Creole Healing Herbs
This article is available online in audio form at MotherEarthNews.com
Growing up in southern Louisiana, it wasn’t unusual to hear the older adults in my family speaking French. My mom would bellow from the back door, “Viens manger,” imploring me and my two older brothers to come inside to eat dinner. My grandparents, who all grew up with French as a first language, still use it to communicate with younger generations, myself included, who learned it in immersion programs.
Intertwined with this region’s rich linguistic heritage is an enduring adherence — and wide acceptance — of age-old Creole practices practically forgotten in many other parts of the country. Once-isolated and rural communities still engage in medieval customs, such as Courir de Mardi Gras, and eat regional food staples, such as gumbo, that date back to when the United States was hardly an idea. However, as pharmaceutical companies have come to dominate health care, one tradition has been largely forgotten: knowledge of local medicinal plants.
“It’s just about lost,” says Mary Perrin of the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners Association (LPMGA) in southwest Louisiana. Perrin says Louisiana Creole people from, which means “healers.” They treated people within their community through Roman Catholic prayers, and they could prescribe local medicinal plants that could reportedly cure a host of issues. It’s said a would heal maladies, such as a sprained ankle, or illnesses, such as the flu.
