Showing posts with label Plant medicine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Plant medicine. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Saturday, September 19, 2026
Les plaquemines de la Prairie des Femmes
At the old convent on the hill I gather chassepareille from the woods and soak it in cold water. I drink this infusion with spherical ice while the girls and I snack on plaquemines. I tell them that the least attractive fruits taste the best and let the pretty, perfect ones pucker our mouths. We cut the seeds on the seam and open them like books to foretell the winter weather. I explain to the girls that learning Louisiana French is as much about the fruits of the land as it is about the language.
Saturday, September 12, 2026
Medicinal Plants on the Coteau
In the flat coastal plain of south Louisiana high ground is sacred. Our indigenous ancestors were mound builders. Settlements appeared along chenières, or ridges of oaks, and local folklore says that even one old live oak tree is a good sign that the surrounding land won't flood. In times of severe hurricane, one survival skill was to lash one's self to the mid-branches of the live oak with grape and muscadine vines to ride it out. Those that did this usually survived.
In this near sea-level prairie, it is known that the hill of Grand Coteau is sacred, high holy ground. It was this way long before the land was claimed by colonial-era settlers like Sieur Smith, the Religious of the Sacred Heart and the Jesuits. Much is made about the Catholic presence of the land, because of the early institutions such as nearby Saint Charles College, Saint Ignatius School and the Schools of the Sacred Heart, where a miracle happened when Mary Wilson was healed by the intercession of Saint John Berchmans. But a local legend is that it was the Grand Coteau where indigenous men, notably the Opelousa and Ishak, would go to "fight with honor". The validity of this and what it means, whether battle, ceremony, hunting or even competitive ball game is still mysterious. This story seems to weave in with lore of the Prairie des Femmes, just across the bayou and east of the Academy for girls, being a place where the women stayed when the men left to fight or hunt.
Grand Coteau is on the Coteau or Coteau Ridge. It is the ancient bluffs of the Mississippi River when it flowed west, also called the Teche escarpment. The land that holds the ancient convent and Academy of the Sacred Heart has been called "la prairie des coteaux". The Academy is a pastoral landscape reminiscent of old France and colonial Louisiana, containing multiple live oak and pine alleys, pecan alleys, formal gardens and orchards, open rolling prairie with horse and cow pastures. The four-story Academy is surrounded galleries and a garconière, formal gardens, rolling pastures and then beyond, the Secret Hart and the bois vièrge, a forest primeval that has never been disturbed throughout the centuries. In the formal gardens one notices the early varieties of roses, crepe myrtles, camelias, azaleas, sweet olive and gardenias. There are white, red and pink roses and azaleas, as well as pineapple guava bushes in the center whose flowers taste like Fruit Loops. L'absinthe grows in the pecanères which are plentiful and produce sweet full pecans in the fall. The sheer age of some of these bushes and trees ensures high yield of their medicines and fruits. I often think that the sisters and enslaved people who planted and developed these gardens, they who indeed survived times of famine, flood and war back here, seem to have taken seriously their choices of edibles and ornamentals.
Over the seasons of working at the Academy and as my eyes adjusted to the landscape, they also zoomed in on the native and medicinal plants that pop up at the fringes and in the lands that surround the gardens. This seemed to be a deeper indicator of native land stewardship, a sign of ancient wild habitation still amid the efforts to tame the land. Chou-gras (poke salat) was shooting up at the base of the pines of the alley, in Saint Francis Patio and along the Chapel wall. The woods to the east of the Academy were full of poke as well as nettle, resinous pine, violets and muscadine. In the tree lines are oak, pecan, copal, cherry, magnolia, chassepareille, cherry laurel, hickory, tulip tree, bitter orange and palmetto. I collect Spanish moss, perilla, chickweed, violet flower, root and leaf, white clover, green resurrection fern, and orange chanterelle mushrooms from the oak alley. I find fresh herbe cabri every fall along the ditches of the Jesuit pasture. Their leaves can be used for tea and the young seed eaten as a melon flavored snack.
The nettles in the woods I gather bare handed in the spring and dry the leaves for tea. I'll use the formic acid on the leaves for muscle and mood therapy and the seeds for nutrition. From the poke I gather berries for dye, the leaves for spinach and the extremely toxic and dangerous root for inflammation therapy. The bitter orange fruit we gather and use for Christmas decoration with cloves for pomanders. I gather white flowers of the sweet olive, orange, and gardenia that fill the gardens at different intervals to make enfleurage oils. The girls and I make accessories such as flower crowns, necklaces and crafts (like Marie Antoinette's bouffant) with the fallen roses, azaleas, camelias and wildflowers of the garden. I harvest baume from the native plant garden as a spice and perfume, chassepareille leaves for insect repellant and cherry from the woods for bounce. I harvest pine sap daily from the trees of the pine alley, sometimes they appear as resinous ambers that fall from above, and other times in the clearest tears of sap that are produced when the grounds crew hit the exposed roots with lawn mowers while manicuring the gardens. I walk the pine alley in the fog of the morning collecting miniature domes of sap from roots like dewfall.
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| l'herbe cabri |
Sunday, August 2, 2026
Mi'kmaw Shamanism and the Sacred Approach
But perhaps the most interesting of Micmac magical herbs is
that known as mededeskooi, or, as the Micmacs translate it, "rattling plant," because its three leaves strike each other constantly
with a sound like that of the rattlesnake. I have not been able
to identify the plant, nor can I positively assert that it really exists.
I have met but one Micmac who claimed to have seen it, and generally the Micmacs are reluctant to talk about it, because of its
highly mystical associations. But it is certainly strongly suggestive of the pasaw, or rattlesnake root, of the Creeks, already referred
to, which occupies the same preeminence, and gives its name to the
whole magic decoction used at initiations.1 The Micmacs describe
the plant as resembling the wild turnip. It stands about knee
high, with leaves about eight inches long, like those of the poplar. Its root is the size of one's fist, and the stalk is surrounded by numerous brownish yellow balls as large as buckshot. Others
describe the plant as being much smaller. Stephen Bartlett, who
thinks he saw the plant, buried some of the yellow balls, but next
morning they and the plant had disappeared. As Stephen admits,
however, that he did not go through any of the ceremonies necessary in approaching the plant, he is considered a doubtful authority,
even by himself.
To find the plant, one must first hear the bird
called cooasoonech ("dwelling in old logs") singing in an interval in the forest, otherwise the plant is invisible. This bird is brown
and very small, but is chosen chief of all the birds because he is
quickest and can hide in the smallest holes. He is sometimes called booöin, "the magician," from his aptitude for quick disappearance,
and his ability to fly through fire without being injured. When he
sings, one should follow him at once, although, like the mystic songster known in Yucatan, he often leads one on and on through the
forest depths, leaving him at last lost and forlorn. But the fortunate
6ne will at length hear the rattling leaves of the magic plant as he
approaches it, and then the plant itself will soon be seen. He must
now gather thirty sticks and lay them in a pile near the plant. Next
he must induce a girl, the more beautiful the better, to accompany
him to the plant. Under circumstances of the greatest temptation,
both must have no wish save to obtain the medicine or the plant will
disappear. They must approach it crawling on hands and knees.
Now the plant is inhabited by the spirit of a rattlesnake, which
comes forth as they near the plant, and circles around it.1 The man
must pick up the serpent, which will then disappear without harming
him. These tests of perseverance, self-control, and courage are all
I have heard, but there may be others. The plant must be divided
in four portions, of which three may be taken, but one must be
left standing. The three parts are scraped and steeped and a portion worn about the person. Some say that, divided in seven parts,
this medicine will cure seven diseases, but the great majority
believe that it will cure any disease and gratify any wish. It is
held to be especially potent as a love-compeller. No woman can
resist it. If the possessor wills it, she will follow him until he
breaks the spell by touching her. This attribute is held also by
the "seven-hued lilies of Te-net-sa-li," already referred to, and by
the flowers of the goddess Xochiquetzal in Mexico, the touch of
which produced everlasting love. It may be worthy of notice that
the mnededeskoo' is a trefoil plant. Many instances of its power over women are related as occurring recently, and for this and other reasons I am told the Micmacs strongly deprecate the knowledge and use of it. If the circumstances of these stories suggest some knowledge of hypnotism amongst them, I simply state the fact. Personally I have not yet seen any evidence of such power there. The rattlesnake which accompanies the plant brings it at once into touch with the mysteries in all parts of the globe. The same species is associated by the Micmacs with a dance which they used to perform only at night. This dance was mystical in a marked degree, and was connected with the Pleiades.
Stansbury Hagar
1 Is it a mere verbal coincidence which connects this plant with the Piasa (pro- nounced piasaw), the winged serpent of Illinois described by McA
1 Hernandez, physician of Philip
II., quoted by Brasseur, states that the Mexicans used an herb called ololiuhqui or serpent plant when they wished to consult
with their gods. By means of it they were enabled to behold a thousand visions
and the forms of hovering demon
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Bashuchak
I've been going down a few rabbit (tobacco) holes in search of more indigenous information about the vineraire. The first reports I received of it being nearly gone down the bayou came from native women who remembered their daddies bringing it in from the rabbit hunt. Folklore says that rabbits live in the briar patch. This rabbit tobacco is a natural healer for the thin skinned lapin if it is ever snagged.
The Native Ethnobotany Database has been helpful in listing the varied ways tribes across the continent used it. I was most interested in some of the ways of the Choctaw, since they were a major tribe in my area of Louisiana. In google searches using different common names for the plant, as well as searching for Choctaw sources with it, I found the book Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial life of the Choctaw Indians by John R. Swanson, that contained by first cite of the Choctaw name for life everlasting: bashuchak, or bvshuchak. I searched online Choctaw dictionaries and a glossary and noted that this word also looked like the word I knew for sumac, bachoucta. In an email with indigenous writer Jeffery Darrensbourg, he relayed to me information that confirmed that bachoucta was the same word as bashuchak (also bvshuchak) and could refer to four medicines: greenbriar (I know this as kantak), elderberry, purple sumac and rabbit tobacco. I can also say that all four of these plant friends grow around my home, and came into my life around the same time.
See my work featuring the above items at Botanica the Cabildo through 2026.
Monday, May 27, 2024
Vinéraire Part 6: A Vulnerary Plant
In 2022 I began having coffee meet ups with three of my mentors to discuss a project on native plants they wanted to involve me in. Amanda Lafleur, Bill Fontenot and Dr. Ray Brassieur and I met a few times in the fall of 2022. At the meetings I presented them each with a sprig of the sweet everlasting. I left these meetings with a life changing sense of dedication and dignity for the work I was doing.
In December 2022 I attended a prairie society function at NuNu’s in Arnaudville where I ran into my Frozard neighbor Dr. Allain whose photographs on the USGS survey I had used for months. I knew at this time that this plant was rare in my experience, but these prairie biologists were familiar with it. I gave Dr. Allain a sprig of flowers and he was able to sprout seed. He said the rosette was purple cudweed, which was common in our area. I knew there were differences between the purple cudweed and the sweet everlasting in my own pasture, and taking all opinions in for consideration, continued observing them.
At a follow up coffee with Dr. Brassieur I presented him with a gallon ziplock bag of the vinéraire. He was full of insight and offered the origin of the name:
The word vinéraire conjures up ideas of a plant that is venerated, and so this is true, but the word has more to do with vulnerability than adoration. He explained that vinéraire, as we say, was a corruption of vulnéraire, a vulnerary (all purpose healing) plant. "Corruption" isn't really a nice word and I don't ascribe to the idea that Louisiana French has been degraded in any way, rather, it has been enriched. The name represents a change to the French in Louisiana because of factors such language influences and the predominantly oral aspect of the language. For example, I worked with American Beauty Berry, in French sassepareille, but also in Louisiana creole chassepareille and sometimes in Point Blue, bouilli sauvage. Would I call chassepareille a corruption? No, I'd call it poetry.
According to vocabulary.com:
The old-fashioned word vulnerary can be used as a noun or an adjective to describe plants that are used to heal wounds or treat illnesses. Calendula flowers are sometimes used as a vulnerary…Vulnerary shares a root with vulnerable, the Latin vulnus, or "wound."
Dr. Brassieur also told me of emails he’d received from native women down the bayou like Marlene Toups and Therese Dardar who were looking to Louisiana ethnobotanists and horticulturalists for the vinéraire of their memory. Some said they had not seen the plant in forty years. They used to smell it in the savanne, like syrup, and their daddies would bring it back from the rabbit hunts. Dr. Brassieur remarked that smelling it in the field was the same way I found it, plus my field is full of rabbits.
I left that vinéraire-coffee with the good professor with a clear mission: to grow this plant out and return it to anyone who wanted it, especially the native women and tribes who had lost it. I knew this plant existed up north, but I had no other sightings of it here in Prairie des Femmes in all of my years tromping this countryside and scanning the roadsides. Even the fields bordering my field are strangely barren of it, or much diversity at all. I felt confident that whatever strain of this plant that was surviving here was somewhat tolerant of our micro-climate, and deserved after all these years to be venerated.
Part 7: Big Bill as the Voice of God
Part 9: The Prairie has a memory.
Vinéraire Part 5: Traiteurs from Down the Bayou
Part 3: Critical Mass of Plant Medicine
Part 4: The Identification Process
Bilingual author and up the road neighbor Jonathan Olivier who runs Frozard Comunity Garden had always been an ally. In 2021 he wrote an article for Bitter Southerner Magazine about plant medicine. In the article he talked about this rabbit tobacco, and the information he gathered was pivotal in answering a question as well as raising one. In my own independent identification process I was down to two contenders: pearly everlasting and sweet everlasting. Jonathan's article documented the story of native faith healers, namely Madame Teresa Dardar of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe in Pointe-aux-Chênes, Louisiana. It stated:
“One [hard to find plant] is vinéraire, or pearly everlasting.
Although it isn’t native to the Southeast, oral histories show
it has been commonly used in tea in Louisiana and was cultivated
by indigenous people. ”
And there it was, my smoking gun: the French name: vinéraire. As a collector of oral histories for la Prairie des Femmes, I knew there was an element of error that must be taken into consideration. While it was true that pearly everlasting is not native to the southeast, i.e. Louisiana, fragrant sweet everlasting is. As I stood in my vinéraire patch 40 miles from the gulf, I asked myself why the natives of down the bayou would trade far away pearly everlasting when they had something locally and more fragrant growing natively right here. It was another meeting with Jonathan where I gathered that the people he interviewed were unclear on what the plant was ( I understood why after all the tracas I had been through to Id it) because since the hurricanes Hilda and Ida, saltwater intrusion had made this sensitive plant just a memory to the traiteurs of down the bayou.
Part 7: Big Bill as the Voice of God
Part 9: The Prairie has a memory.
Venéraire Part 4: The Identification Process
The ID Process
I identify plants for my own purposes by smell. I was always a tire-feuille (leaf puller) and when the native knowledge came to me, it worked because I had known plants by smell since I was a child. The smell of a plant tells me much of what I need to know, but I would’t use a plant seriously or on anyone else without a level of certainty that comes with formal identification experience. My main tool of identification was the Vermillionville Healer’s Guide. I also used Richard Guidry’s Les Arbres de la Louisiane, The Charles Bienvenue thesis, elders of my community, comparison, books, Native Ethnobotany website, google searches and plant ID apps that were becoming more popular and reliable. My identification process could go on for days, weeks, months or years, and always had multiple levels depending on the season and environmental conditions. I liked to know the plant in all her seasons. I knew the old names and remedies, could feel the plant’s energy and hypothesize the uses, but as a teacher I knew the Latin names were a code that I had to know. All in all, I had reliable instincts.
When identifying the rabbit tobacco I had to take into consideration all of the common names both in French and English and a few Latin names that had changed and evolved over the years. These plants are in the aster family and all take the common names of rabbit tobacco, everlasting or cudweed. Sometimes one specimen had all three common names depending on area.
There was pearly everlasting (anaphalis margaritacea) and prairie everlasting (antennaria neglecta). The plant in my field was fragrant white rabbit tobacco, pseudoghaphalium obtusifolium, and not the early rabbit tobacco (gamochaeta purpurea) that was so common to this place. The Healer’s guide listed patte de chat (gnaphalium purpurea) and herbe dentale (gamochaeta purpurea) as two separate plants. I was confused because they seemed like the same plant and their latin names are synonymous. Neither of these was my pseudognaphalium obsusifolium, so I began to realize she wasn’t listed in my main sources.
According to the North Carolina Plant Extension:
Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium
Common Name(s):
Previously known as:
Gnaphalium obtusifolium
Gnaphalium obtusifolium var. praecox
Pseudognaphalium
While I was still trying to decide exactly what I had, I used it, made teas, smudges, carried it in an acorn locket around my neck, and sat with it morning, noon and night. I flagged and celebrated every new plant I found. She beamed and I was happy to keep my promise to her.
In 2021 I had three plants that I tended and weeded around for the first time. In 2022 that number was over 200 volunteer-only plants. I identified the American Painted Lady butterfly (vanessa virginiensis) and larvae on the plants. This manicuring of the plant mirrored the self care I was also giving myself at the time, because my life was about to change drastically and I had no idea.
Part 4: The Identification Process
Part 5: Traiteurs from Down the Bayou
Sunday, May 26, 2024
Venéraire 3: Critical Mass Plant Medicine
Over the years I worked at finding, identifying, collecting and using the plants mentioned in the Vermillionville Healer’s Guide until I came to a critical mass of knowledge. I am not a traditional gardener, but I am surrounded by natives.
In 2009 my Beau Chene students brought me manglier in Dollar Store bags and expounded on its bitterness (Manglier: It's nasty). I recognized it as the most plentiful plant in my field and began using it as they directed. I dug up a Mamou plant (coral bean) from our camp in the Chicot woods. If the people on La Tasse de Cafe Radio Program spoke of a remedy or plant, I spent time looking for it in my own yard and then used it as they did. Neighbor Chat-tigre spoke of the flasiro (fleur de sureau) being good for fever. Tante Kathleen gave me a pamphlet on Spanish moss and wax myrtle and using the methods listed there I made tarabi cordage and pucks of bayberry wax. Mentors like Bill Fontenot and defunct Richard Guidry gave me seed, advised me and warned me about certain plants and their toxicity. Their sternness was part of my learning the boundaries and the acceptable behaviors surrounding this work. I became familiar with the plants, their French and Mobilian Choctaw names and the old names of the maladies they treated. I was taught the prayers in this time by my family and Mr. Verbis Soileau of Point Blue. I used myself as a subject for any experimentation (Big Bill called me the herbal adventurer). I still didn’t think of myself as someone who knew about plants, but what I did know was, like the prayers, in French.
It was in the nearing of this critical mass of plant familiarity that I set out to find a few elusive plants, namely herb à vers (womseed), herbe à malo (lizard’s tail) and the fragrant rabbit tobacco. I would set an intention, drive around the prairie or walk the swamp and let my eyes scan. I knew the other plants so well that I was able to zoom in on the unfamiliar ones, and it was this way that I found them all within 1/2 mile of my house.
It took three attempts to find the rabbit tobacco again, but when I set my eyes to scanning, I recognized an unfamiliar plant, a pale stranger on the edge of the western tree line. The smell wasn't as strong as it is when in bloom, but after a few days of comparing and identification I was sure it was pseudoghaphalium obtousifolium, fragrant rabbit tobacco. There were three separate plants at the western edge. It was September 2022 and I promised this plant I would protect and keep her safe and let her grow. I cleared the overgrowth from around her in a fit and she was thankful that after so many years, someone was paying attention.
That very day I began carrying this plant around with me. I kept dried bundles in my journals and often picked a little before I went anywhere. I used it instinctively as an amulet and protector. The day I began to announce the French morning show "Bonjour Louisiane" on 88.7 FM KRVS I had it with me. In that time, I had also paired it with the copal resin that I had harvested from the sweet gum trees. Together the copal resin and the fragrant rabbit tobacco protected me from some terrible predicaments.
The more I shared it with people, some were incredulous and some told me it was only found in north Louisiana. Some told me I had purple cudweed (patte de chat), and they were right, I had purple/pennsylvania cudweed by the thousands on the property, but the fragrant rabbit tobacco was only there by the dozens and had a completely different smell, texture and growing season. I noticed the similarities, but there were stark differences also namely that purple cudweed does not smell pleasant or at all. They were, however, cousins, and has similar healing properties.
I had identified it confidently by smell and through other resources, plant identification apps, as well as other people who started coming to the land to see her. I had begun searching out possible French names and native uses, but because of the maple smell, there was no question of what it was. I sat with my little patch daily. I was content that it was my medicine.
Part 4: The Identification Process
Part 5: Traiteurs from Down the Bayou
Friday, May 24, 2024
Vinéraire Part 2: The Bottleneck
Read First: Part 1: Rabbit Tobacco
In 2011 I found one veneraire plant growing in the back western corner of our field and made daily walks to check on its caramel scent that hung in the understory. I did a little work at identification and found online references of native tribes using it in different ways and chewing it for “fun”. This pleased me because there was indeed something fun about chewing on a plant that smelled like dessert. The plant was such a curiosity to me that I photographed her with Denny Culbert’s good camera and when I was asked to curate an Instagram account called Southern Glossary for a week, I used the platform to ask a wider audience to help with identification, to no real avail.
At the time I didn't know, but this plant roamed like the natives of the prairie did. When I went back the next year to check on her in the corner, she was gone, and as I was in the throes of young motherhood, lost her for years. In 2019 I was absentmindedly picking herbs in the pasture when I pulled one and realized it was the plant I looked for. That began another push in finding and identification of all of the plants in the Vermllionville Healer’s guide, a personal hobby I had started around 2007.
Mom will tell you I was always in the coves and canals around our house and in the Chicot woods. She’d tease me by calling me "white witch" and I’d roll my eyes. But when a person like me who has an interest in picking berries, gathering nuts and smelling leaves learns their ancestral language, there is a similar gathering that occurs.
I am a self-taught Louisiana French speaker and I gathered this language from every corner of every mouth that I could. For years I have used the language in writing and art to heal the wound left in myself and in our society from the cultural breakdown and loss of French. It's a vulnerable place to put one's self in, at the feet of our elders, making all the mistakes children make as adults relearning who we were. I have made all the mistakes there are to make, being over confident in my ability only to be humbled at the near unintelligible French of one of my Louisiana countrymen, but these experiences were necessary and helped me grow into not just someone who speaks French, but a citizen of Louisiana and steward of her sometimes cruel beauty.
There has been a bottleneck in the transmission of language in Louisiana, so the majority of Cajun and Creole speakers have not adequately passed on the language or the cultural information and it must be said that learning Louisiana French/ Cajun/ Creole is not just learning a language, but learning the history of Louisiana and her environment. Within the language there is native information that is not efficiently translated, or at all, into English. It does not exist in English. Much of the information held in Louisiana dialects are about the seasons, weather, animals and useful plants. French names mirror the Choctaw word and point to use. There is so much loss in the transmission of our language. As I learned and became more fluent I understood this profoundly, I took it on. I was persistent in asking and seeking out my elders who held the language, fueled by the passing of the generations and the loss of so many characters. They offered information and I meticulously recorded it, on paper and in the audio that I can keep in my mind and on file. Much information was passed to me because I positioned myself at the mouth of this bottleneck, with a big enough understanding to catch what flowed out. Yet as an orphan of this culture, I felt like a perpetual child in my acquisition of the language. For every two things I knew, there was a dozen things I didn't know. Thankfully I can be a fast learner when I'm enthralled with something.
I spent years teaching French and then transcribing my hometown French radio call-in show “La Tasse de Cafe Radio Program” on 92.5FM KVPI out of Ville Platte, Louisiana. Every morning I made my coffee, tended to the babies and sat with the radio. (Click here for a few archives) The same voices I heard as a child were now completely intelligible and the things they were saying were adding to my understanding of my home in a way I thought impossible s a child. Much of the information I transcribed from the years 2011-2021 from “La Tasse"' were plant, land, family, town lore and remedy information with a bit of old fashioned Americana mixed in. I kept illustrated journals of my findings on La Tasse and after so many years and through this documentation I was able to understand a larger expanse of the territory and my position in it. In the anses and points of this world there are wonderful things if you can access the place and navigate the land. For me, finding the venéraire was the culmination of years of gathering for a vulnerary balm that could heal so many wounds.
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