in front of him. ”The greatest warriors of the Aztec were the Jaguar Knights and Eagle Knights; it is said that the weapons of their enemies could not cut them when they had the teopatli ointment applied to their skin.”

As the months pa.s.sed by and we went from one small village to another, I never encountered another rider searching for me. Soon enough of the fear was gone for me to stop puffing up my nose. Because the sun darkened my skin so well, I needed little dye. But for safety's sake the Healer gave me a ”sore” to wear on my cheek, a small, black piece of bark held on with sap.