As Taino and Paleros we are always mixing up elements, plants, bones, soils and more for many different purposes. Last year Anani got this Pilon for her Birthday, she is very adept at using it, so when we needed some black walnuts ground up to make a brown stain we asked Anani to do it. She gathered the green walnuts that had fallen from the trees herself and smashed them up removing the nut from the center. She continued to grind up the walnuts.
These green walnuts will turn brown overnight and make a very strong stain which does not easily "washout", the drops that she got on her will take at least a week or so to wash off.
What is exciting about this is that she has been raised to be involved and competent with these things from the earliest age, and now we can ask her to do something and she does not need any help to do it.
Several years ago when Anani was still a toddler I was holding her and speaking to a Taino who was trying to tell me that women could not be "Medicine People" within the Taino Tradition, that the women could only make Casava and tend the Fire. I confronted his ignorance with the account of the "myth" of Guabonita, the original Medicine Woman who taught the Caskike Guahayona how to work with the Medicines. I also told him that I was not going to exclude my daughter who I was holding from working with the Medicines. This was especially true because her whole birth process was Spiritual. Before she was born there was a Ceremony I did for her while she was still in her Mother's womb using multiple soils from different Caminos of Boriken (the Land where I was born) and Sacred Symbols. 3 days later she was born with Drumming, Rattling and Sacred Chants. Her placenta was buried in a Sacred location on the Land. It would be a crime to tell her she cannot work with the Medicine or be a active Taino Bohitu and Palera!
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