Indigenous
Teeth
Who has stronger teeth... the Otomi or the Mazahua?
The answer could spark an ethnic war!
[Now that I've piqued your interest, read
on and enjoy this story told to us by our Brazilian medical missionary
friends, Carlos and Monica Oliveira]
Acahualdo is a zero stoplight pueblo surrounded by
cornfields in the central highlands of Mexico. It is a predominately
Mazahua indian town, but just a few miles to the north there is a
concentration of ethnic Otomi. There's no real bad blood between these
two groups, but a little cultural pride can make for a good story
(think of them like as you would ethnic Irish and Italians in New
York.)
Monica and I were visiting Acahualdo as part of a free
medical/dental campaign. In this high mountain village the electricity
would fail then surged, shorting out our electrical dental equipment.
Added to that, near the end of the day a volunteer dentist attempted
to extract a tooth from one of our Mazahua patients but ran into problems.
The tooth wouldn't budge. Monica, an oral
surgeon, came to his aid. After an entire hour, a lot of sweat,
and even muscle spasms in their arms, they succeeded
in dislodging the tooth.
As the exhausted team packed up their equipment, the
patient who's tooth they had just struggled with came up to Monica
and asked, "Doctor, who has stronger teeth,
the Otomi or the
Mazahua?"
Monica acknowledged that his Mazahua tooth had been
the most difficult to extract. Half the group assembled behind her
shouted for joy. The Mazahua
gloated to an Otomi man standing beside him, "I
told you that the Mazahua have stronger teeth!"
"But who has straighter teeth?"
asked the Otomi.
"Yours are straighter,"
Monica said to the downcast Otomi man, but added, "It
really isn't a racial issue, but an individual one. The location
and type of infection of the damaged tooth
made a big difference. And you can be comforted by the
fact that your Mazahua friend is going to have much more pain than
you as soon as the anesthesia wears off."
This put a smile on the face of the straighter toothed
Otomi.
Tooth envy aside, seeing love in action has produced
a good reception for the Gospel. The indigenous
Mexicans have an old proverb:
Stop shouting against
the wind. Words are noise if not accompanied with action.
They have responded to our love in action and now our words
can be heard attentively. After the service and invitation, many
showed a desire to accept Christ as their savior.
Carlos and Monica Oliveira
to email them:
102542.1131@compuserve.com
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