NATIVE HEALING TRADITIONS MUST BE PROTECTED

AND PRESERVED FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

Mel Borins, MD

eczema. When just a few months

old, she was hospitalized for treat-
ment of a thick, elephant-like layer
of skin. Physicians tried a number of
remedies, none of which seemed to
help, and she was discharged in very
poor condition. The baby had been
losing weight and it appeared she
was going to die. That's when a local
native herbalist heard about her con-
dition. After visiting the Cowan
home, he went into the fields and
collected some plants, and told the
Cowans to boil them and feed the
tea to their daughter. He also made a
salve out of sulphur and asked them
to apply it to the baby's skin.
Cowan described how his daugh-
ter drank and drank she couldn't
get enough of the potion. As soon as
Respect for native people's tradi- talk to elders on an Indian reserve on the baby began to drink it, she
tions is increasing and integra- Christian Island in Central Ontario. started gaining weight; within a
tion of their healing practices and The 22-km long island is about 40 month, her skin was completely clear.
beliefs into modern health care sys- km north of Midland on Georgian But the herbalist died soon after
tems is taking place around the Bay. Ojibwa Indians from Northern her recovery, and with him went all
world. Long before European settlers Ontario came south and inhabited his recipes and knowledge. A great
arrived with their medical remedies, the island in the early 1800s. Today, deal of native knowledge and healing
aboriginal people knew about the about 600 aboriginal people still live traditions have similarly disappeared
plants that grew around them and there. recipes have not been passed
how they could be used to solve Ken Cowan, a former school- down, and valuable information has
their health problems. Because I had teacher and now lay minister with been lost.
already talked to traditional healers the United Church of Canada, was However, some elders of the
in the South Pacific, New Zealand, my escort for the day. During the 30- Christian Island community still know
Indonesia, Japan, India and Kenya, I minute boat ride to the island, he quite a bit about healing and herbs.
welcomed a recent opportunity to told me of his own experience with We met in the home of Reverend
native healing traditions. Anna Taylor, next to the beautiful old
Mel Borins is a family physician and assistant professor at About 50 years ago his daughter United Church and just a few min-
the University of Toronto. had been born with a severe case of utes' walk from the boat dock.

1356 CAN MED ASSOC J * ler NOV. 1995; 153 (9)

 Rena Smith, 55, admits that she
was a nosy kid who liked to ask ques-
tions. She would go out with her
grandmother and great-grandmother
when they went to pick herbs, often
in July, August and September when
the plants were in bloom. The older
women taught her which herbs to
use for specific conditions.
She sat with a big bag containing
smaller bags, each filled with herbs
that she had picked and chopped in
her blender. She painstakingly took
out one bag after another, passing
them so I could smell and feel the
herbs. I looked at catnip that was
used for colic, high fevers, as a mus-
cle relaxant and to help induce sleep;
licorice root, which is helpful for
stomach problems; cedar leaves, also
good for fever; and peppermint,
good for upset stomachs and colic.
She also told me about using red
sumac berries and seeds to treat diar-
rhea, ginseng for heart problems, and
a mixture of plants for relieving the
afterpains of childbirth.
Rena Smith recalled that when
her husband was sick with stomach
problems and nothing the doctor
gave him seemed to help, an elder
took her into the fields to pick a
plant called purple passion. She
picked the leaves and, with boiling
water, made a tea. When her hus-
band drank this, he got relief from
his stomach cramps. She said it can
also be used for nausea and vomiting,
as well as to eliminate the chills
caused by flu.
Audrey Copegog, a quiet 69-year-
old woman with a magical smile,
Audrey Copegog learned about some herbs
from her mother
learned about certain herbs from her
mother, knowledge that had been
passed from generation to genera-
tion. She also picked herbs with
other elders, many of whom lived
into their 80s or 90s. She said many
of the herbs and concoctions she was
taught about are found in the herb
books that today sit on grocery-store
counters.
Basil Johnston, in his book Ojibway
Heritage, writes about a young boy
named Odaemin, who studied what
animals ate when they got sick and
then passed this knowledge on to suc-
ceeding generations. When the plants
were picked, a prayer was spoken that
acknowledged the special role plants
played in healing. A medicine man or
woman had to not only know the
plant but also have the capacity to
unite the curative elements of both
the plant being and human being.
Many countries, including In-
donesia, Thailand, India and China,
are trying to preserve traditional
healing practices and educate people
about common medicinal plants
growing near their homes. These
countries even encourage people in
rural areas who are far from modern
medical help to grow gardens of
these plants and use them for minor
complaints so as not to incur the cost
of expensive store-bought medica-
tions. Such action not only makes
the rural population more self-reliant,
but also the local herbs can relieve
minor symptoms just as effectively as
over-the-counter pills.
In New Zealand, the Maori often
have their tahungas - healers
visit patients in hospital; it is not un-
usual to have an aboriginal healing
ceremony in a hospital room. Often
community and family members
gather to utter prayers and incanta-
tions. They believe that it is impor-
tant to take care of both the spiritual
and physical aspects of healing.
There is also a trend in Canada to
integrate native traditions into hospital
and health care centres. Medical
schools are introducing courses in
CAN MED ASSOC J * NOV. 1, 1995; 153 (9)
Rena Smith holds sample from a bag
of dried herbs
cross-cultural healing, and these in-
clude information about native healing.
In many countries, the physicians
I talked to acknowledged that tradi-
tional healers have a role to play and
that they work cooperatively with
them, sometimes referring patients
back and forth. Often patients them-
selves know which conditions re-
spond best to traditional healing and
which respond to modern medicine,
and refer themselves to the physician
or native healer according to the na-
ture of their complaint. Physicians
should be aware that native people
and others from traditional societies
may have used herbs before coming
to the doctor's office for help.
Around the world, plant species
are being devastated and made ex-
tinct, and we must act quickly to pre-
serve our forests before more of them
are lost forever.
And we must remember that el-
ders like Audrey and Rena will even-
tually be gone. Fortunately, there is
still time to preserve aboriginal tradi-
tions, help natives collect and docu-
ment knowledge about healing, and
support research into the use of
crude plant remedies for minor
health complaints. a
1357