PAPANTLA, Veracruz, México — Juan Gerónimo Simbrón, a traditional healer, walks through the tropical forest surrounding his house until he reaches a 100-year-old fig tree. Among the roots, he sets up a carpet of palm leaves with tobacco fragments as an offering. Here, he begins a prayer. His appeal is to Kiwíkgolo and Kiwichat (deities of the mountain in the Totonac religion), he tells us, calling for rain to end their exceptional monthlong drought. When the ritual concluded, Juan Gerónimo stayed silent in front of the majestic tree for a few minutes. Juan Gerónimo Simbrón, 56, is one of the Abuelos de Tajín (Tajín’s grandfathers) spiritual guides living in Indigenous Totonac communities around Papantla, a city in eastern Mexico, who mix their traditional beliefs with Christianity. The guides take their name from El Tajín, a nearby pre-Hispanic city once dedicated to the deity of thunder, serving as the vibrant Totonac spiritual capital. But today, loss of ancestral knowledge and religious traditions is worrying the Abuelos de Tajín — hastened by a rupture with their degrading environment. This loss is pushing them to work with scientists to get to the bottom of it. “Deforestation and the disappearance of species is impacting ecosystems and our spirituality,” Simbrón said. “We lose our trees, so we have fewer species as our animal spirit guide, we lack offerings of ancestral trees. … All these factors have repercussions on our connection with deities and rituals.” To examine the health of ecosystems that they suspect are fast…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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