What Plants Did Maya Healers Use as Medicine?

Maya healers used an extensive pharmacopoeia of native and cultivated plants, many of which remain in use among the highland Maya of Chiapas, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. The principal sources for the colonial-period pharmacopoeia are the Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis (the Badianus Manuscript of 1552, an Aztec text that nonetheless preserves many shared Mesoamerican plant uses), the Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán of Diego de Landa, the dictionaries of colonial Yucatec and highland Maya, and the surviving oral tradition of the highland Maya communities documented in the twentieth century. This page expands the page on Maya medicine, healers, and herbal remedies and links to the Maya agriculture and food overview and to Cocoa, salt, and Maya trade goods.

Copal: the incense of healing

Copal, the resin of the Bursera genus (especially Bursera bipinnata, B. graveolens, and B. simaruba), was burned as incense in virtually every healing ceremony. The smoke of copal was understood to carry prayers to the gods, to drive out evil spirits, and to purify the patient, the healer, and the space in which the ceremony took place. The colonial Yucatec sources describe copal as the principal offering of the ah k’in, the daykeeper-priest. Copal was also powdered and applied as a wound-dressing and as a sternutative (a substance that promotes sneezing, used to clear the head). The Copal-tree was a sacred tree, often planted in the courtyards of temples and houses. The same resin is described in the Maya rituals of bloodletting and sacrifice page.

Pericón: the yauhtli of the healers

Pericón, Tagetes lucida, a member of the aster family native to the highlands of Mexico and Central America, was one of the most widely used medicinal and ritual plants of the Maya. The plant was used as a tea for coughs, colds, fevers, and “cold” intestinal conditions; as a flavoring in chocolate drinks; and as a ritual offering in ceremonies of the dead. The plant contains a small amount of the psychoactive compound 5-MeO-DMT, and the colonial-period sources describe the use of pericón infusions as mild hallucinogens. The Nahuatl name yauhtli was applied to the same plant; in the highland Maya regions of Chiapas and Guatemala the plant is known as pericón or Santa María.

Tobacco: smoked, drunk, and used in enemas

Tobacco, Nicotiana rustica and the cultivated N. tabacum, was used in the Maya pharmacopoeia in three principal ways. It was smoked in pipes and cigars as a ritual offering, often by an ah k’in or pul priest, with the smoke understood to communicate with the gods. It was drunk as a tobacco-water infusion, sometimes combined with the lime-soaked bark of the piñuela or balché tree, as a strong emetic and stimulant. And it was administered as a ritual enema — a procedure in which a tube of carved bone or wood was used to introduce the tobacco-water into the rectum. The three uses are described in the colonial sources, in the highland Maya ethnography of the twentieth century, and in Maya rituals of bloodletting and sacrifice.

Cacao: the drink of the healer

Cacao, Theobroma cacao, was used as a vehicle for herbal preparations. The seed of the cacao was ground, mixed with water, flavored with achiote, vanilla, chili, and various herbs, and drunk as a cold or hot beverage. The drink had a mildly stimulating effect from the cacao’s theobromine content, and it was used to deliver bitter or astringent plant medicines. The same plant is the basis of the kakaw of the Classic period inscriptions and is treated in Cocoa, salt, and Maya trade goods. The cultural and ritual dimensions of cacao drinking are described in Maya cuisine, food, drink, and preparation.

The morning glory: a ritual purgative

The seeds of several species of Ipomoea and the related Turbina corymbosa (the ololiuhqui of the Aztecs) were used as ritual purgatives and divinatory drugs. The seeds contain lysergic acid amide, a precursor of LSD, and the colonial sources describe the use of the seeds to “see” the cause of an illness, to communicate with the gods, and to clean the body of bad humors. The seeds were ground, mixed with water, and drunk in a ceremony overseen by an ah men or ah k’in. The morning glory, like the peyote and the psilocybin mushroom, was a “purgative of the head” — a drug that, by emptying the body, was understood to open the mind to supernatural knowledge.

Peyote and the sacred mushroom

Peyote, Lophophora williamsii, a small spineless cactus of northern Mexico and the south-central United States, contains the hallucinogen mescaline. The plant was used in the Maya region in the Pre-Columbian period and is attested in the colonial sources from Yucatan and Guatemala. The plant was used in divination and healing ceremonies, particularly by the highland Maya, and the use has continued into the modern period. The sacred psilocybin mushroom, a complex of species including Psilocybe mexicana, P. cubensis, and P. semilanceata, was similarly used in healing ceremonies and is depicted in the “mushroom stones” of the highland Maya archaeological record. The same ritual context appears in Maya priesthood and shamanism.

Datura: the deliriant of the healer

Datura, the jaltomato or toloache, includes Datura stramonium and D. innoxia. The plants are powerful deliriants, producing a long-lasting, disorienting hallucinogenic state marked by vivid visions and a near-complete amnesia. The colonial sources describe the use of datura in healing ceremonies and in warfare (the Aztec use of the plant to drug the unwary is well known). The Maya used datura sparingly because of the toxicity, and the same plant was used in surgery as an analgesic and sedative.

Balché: the ritual drink

Balché is a mildly intoxicating drink fermented from the bark of the Lonchocarpus tree (especially Lonchocarpus violaceus and L. longistylus) with honey and water. The bark contains a small amount of a hallucinogenic compound, and the colonial sources describe the drink as “wine” of the Maya. Balché was drunk at healing ceremonies, at the ceremonies of the ch’a chaak rain rites, and at the rites of the agricultural year. The drink is also described in Maya cuisine, food, drink, and preparation and in the living-tradition page on The living Maya: heritage and modern descendants.

Guava, ramón, and the everyday remedies

Two of the most widely used everyday remedies were guava and ramón. The guava, Psidium guajava, was used for its astringent leaves and bark: a tea of guava leaves is a standard treatment for diarrhea and dysentery in the modern Maya pharmacopoeia, and the bark of the tree is used in the same way. The ramón, Brosimum alicastrum, sometimes called the Maya breadnut, is a large tree of the lowlands whose seeds are ground into a flour and whose leaves are used in a tea for coughs and fevers. The ramón seed was an important food staple, especially in times of maize scarcity, and it is described in Maya cuisine, food, drink, and preparation.

Rue, chamomile, and the herbal teas

The Maya pharmacopoeia includes several “Old World” plants that were introduced after the Spanish conquest — among them rue, chamomile, and the common basil — and that have been adopted into the highland Maya pharmacopoeia in the last five centuries. The European chamomile, Matricaria chamomilla, is widely used in highland Maya healing as a “cold” remedy, a treatment for infant colic, and a flavoring in ritual drinks. Rue, Ruta graveolens, is used in ritual cleansings and as a protection against the evil eye.

The five “black drinks”

The colonial and ethnohistorical sources record the use of five principal “black drinks” in lowland Maya healing ceremonies: cacao, balché, tobacco-water, the seed purgative (morning glory or related), and the mushroom drink. The drinks were administered by the ah men or ah k’in in a ceremony that included prayer, copal incense, and a divination. The five drinks were the principal means by which the healer communicated with the supernatural world on behalf of the patient, and the use of all five in a single healing ceremony is described in the early colonial sources.

The continuity of the tradition

The highland Maya pharmacopoeia of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is a direct descendant of the colonial and pre-conquest traditions documented in this article. The plants are the same; the diagnostic categories of “hot-cold,” “fright,” and “lost soul” are the same; the role of the curandero is the same as that of the ah men. The continuity of the practice is treated in The living Maya: heritage and modern descendants and in the article pieces on Modern Maya identity and survival and on The Maya in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras.

Sources

Aveni, A. F. (2001). Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico. University of Texas Press. — link
Saturno, W. A. et al. (2012). Ancient Maya astronomical tables from Xultun, Guatemala. Science 336 (6082), 714–717. — link
Berlin, E. A. & Berlin, B. (1996). Medical Ethnobiology of the Highland Maya of Chiapas, Mexico. Princeton University Press. — link
Sharer, R. J. & Traxler, L. P. (2006). The Ancient Maya (6th ed.). Stanford University Press. — link
Coe, M. D. (1993). The Maya (5th ed.). Thames & Hudson. — link