Healers (raw footage)

Here we have a "typical" session with Don Antonio, our beloved Maya shaman in his home located in the quintessential rural town of Halacho, Yucatan. There is always so much going on in the spirit world when he makes the preparations to cleanse his patients; mind, body, soul. Of course he probably does not differentiate between the spirit and material world. As he sits upon his little wooden stool he beckons his visitors to come and sit in front of him, washes his precious and rare carved crystal stones in aguardiente (crude rum). He lights copal and stares intensely into the smoke as if in another world. After performing the ancient chant he will proceed to apply "ventosa" to begin to move the blood and draw out the "mal aire," bad winds..

Ventosa is similar to an ancient oriental healing art we know today as "cupping." Don Antonio consults his wife, Dona Antonia, as far as placement of the cups that fits the patients needs, and he procedes to puncture a small hole into the area with a fish bone and using heat, he suctions the cup over the hole in the skin. If the persons blood does not easily flow, than the blood is stagnant, causing diesease. It is then determined what herbs are going to be utilized to overcome the stagnation.