Mayan universities push to expand Indigenous knowledge beyond oral tradition

Mayan universities push to expand Indigenous knowledge beyond oral tradition

Gabino Baltazar was studying education and natural medicine when he learned that, according to the Mayan calendar, his destiny lay in pedagogy and healing. Since that day, the rural professor from Huehuetenango, Guatemala, has concerned himself with the education of young people from his community. For the last three years, he has also attended to patients in his home. Although he would like to bring the knowledge of his ancestors, such as the medicinal plants with which he cured his mother, the benefits of knowing “each one’s destiny” and explanations of energetic implications to other audiences, he has been limited in that mission by the fact that his degree, for which he studied seven years, “doesn’t count” when it comes to hospital appointments. “In eight years, I’ll retire as an educator and I would love to be certified before that, so that I can set up my own clinic. There is a great need in the territories,” he says in a phone interview. “Cities are also losing all of our knowledge.”

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