Centro Botanico Naturista La Melisa

Verbena verde in the drying house

Today, I had the pleasure of meeting Don Feliciano Patron Canul, an expert in natural medicine and owner of an herbal medicine garden, production area, and store.  The Embroidery and Herbal Medicine Workshop where Feliciano and his family live and work is located about five blocks form the city´s center, where I pick up a detailed map of how to arrive from Izamal's tourism office.   

Verbena in Feliciano's garden

The entrance to the family home is an embroidery shop, so when I begin to ask about plants, one of Feliciano's five daughters, who is working on a blouse, directs me to a side entrance of the home.  

Within minutes, I am sweating more than I already was on this humid day in the Yucatan.  Feliciano, notices and chuckles. "It gets really hot in here because of the roof.  I am used to it, and it's perfect, because all of these plants need to dry," he tells me.  For the rest of the morning, I continued sweating and Don Feliciano shared a mix of personal stories, plant knowledge and souvenirs from years of work as a botanist.  And, surprisingly, this doesn't appear as one of Tripadvisor's "Things to Do" in Izamal!

x-put-balam

A machine used to chop plant parts

Herbs finished drying and ready for packaging

Fruits of x-put-balam in the drying room

In the drying room, Feliciano explains each rack, describing the plant or mix of plants and how they can be used.  Verbena roja, he tells me, stimulates ovulation in a woman´s cycle.  The bark of the Encino tree, "Bek" in Maya, is boiled and gargled by people who are suffering from sore throats or vomiting blood.  Many of the plants names he uses are in Maya, like x-put-balam (Papera), a plant whose orange fruits and leaves are mashed, boiled and gargled to cure sore throats.  

Medicinal herbs are packaged and ready to sell

Feliciano's grandfather, a Men (Maya priest), shared his knowledge of healing plants with his son and grandson.  "He knew a lot about plants, and then other more mysterious things, which I never really liked," Feliciano tells me.  "Like animal sacrifices?" I asked.  "No, more like supernatural things."  Feliciano tells me a story of a Maya Rain Ceremony, in which his grandfather and other men would descend into a cave for three days, during time of drought.  Before entering, they would recite prayers and light a candle, which despite constant winds, burned steadily while the men were in the cave.  When the last man exited the cave, he pinched the flame out and put the candle in his pocket.  "I knew something wasn't normal, that a candle shouldn't burn like that for three days," Feliciano solemnly tells me.  Then he adds, "One thing I do like is a prayer he taught me."  Feliciano recites the prayer, which is in a rhyming mix of Spanish and Maya, and smiled at me, "Sounds nice, doesn't it?"

Feliciano's Backyard: A wealth of medicinal plants

While in his garden, Feliciano tells me that several people have invited him to work at a larger botanic garden in a nearby town. They would pick him up, he would give tours for a couple of hours (all dressed up, he notes), and then he would be driven home and paid 300 pesos (about $25/day).  While the money and opportunity were good, Feliciano felt that his operation at home would fall apart if he took on this job, so he turned down the offer. Feliciano recognizes the value of his knowledge and its connection to the Maya culture.  His story illustrates a tension between ancient plant secrets  preserved in a pre-Hispanic language and the desire of the modern world to access this knowledge.

  Feliciano is proud of his visitors from around the world.  He shows me photos of him with Former Mexican President Vicente Fox and famous latino pop singer Juan Gabriel.  On his wall, are framed newspaper articles with titles like, "An Example of Family" and "Deep Maya Roots, still growing."  However, after a morning at Feliciano's house, it becomes clear that who relies upon his plant knowledge most are his neighbors, who frequently arrive to buy dried leaves and bark, which they'll make into tonics, creams, and teas.  

  

With herbolist Feliciano and still sweating in the drying room!!