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218 The word has spread in the village. A partera is coming. My maestra, doña Filomena Cedillo Parra, comes to the village where I am staying with one of the tatas (elders) who is her compadre de medicina. These elders who have trained me represent that male-female balance so prevalent among traditional Indigenous peoples of Mexico. Each has provided me with a spectrum of knowledge regarding Nahua medicine, regarding birth, ceremony, limpias, plantas, and walking in balance and toward justice. Doña Filo has come to train another woman and me in midwifery because at the time of our instruction in 2005, there were no pregnant women in her own Nahua village. When I tell el tata don Aurelio Ramírez Cazarez, he says they will announce it on the village speakerphone near the church to spread the word, que viene una partera. The elders know exactly which women are pregnant, a total of four. Notably , there is no practicing partera, or midwife, in the village, a place known for its traditional medicine. The last living professional partera—the muchrespected doña Vicenta—had stopped catching babies. Doña Filo says she has come to teach us so that all this traditional birthing knowledge is not “taken to the grave” with her. Doña Filo is a Nahua midwife. In June 2000, I met her in Brownsville, Texas, at the kalpulli (an Indigenous form of communal organization) where we would participate in a ceremony rarely witnessed in a lifetime, a Mexican Indian ceremony in which elders came from Mexico to recognize the ceremonial dance circle Grupo Coatlique, Mesa de la Virgen de la Luz. We reunited in a training on Mexican Traditional Medicine (MTM) at Nahuatl Anatomy of Learning Yauhtli, Peyotzin, Tobacco, and Maguey Patrisia Gonzales Anatomy of Learning · 219 University in 2001. Doña Filo would become my teacher and elder in traditional birthing. From her I learned how to work with maguey medicine and purifying light. She taught me the power of el ombligo y como juntar el pulso, how to read the body’s energy through the navel, and moon teachings of la luna llena. As we await the women, we spend our days making tinctures and pomades, and mixing hot and “fresh” natured herbs (bejuco de ajo and axihuitl) to create a warm salve that is not too hot for pregnant women, who are considered already in a “hot” state. Sometimes the women do not come to see us until ten-thirty at night, because that is when they can get there, but we are ready for them. And I learn to palpate the womb and listen to the heartbeat with a fetoscope or with my hands; I also learn various recetas (remedies) for scarred fallopian tubes (manrubio), to relax the uterus or to expel the placenta (ruda and chocolate), or, for extreme situations, zoapatli—the famous cihuapatli —in western botanical nomenclature Montanoa tomentosa Cerv., which was recorded in the Florentine Codex (Sahagún 1950–1982). She also teaches more techniques using the rebozo, a shawl, which is an instrument and a technology of MTM. Doña Filo and the tata discuss one woman who does not come because she is feeling too sick, even though the walk is short. The tata says that is one way the placenta se enfría, or gets cold, from the body not moving around enough. We partake in ceremonies, such as the temazkalli, or Mexican medicinal sweat lodge, and limpias, or purification rites. And at night with pan y café, the elders, the children of los primeros Zapatistas, recount stories about Zapata and other cultural heroes of Morelos. I have been fortunate in my life to have been taught for two decades by this generation. Long before I decided to pursue a doctorate, my journey to understand las plantas would lead me to many recetas and to medicinas such as peyotzin, yauhtli, maguey, tobacco, and el poder de las flores, the healing power of flowers in purification rites. To Indigenous people, the plants are medicines. These four plantas, or medicines—in fact, ceremonial plants—organize this story of how I learned their power and application. These plants are my guides in understanding fertility, pregnancy and labor, and general imbalances whether physical or spiritual. Plant knowledge is so important for Nahua cultures that we literally “plant” who we are, our ombligos (umbilical stubs), placentas, and names. I first learned of “name planting” ceremonies from Andrés Ségura...

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