Modesta Lavana

Modesta Lavana Pérez (February 24, 1929 – December 13, 2010) was an indigenous Nahua healer and activist from the town of Hueyapan, Morelos, Mexico.

[6] Her traditional wool weavings on the backstrap loom were well known within the state of Morelos, and received many prizes.

She is cited as a source of linguistic data in several articles about the variety of Nahuatl spoken in Hueyapan, Morelos.

[11] She was trained as a nurse and was responsible for much of the medical treatment of the inhabitants of Hueyapan administering injections, treating wounds and delivering babies in her home, until the construction of an official clinic.

[12] In 1977, with the anthropologist Laurencia Alvarez, she published an account of her own experience with the folk-illness susto, which has come to be frequently cited within the literature on this illness.