ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how elder knowledge becomes articulated within a Macehual medicine system among 1.5 million Nahuatl speakers and hundreds of communities of distinct Nahua or Macehual peoples. The knowledge of Macehual or Nahua elders, Don Aurelio and Nana Filo, guide the medicine history. Meso-American Traditional Medicine, a parallel term to Traditional Indian/Indigenous Medicine, is founded on aggregate and contingent worldviews that formed pre-Columbian societies. These resonating knowledges evolved out of Meso-America where there were dynamic processes of knowledge development and layered spiritual teachings across a wide terrain. Permeating many Meso-American healing systems is an understanding of the agency of life; its intelligence and ability to act above and beyond human efforts. Meso-American medicine draws from well-articulated knowledge systems. Traditional medicine is learned with elders who are part of one's extended kinship, which includes the plants, minerals, animals, and the four elements of life. Such kinship relations are in sustaining relationships in Indigenous communities.
