The Healer disappeared into the forest for two hours. Upon his return, we ate a meal I had prepared over our campfire. While he was gone, I had foretold the future for a pregnant india who had had two girls and was desperate to birth a boy. After examining the ashes in her cooking fire and muttering some Latin at a flock of birds, I advised her that she would indeed have a boy. The grateful woman gave me the duck I'd roasted for our meal.
I dared not tell the Healer that I was telling fortunes.
I listened to him as I attacked the duck with great enthusiasm.
He spoke solemnly. "Each of us has our destiny cast by the gods. For some there are clear signs of good fortune, while pain and misfortune will be the circumstance of others." He shook his head. "You fall within the Shadow Fates, the destines the gods have left uncompleted. Your day is Four and the sign is Ollin, motion. The gods do not cast the destiny of those born under this sign because motion is changeable. It runs here and there and changes direction many times. It is under the control of Xolotl, the Plumed Serpent's evil twin. You see Xolotl blazing in the night sky at certain times of the year, the dark side of the star, while the light side blazes in the morning."
From the description I assumed Xolotl was the evening star, the nighttime manifestation of Venus, as opposed to the morning star. Xolotl, a dog-headed monster, was another favorite character at mascaradas.
"It is said that those born under the motion sign change their path in life frequently and often become rogues and tale bearers."
Eh, that caught my attention.
"Because they are so fluid, they are able to change shapes. The darkest side of those born under the sign of motion are the shape changers who are able to take on different forms, even the shape of animals."
"Why is that considered the dark side?" I asked.
"Because there are evil persons who do much harm under the guise of animals or in the shape of another person."
The Healer also told me I needed an Aztec name.
I removed my mouth from the carcass of the duck I was gnawing and wiped duck fat from my chin. "What should my Aztec name be?"
"Nezahualcóyotl."
I recognized the name. Next to Montezuma, he was the most famous indio king. There were many tales about Nezahualcóyotl, 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 whores tricked men into drinking macacotal, the steeping from a snake. Ayyo, these men engage in ahuilnéma with six or seven women, one after another, and moments later are ready to have ahuilnéma with even more women. This goes on and on, with the man unable to control his urge, giving anything he owns to the whores, 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 gods," 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 gods," 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 gods." Occasionally served with honey at feasts, it also took one to the gods, 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 gods."
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 shield 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."