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According
to the Museum of Mayan Medicine, there are 300,000 known plant
species worldwide. Thirty thousand of those can be found in
Mexico, and 15,000 find a niche in Mexico’s southernmost
state of Chiapas.
The cool,
misty highlands of Chiapas are home to Mexico’s largest
rainforest, stunning Mayan ruins, and myriad indigenous groups
descended from Mayan peoples. The quaint colonial town of
San Cristóbal de las Casas is perched high above the
neighboring capital city of Tuxtla Gutiérrez in the
midst of a temperate pine forest in the Jovel Valley. Its
importance as a major trading nexus for the indigenous groups
living in the surrounding highlands not only has spurred a
large tourism boom in recent decades, but also prompted Zapatista
leaders to launch their movement here in the mid-1990s. It
is here that the Organization of Indigenous Physicians of
the State of Chiapas (OMIECH) is based, which brings together
healers and herbalists to resurrect and promote the traditional
medicine practiced by modern Tzotzil and Tzeltal Mayans. These
medicinal treatments largely use local flora.
Visitors
to OMIECH’s museum can witness I’lols (healers)
treating Mayan patients in the “Living Chapel,”
where medicinal treatments are mixed with religious ceremonial
practices. Many plants that are central tools for the Mayan
Ac’vomol, or herbalist, can be viewed in an adjoining
room, where visitors learn about such plant-based remedies
as a paste made from Tigridia pavonia roots that can cure
rashes, abscesses, and pimples so long as the patient abstains
from eating pork or fat. The exhibit highlights the indigenous
names of the plants on display as well as the scientific names,
botanical characteristics, ecological niches, and use and
administration of various plant parts.
Behind
the museum, the organization maintains an herb garden that
allows visitors to inspect many of the medicinal plants. The
garden is also the site of a traditional wood-fired steam
bath, where visitors and natives alike can steam herbs and
relax in its smoky vapors.
Antonio
Pérez Méndez is a founder of the organization
and an expert Mayan herbalist. When I first visited the museum,
he was out on a collection trip. Most herbs are collected
in the early morning, when, Pérez said, the plants
still retain their essence and energy. I caught up with Pérez
the following day and found him in the on-site herbarium processing
the petema root and guarumbo leaves he collected the previous
day. Petema root is used to treat menstrual cramps, and guarumbo
leaves are important in the treatment of kidney diseases and
tuberculosis. Pérez currently has about 80 species
stored in the herbarium. Traditionally, the herbs are dried
in the shade, because exposure to the sun bleaches the natural
color and compromises the plants’ medicinal properties.
Pérez dries them in a systematic way in the many cases
of drawers that line the herbarium walls.
Pérez
knows the properties of about 200 different plants. His father
was also an expert herbalist in his birthplace, about 35 kilometers
from San Cristóbal. “When I was born, there was
no modern medicine and no pharmacy,” Pérez explained
in Spanish, his second language. “The pills and pharmacies
came later, but in the beginning no one used them, as people
preferred to stick to their customs and beliefs.
“Eventually,
the doctors began to come and preach that pills and modern
medicine were better, so the use and strength of the plants
began to decline as people put more confidence in medicine
from the pharmacy.” At about the same time, Pérez
moved to another village in an area where there were no doctors
or access to modern medicine, and he began to return to the
power of plants. “I began to rediscover the plants that
my father collected and their uses,” Pérez says.
“We began in this way.”
According
to Pérez, local people are returning to traditional
medicine. “Even though pills from the pharmacy often
are extracted from plants, they are produced in unidentifiable
forms in laboratories, and people feel less comfortable taking
them,” says Pérez. “What’s more, people
eventually found out that modern medicine is expensive and
often ineffective, so they are returning to using the plants.”
The most common ailment that brings people to the center is
diabetes, he says, followed by gall stones, complications
from high cholesterol, and cancer.
Pérez
and his colleagues are not opposed to working with academic
botanists who share their interest in medicinal plants and
approach their study with good intentions. In recent years,
however, the organization has learned the hard way to be wary
of biopiracy and pharmaceutical companies that don’t
share a mutual interest in respecting the local ecology and
giving back to the local communities.
In its
infancy, OMIECH benefited from financial support by a German
organization. However, for the past four years, they have
operated on minimal support from Mexican agencies and have
had to curtail their operations. With additional support,
the group would like to begin training more herbalists and
traditional doctors. According to Pérez, an increasing
number of people from local communities are interested in
this training. In addition, OMIECH would like to continue
to investigate the properties of local plants. “All of
this requires support in the form of money,” Pérez
noted regretfully.
Sarah
Nell Davidson
snd2@cornell.edu
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