How to explain that religion in Mexico has always meant corn and corn still means life? My mind reaches back to two scenes.
A few years ago, in a dusty, sun-baked region of the Mayan peninsula. . . .
Though it is nearly midday, there is almost total darkness in the hut. Outlined in its barely candelit shadows you can just make out the shapes of five hammocks, at different levels. But clearly visible on a large piece of cardboard on the floor lies a pregnant woman, in labor.
Two women attend her, one a midwife and the other Ruperta Loeza, the ninety-year-old healer who just this week cured my injured back with no medical aid but her two hands. Both are dressed in traditional Yucatecan style, in long, tuniclike garments, beautifully embroidered in brightly colored flowers at the neck, arms, and hem, with strips of cotton lace backing sewn under the embroidery. The darkness of the hut is a startling contrast to the brilliance of the cemetery—in the distance it seems for a moment to be a miniature golf course—that overlooks this small town. Within its walls is a vivid field of colors: pinks, yellows, greens, blues. It is filled with brightly painted tombstones in the shape of dollhouses but bigger, about five or six feet high, making a curiously urban skyline against a bright blue sky. Some are intricately decorated, most adorned with flowers. Just past it is a village of huts built on stilts, conical wooden frames thatched with palm fronds in symmetrical patterns. We are about an hour’s journey from Merida in northeastern Yucatán.
