Page:Historia Verdadera del Mexico profundo.djvu/32

 types of chili peppers, pinole, the use of plants, meat of hunted animals and dried and salted fish, lots of vegetables including algae, the extensive use of insects, honey, seeds, as well as the Turkey and Xoloitzcuintle dog domestication. The food system consisted not only of food but delicious and very sophisticated dishes that are perfectly balanced plant and animal proteins, sugars and fats. Altogether it provided ancient Mexicans enough energy, health and time to develop their civilizing projects, both in construction and in research.

''The health system. ''

The health system is another of the great contributions to civilization. Our old grandparents developed a deep knowledge of the human body and its diseases. They investigated healing substances from plants, insects, animals and minerals. Doctors and anahuaca medicine reached levels nowadays unsuspected; especially since European barbarism devalued and persecuted this wisdom, it managed has managed to survive history. In fact, all this knowledge legacy was able to survive the three hundred years of persecution and in the last two hundred years has lived marginalized and disregarded by the dominant culture.

But without a doubt it has been a most valuable resource to maintain the health of the poorest Mexicans, neglected by the Government and exploited by the dominant society. Native peoples and peasants, and somehow the proletariat who lives in the great misery belts of the great cities of the country have maintained these traditional knowledge in extinction, by the action of the greedy multinational laboratories and the mass media.