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A Unique Record of a Nearly Lost Healing Tradition

Reviewed by William Courson

The Sea Islands of the southeastern Atlantic coast are renown for their tropical beauty and for the Gullah people, African-Americans descended from enslaved ancestors who developed a distinctive language and culture. Cut off from the mainland, many of the islands were accessible only by boat as late as 1960, permitting Gullah culture to remain largely intact. Dr. Faith Mitchell, a medical anthropologist and former Clinton White House policy analyst, lived with the Gullah people for a period beginning in 1971 to learn for herself the traditional system of medicine still practiced by the islands' oldest residents, a knowledge that had nearly been lost and an experience she describes as `life-changing.'

"Hoodoo Medicine: Gullah Herbal Remedies" describes in detail the medicinal plants historically used by the Gullah people. The book includes a history in summary form of the Sea Islands, their settlement and the sources for this lineage of African-American traditional ("folk") medicine, as well as an exhaustive listing of all the medicinal roots, herbs and other plant materials, elaborating their applications in the Gullah culture as well as borrowings by Native Americans and European settlers.

This work captures traditional healing practices that have lasted far longer in the Sea Islands than elsewhere, but were once widespread throughout African-American communities of the South.

Shocked by the poverty and lack of any modern infrastructure in the more remote backwoods settlements, the author found a place where very little had changed since the days of slavery. She was most affected by the rich, fertile beauty of the Islands and by the strength and integrity of the families she encountered, possessing a natural wealth and deep wisdom that belied the widespread material impoverishment. At the same time, she discovered that the Sea Islands were also as abundant in culture - ghost stories, animal tales, the Gullah language, plant knowledge - as they were in animal and plant life.

These first experiences among the Gullah people led her to pursue a lifelong interest in African American history and culture.

"Hoodoo Medicine: Gullah Herbal Remedies" is a unique record of a nearly lost realm of African-American folk culture. It documents plant medicines used since the 1600s down to the present day, by the slaves and later their freed descendants. The Gullah healing tradition is one that has wed techniques and materials that originated in Africa with cures learned from the itinerant Moors, Native Americans and Europeans.

This book is a window into the Gullah tradition, threatened in recent years by the migration of families, the invasion of suburban developers, and the passing of the elder generation. The healing traditions of the African American herbalists have been largely overlooked, called backwards or adaptations of other traditions, and Dr. Mitchell systemically and effectively refutes such claims.

"Hoodoo Medicine" belongs in the library of anyone interested in African American history generally and its healing traditions in particular as well as of anyone interested in traditional or alternative healing and herbalism.

This is a valuable book, beautifully and lovingly written, that is inspirational in its effort to revitalize an important and nearly lost piece of history.