–Our ancient heritage

THROUGH the traumas of slavery and colonisation, much has fallen away from the memory of the ages that once maintained the normalcy before them.
Attempts to rewrite a false memory have worked for a while with damning results not in our interest, but some things have pierced the severe facades with a pounding resilience.
One such inherited capacity is the twin ability that found kinship from one tropical world to another, and afforded us the simple comforts of life.

In the hardships of social marginalisation, when the standards of doing well on the shopping list of manufactured products like Milo, Ovaltine and even tinned Coco beverage could not be always afforded, the knowledge of lemon grass, hyssop [tulsi] and chocolate stick tea with either cow’s or coconut milk more than sufficed.
Carrilla bush was a favourite cleanser of the old folk, not of the young victims, and yuh had fuh eat de pawpaw seeds, cause it good fuh yuh.

Today, we lament that our young people are weaker because they catch colds quicker. We also attribute this to global warming and a more severe sun. Both may have some truth to them, but few parents, with mothers in the workforce, have the time for corn flour ‘pap’ in the morning with ‘boil- and-fry’. No baked bread either. Instead, it’s commercial bread with too much preservatives, and, in some cases, coloured brown to look like whole-wheat.
Nor are there the candy bottles [imitations on sale today are extremely inferior] with fruit set to prepare Vitamin C-rich fruit drink for sun-drenched young bodies after school.

The knowledge of the good and bad of the herbal world have served our survival effectively. When there wasn’t enough money to supply the tribe with new tooth brushes: No problem! Blacksage stem did the job! And the tiny fruits tasted good too! That is, if you could beat the birds, who also relished the blacksage fruit.
The calypsonian of old, ‘Bill Rogers’ created the national anthem of our ‘Bush Sellers’, and it’s time for his son to commence a remix of that national classic.

Much of today’s bottled medications sold in pharmacies [incidentally, the Greek word Pharmakeus refers to a Sorcerer, and is the origin word of Pharmacy] were stolen from ageless formulas created by genuine “bush medicine” practitioners throughout the ages.
But of course, there are also “bush medicine” quacks, hustlers who suddenly appear and offer “bush healing” for every ailment. They, as well as some doctors, need to be in prison. Doctors who will prescribe a chest of expired drugs as a placebo, knowing full well that the headache is due to dehydration and not hypertension because the patient had drunk “sweet-drink” or beer instead of water when thirsty. Thus, some knowledge is needed when confronting either “bush medicine” or pharmacy.

THE ‘BUSH DISPENSER’
Throughout the ages, there is much more to be said about the “bush dispenser”. Modern medicine evolved out of the trials and errors of “bush doctors”, shamans and mystics who dabbled in primitive laboratories over thousands of years with herbal and fusion-formulas to heal, enslave, excite and to murder.

We do need to have a perspective of the vast world of “bush medicine”, and some simple awareness. Like, for instance, that “tea bush” is not boiled but drawn; meaning that any bush has to be first examined for blithe, insect’s eggs or any other not-supposed-to be-there presence, then washed, and when the water is boiled and taken off the stove, then the washed bush is placed in the pot to draw: That is, to get what you need to use and nothing else; no other not-recommended properties that the plant may have.

There’s lots of room for exploration outside of what we have inherited. For instance, I can remember my mother and even my God-mother discussing separately a formula for washing one’s hair that consisted of ochro leaves, and, I think, the vegetable itself, and commenting how great this person looked after the process.
Disinterest, and the fact that being male at that age, prohibited me from even considering enquiring about that formula, which was exclusive to the female realm. These are the formulas that the First World eagerly steal, explore, repackage and resell us with other non-organic ingredients that quickly lead so many women to the wig club industry, having lost age-old safer techniques linked to herbal knowledge.

Most elements of the practices that revolve around the term “people do yuh” that are superstitiously linked to the spirits are in reality packaged through the knowledgeable manipulation of herbs, roots, barks of trees and mushrooms, at times with animal organs added.
Our collective ancestors inculcated dual formulas as old as the Sphinx, and those said to be ministered through the mystery systems by the resurrecting goddess, Aset [Isis] millennia ago. I can remember a conversation I had with Clarence Young who heads the Phoenix Recovery Project-Drug Treatment & Rehabilitation Programme on the invasion of artificial marijuana concerning substance abuse, and artificial farming methods and its destruction of our vegetables first, then our herbal teas and folk medicines [couldn’t understand how his facility didn’t get State support recently] which means that our vigilance has to be proactive in recognising and protecting the usage of our cultural botanicals.

Historically, looking at “bush medicine”, because all knowledge is balanced between the intent of good and evil, I believe that the purpose of the European inquisition was directed at the culture perfected by mainly female herbalists to gain control, through the use of aphrodisiacs and poisons that both killed and disabled mentally, over collaborating men of means.
Thus, they were branded witches and ritually murdered. Exploring that complex pool of human activity will, however, require an article on its own.
In a past column, I recommended as good reading the local book, ‘Uses of Medicinal Plants in Guyana’ an Evergreen Club booklet. I do not withdraw from that recommendation, but I do suggest to its publishers that some specifics and disclaimers be added to the “Folk Medicines” section, because we live in a world where the tip of the scale rests with the ignorance of the multitude and the legion of “tricksters” that incessantly prey on them.

I do admit that until I have the space to grow my own lemon grass, hyssop and nutmeg etc, I will engage the brethren and sisteren of the “bush stand” for affordable herbal teas and familiar cleansing bush to put in the same bag with my selected bottled supplements.