He made an incision on the patient’s stomach, scooped something inside and out came a wriggling, thumb-sized cucumber-like thing!
UP TO NOW, I can’t quite explain how this quack doctor did it. My high school teachers in biology and general science had always told us not to believe in quackery, exorcism, superstitions of old folks. Still I really would want them to explain this amazing occurrence which I witnessed.
This was the experience of Ernesto Torres, now a young man and an orphan who was a working student at the Mindanao Colleges in Davao City. He always spent his vacations in our house, and he and my brother always went fishing in a quiet cove a little distance from our house.
QUEER YOUNG MAN
Ernesto showed queer ways though. Every time he caught a small fish, he would scold it for getting caught and he would throw it back into the water. Tired of fishing, he would stand on a dead tree stump and practice delivering speeches. Old folks warned him not to make much noise there; the place was hallowed to some supernatural beings, they said. But Ernesto only laughed them off, and he shouted his orations louder.
Then one morning, he complained about an increasing stomachache and splitting headache. Worried, my parents rushed him to the Davao general hospital where he was confined for two weeks; but, instead of getting well, he seemed to get worse.
On Ernesto’s plea, my parents took him home; but he had to stay in bed for he couldn’t walk and looked more dead than alive.
Hospital physicians had given him up, so we desperately thought: Why not take him to a herbolario? Father went to see an herb doctor named Patricio Digamo who lived in a barrio a few kilometers from Santa Cruz, our town.
HERB DOCTOR CALLED
Digamo was told of Ernesto’s illness. The herbolario instructed: “Bring the patient here and I’ll operate on him at 8 o’clock this evening. Bring also one white chicken, a ganta of rice, cigarettes, a bottle of pomade, a dozen eggs, and a bottle of rum.”
We brought Ernesto to the latter’s house and he was laid on a bed in the sala. Beside it was a small table laden with cooked, unsalted food. Patricio Digamo was in white attire with red sashes around his slim waist and head; his two assistants were dressed like him too.
MYSTIC DOINGS
At eight, he raised his hands for silence, then he murmured some Latin-like words. Suddenly Digamo fell on the floor unconscious, and we all got excited. But his assistants explained that the herbolario was exchanging spirits with his invisible friend. This spirit would do the operation, they said.
Digamo regained his consciousness, clapped his hands, and an assistant gave him a sharp knife, while the other assistant took off patient Ernesto’s shirt. The latter had forgotten his pains and was quaking with fright watching the quack doctor with the knife.
I felt fear gripping me. Then Digamo got a bottle full of roots and oil, and applied oil on the lower portion of skinny Ernesto’s stomach. Next he covered Ernesto’s eyes, then made a lengthwise cut on the oiled position. Terrified, I silently witnessed him get a spoon and used it in scooping something from Ernesto’s stomach. It was a live, wriggling, thumb-sized cucumber looking thing about three inches long.
APPENDECTOMY?
Again he spooned Ernesto’s stomach and it was a spoonful of mud this time! The wriggling thing died when the herbolario poured some liquid on it. Next he sewed the cut on Ernesto’s stomach, poured some oil on the incision — and the wound and the sewing disappeared! Those in the room were amazed. I couldn’t understand it myself.
A few moments after, herbolario Patricio Digamo fell unconscious again — the spirits had exchanged places anew. When he stood up, he asked Ernesto to stand up and dance to music furnished by guitarists. To our amazement, Ernesto, who could hardly stand before, jumped from bed and danced enthusiastically. Afterwards he ate unsalted food prepared by the herbolario’s family.
Digamo told Father and Mother that Ernesto had caused the anger of a nuno, old spirit, who inhabited the fishing cove, with the noise of his loud orations. After that, the herbolario and Ernesto went to the fishing cover, and Mother and I followed with the white chicken.
RITUALS?
Herbolario Digamo built a fire a meter away from the water’s edge, let loose the chicken and it alighted on a bakawan tree. He murmured his Latin words before the fire, remained bowed for some minutes, then stretched his hands in front and seemed to be conversing with someone.
“I bade him goodbye,” he told us afterwards. “He is an old man, quite short; he wears a salakot; he has a long beard that touches ground. He owns that fishing cove. I told him Ernesto won’t disturb the peace and quiet of his place again.”
Yes, I don’t want to believe in herbolarios, in quack doctors, in their supposed mysticisms. But there is Ernesto who got sick, and who got well after that amazing operation!—#
Written by Lourdes C. Aballe. Published in the Graphic on September 28, 1960.
