Dona Hermilia Diego Gonzalez can stop bleeding with her bare hands.
The Zapotec midwife speaks of the importance of the woman's braid.
Many Mexican parteras place it in a mother's mouth to bring on a gag
response that triggers the uterus to contract if the placenta delays
in being born. "That is why it is important to have clean hair," she
advises.

A few weeks earlier while visiting another elder, Don Aurelio
instructs us on the importance of the braid as a mediator for energy.
I ponder on how indigenous or traditional medicine can be adhered to
if we no longer have our braids? The rebozo is another technology we
use to protect a mother, helping to descend a child or to reconstitute
the organs. Yet, trenzas and rebozos are often discarded as people
attempt to fit into societies that do not value these signs of
indigeneity. Many of us believe we no longer need our braids, shawls
or traditional skirts, not realizing that there was a reason our
elders valued them. Their very forms help us to uniquely connect with
the natural elements.

Such teachings continue to be shared in many communities, with elders
and traditional knowledge keepers sharing stories that transmit
indigenous medicine. Nowadays, the elders also provide teachings at
gatherings and conferences. Do?a Hermilia stands before the gathering
of XXI Fiesta Nacional de la Planta Medicinal in Xochitepec, Morelos
and calls on the divine midwives and abuelitas in the spirit world to
initiate the gathering. Nearby, a sacred fire burns in an adobe pit
that will be kept alive as long as the teachings are conducted. Herbs
of romero, ruda and flowers form a square altar that is a cosmic
mirror of the universe.

Before we can learn to treat others, we must first heal ourselves, our
families and those closest to us. That is the foundation of learning
medicine based on traditions ? the web of relationships that create
knowledge. There are many ways to learn Mexican Traditional Medicine
(MTM). Aside from apprenticeships, conferences, schools and gatherings
abound in Mexico, such as the fiesta, which is sponsored by el
Instituto Mexicano de Medicinas Tradicionales Tlahuilli each Sept. 16.
And tensions are ensuing as institutions across the Americas begin to
value traditional medicine and offer courses -- while traditional
leaders fear teachings are compromised in some settings that are not
controlled by indigenous peoples. Can we call medicine "traditional"
if it is integrated into systems where people pay exorbitant amounts
to claim the title of curandera or the right to do "shamanic healing?"
I remember an elder tell me that she could not call herself a
curandera ? she had been healing for only 35 years.

Ancestral medicinal knowledge evolves from relationships within the
community and the natural world. MTM contains within it an indigenous
science of generations of observation and experimentation. Where we
learn traditional medicine also reflects our relationship to the
knowledge. Numerous traditional healers have acquired medicinal
knowledge because an elder, curandera or medico indigena has trusted
someone enough to share sacred knowledge that will hardly be found in
a book. To deeply learn indigenous MTM requires being connected to
communal practices based on relations with the natural world and the
networks of indigenous-controlled spaces, where the medicine naturally
is shared, or where elders begin to identify whom they will work with
not necessarily because we want to but because they determine who
should learn which practices. Indigenous medicine has survived by
knowing what information belongs in which public spaces. Conveners of
Africa First, which has organized several conferences on integrating
traditional medicine and Western Medicine and has an upcoming
conference July 12-15 on healing chronic illnesses in Minneapolis,
issued a declaration that traditional medicine and allopathic medicine
are two parallel systems of knowledge (see www.africa-first.com). And
one should not be subsumed into the other. Dr. Rudolph Ryser, a member
of the Cowlitz Tribe, called for "the development and delivery of more
traditional medicine educational opportunities (to learn about health
and healing with natural systems and not to become healers) to better
inform the Indian and non-Indian public."

As we seek to preserve and learn traditional medicine, we may
encounter different opportunities to learn useful practical and
theoretical knowledge of herbs and nutrition. We should also keep in
mind that sacred knowledge, the ceremonial and ritual knowledge that
is held in secret and that powerfully affects healing, still manifests
far from the grasp of footnotes. And that knowledge is maintained
among the authorities within our various communities ? the elders.

(c) 2006 Column of the Americas