ABSTRACT
The following prayer by Margarita Pérez Pérez, a traditional ilol (Tzotzil for healer) from San Pedro Chenalhó, demonstrates the adeptness of women to use traditional forms of healing to respond to complex social problems and to reach across languages and cultures to share healing knowledge. Healers of highland Chiapas often use prayers to help their fellow townspeople stop drinking. Pérez’s prayer is unique because she offered it for a 16-year-old from the United States who was struggling with a drug and alcohol problem. At the time (1987) that Pérez prayed, I was researching women’s experiences with their own and others’ problem drinking. I had learned that alcohol plays a complex and contradictory role among Pedranos (the native inhabitants of Chenalhó). Pedranos describe pox (Tzotzil for rum, pronounced “posh”) as a harbinger of hope and a powerful healing agent, on the one hand, and as a principal cause of suffering and sorrow on the other. To invoke its healing role, elders refer to pox as the drops of water from the leaves of the Maya World Tree, which in ancient Maya cosmology stood at the center of the universe and constituted the fifth world direction. In healing ceremonies that still occur today, iloletik (plural for ilol) sprinkle pox on pine branches to simulate World Tree shedding water from its leaves to nourish Earth, a Maya diety. The actions of iloletik also recall how Sun, another Maya diety, shed its blood each night when it journeyed to Xibalba, the Underworld, to fight with the forces of evil in order to rise again. As they sprinkle rum in healing ceremonies, iloletik seek the blessings of both Maya gods and the Christian God and Saints. God’s grace or healing power in the form of drops of pox or water reflects the layering during colonization of the Christian God’s sacrifice of his son, Jesus, on a cross onto the image of Sun sacrificing its life each night as it moves down the veins of the World Tree ( Eber 2000 [1995]).
