The path which folk medicine evolved from—interactions among slaves, their owners, and Native Americans—shows that a wide variety of influences were at work. For example, in Working Cures, Fett discusses an 1855 letter written by William Berly, a planter from South Carolina, who was looking for ways to treat his father’s intestinal ailments. In the letter, Mr. Berly explains how to use a weed called opossum ear. Boiled in port wine, this plant made a medicine that offered digestive relief. Mr. Berly reveals that he obtained information about opossum ear from a Mr. Wingard, one of his white neighbors. This Native American treatment had been communicated to Mr. Wingard by “his old negro Sam.” Sam, in turn, had been taught about the herb by a man from New Orleans who had got his knowledge from an “Indian doctor.” As Ms. Fett, notes, this type of complex web of knowledge of folk medicine demonstrates a “complex history where remedies were borrowed, purchased, and stolen to create overlapping traditions of southern herbalism.”
The Civil War saw the spread of folk herbalism out of the domain of the poor whites, Native Americans, and slaves into the middle and upper classes. The South was in a blockade and few medicines were able to cross the blockade lines except through the black market. During this time, Southern Folk Medicine found acceptance among physicians and pharmacists, who began to codify the use of the native plants into a more conventional medicine language. There were scant medical supplies available to the Confederate Army physicians, which often sent them searching in the fields and forests for herbal aids.
Some writers of Civil War history consider the physician’s folk use of herbs for battlefield injuries and seasoning diseases to be innovative and creative. It was really desperation. There were literally few conventional medicines available and folk medicines were easy to find. The Civil War served to bring elements of Southern Folk Medicine into the mainstream, where it has stayed, to some extent, ever since.
One of the most important books from that time period was Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, Medical, Economical, and Agricultural: Being Also a Medical Botany of the Confederate States; with Practical Information on the Useful Properties of the Trees, Plants, and Shrubs by Francis Peyre Porcher, published in 1863. This book was used by Confederate physicians and housewives alike. It gave a description of the plant, where it grew, what part of it to use, how to prepare it for use, and the ailments treated.
Physicians during the Civil War knew little about infection. For every soldier who died in the Civil War, on both sides of the battleground, of battle wounds, two more died of disease and infection, including diarrhea and dysentery. There was no knowledge of the cause of disease and no concept of hygiene. Amputation rates were high. Doctors didn’t know to wash their hands or sterilize instruments and equipment.
The forerunner to Porcher’s book is the Medical Flora, or, Manual of the Medical Botany of the United States of North America, Volume 1 written by C. S. Rafinesque and published in 1828. Volume 2 was published in 1841. Rafinesque (1783–1840) was born outside of Constantinople but immigrated to the United States. According to Matthew Wood, author of Vitalism, The History of Herbalism, Homeopathy, and Flower Essences, Rafinesque became a professor at Transylvania University in Kentucky and is considered an important field botanist of North America: “Rafinesque was a skilled practitioner of herbal medicine who gathered information from Indian medicine men and pioneer doctors. His descriptions of medicinal uses were concise enough to inspire the confidence of his readers.” Rafinesque’s work influenced Porcher and later the Eclectic physicians. There is also no doubt in my mind that Porcher must have also gathered information on herbs that were commonly used by the poor whites and slaves. It seems unreasonable to assume less.
After the Civil War, the former plantation system turned into a tenant system with basically the same landowners. The new system offered no racial preference in its exploitation; both poor whites and freed slaves were now at the mercy of the landowners. Both groups became sharecroppers, farming the land and paying a percentage of the profits to the landowners. My maternal grandfather was a sharecropper and raised cotton and corn for the landowner. My whole family had to work the fields in order to “pay back” the landowner.
After the Civil War, a series of laws continually elevated the status of poor whites and reduced the rights of blacks. But these laws did not change the fact that poor whites and blacks continued to do the same work, live in the same types of cabins, use the same herbal remedies, and share many of the same social experiences. White field hands worked alongside black tenant farmers, ate the same diet, and worshiped the same God. Wealthy landowners used these facts to elevate tensions between the poor whites and blacks who were competing for the same local resources. This continues even today.
Other than in a few of the larger cities, the general infrastructure of the Deep South during this era focused on getting the cotton to market. Railroads often stopped at rather isolated locations, whistle stops, just to load cotton, with nary a town in sight. In the hillier and more mountainous regions of the South, Appalachia was isolated by the rough topography of the land. Here, coal mining and the search for minerals formed the basis of economic development. Regardless of the landscape, the South was poor and herbs were needed to help when folks couldn’t afford a doctor.
The sharecropper or land tenant system, along with the isolation and marginalization of the South, nurtured Southern Folk Medicine in unique ways to continue crossing racial and economic lines.
North of the cotton fields, the coves and hollows of the Southern Appalachian Mountains provided a similar isolation from the progress of the modern world. The poor grew corn for moonshine or worked in coal mines, but the same basic class structure was in place. Wealthy whites owned the land, stores, mines, and factories, and the poor whites and blacks worked to make the owners richer. After the Civil War, poor whites, and to a lesser extent, poor blacks, moved back and forth between the highlands and the lowlands of the Appalachians. Today, these two areas of the South are still among the poorest regions of the country and continue to share a common culture. I would also include Arkansas, parts of Missouri, and the hill country of northern Texas in this common shared culture. In some ways, very little has changed other than that most of us have internet now.
The Great Depression, from the 1930s to mid-1940s, further plunged the already poor population of the South into deeper poverty. As a region, the South didn’t begin to recover economically from the Civil War and the Great Depression until the second half of the twentieth century, and some areas of the South have not fully recovered to this day. In these areas, the poverty is so constant and severe that my paternal grandfather, Herman Light, was fond of saying, “They said there was a depression. But we couldn’t tell the difference.”
The Great Migration of African-Americans from the South to larger cities in the North began after World War I and continued into the 1960s. The Southern agricultural system had collapsed due to worldwide economic depression. In addition, more farmers were using tractors and other modern farming equipment, and there was less demand for field hands and agricultural workers. Cotton was no longer king. Competition for the few remaining jobs between African-Americans and poor whites was at an all-time high. African-Americans that moved North were seeking a better life away from economic constraint and Jim Crow laws. In industrial cities, jobs in factories offered the opportunity for better education, less prejudice, legal rights, less violence, and economic advancement. Cities that saw massive influx include Detroit, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. As opportunities in northern cities diminished, African-Americans moved west to Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Oakland. This migration saw the spread of Southern herbalism to other parts of the country.
Not only were African-Americans moving from the rural South to the industrial North, but they were also moving from the rural areas to the bigger cities of the South, such as Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, and Houston. In whatever
city they moved, their home remedies based on Southern Folk Medicine went with them. They were often willing to share their healing information to those in need or the curious.
For example, one of my beloved herbal heroes is James Duke, Ph.D. from Birmingham, Alabama. He worked for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) from 1968 to 1995 in the Agricultural Research Service as a botanist, and was the leader of the USDA Cancer Screening Laboratory. Dr. Duke developed a comprehensive Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Database that is still used in critical research by scientists today. He is the author of more thirty books and hundreds of articles, written not only for the scientist and researcher, but also for the layman. I’m always curious when I meet another fellow Alabamian who is interested in herbs, so I asked Dr. Duke what sparked his interest. He replied, “When I was growing up in Birmingham, our African-American neighbor down the street was an herbalist. He let me follow him around pestering him with questions all day long, and I absorbed this like a sponge.”
Chapter Five
Church, Superstitions, and Signs
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food.”
—Exodus
My fever was so high that Mama said I was talking out of my head, not making any sense at all. After I’d been sick for more than a week with fever, lung congestion, and a cough and home remedies not working, Granddaddy Light told my Daddy, “Enough of this. You get that girl to the doctor.” So Daddy loaded me into the truck for a doctor’s visit, something rare at that time period in our house. I was diagnosed with double pneumonia and a hospital stay was recommended. In a time before health insurance, the family couldn’t afford that kind of medical care. So the doctor sent me home with antibiotics and a stern advisement that if I wasn’t better by morning or if my fever worsened during the night, then get me to the hospital or I might die.
Back at home, the fever continued to rage and consume my body. It climbed higher and higher and nothing seemed to bring it down. I coughed up green mucus from my lungs in ever-increasing amounts until the effort was just too great. Every breath became a raspy effort. Then, quietly and suddenly, I stopped coughing and stopped moving. It was then Mama got on the phone and started calling folks to come and pray for me. And they came.
We lived in a tiny house; the largest bedroom was barely large enough for a double bed and a dresser, and the living room was so small only a couch and a couple of straight chairs fit in. When I came to my senses, when I woke from the state of semi-consciousness in which I had fallen, all I could see from my bed was a sea of heads bowed in prayer. Folks from church had crowded into the room and were on their knees in prayer. There were people praying in the adjacent rooms as well. All was quiet except for the sound of many voices in prayer, each prayer individual but all rising and falling, creating a type of syncopation. The preacher reached down and picked up a bottle of olive oil and anointed my head while he spoke in tongue. After the anointment, the rising and falling of prayers lessened and folks, one by one, lifted from their knees and left the room.
Mama came and felt my forehead with her hand. “Praise the Lord,” she said. My fever was gone and I was thirsty, and for the first time in days, I seemed to be able to think clearly. At that point I knew I was going to be just fine, but it was only later that I understood how close I had come to dying. My body still had to recover from the ravages of the fever and my lungs from the effects of the infection, but I was out of the danger zone. I had lost ten pounds in a very short time of illness, weight I could barely afford to lose since I was already too skinny. But there was no doubt in my mind that I was alive through Grace.
This wasn’t the only time that church members were called to our house to pray for someone in poor health. Whenever the need was present, they were only a phone call away. And just as often, we went to another member’s house so that Mama could help pray for someone else in need.
Mama was a Free Holiness, sometimes unflatteringly called a Holy Roller. Going to church was “going to meeting” and was a central part of our life. As a family, we attended meeting on Wednesday nights, Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, and Sunday nights and, of course, any revivals. Our social life revolved around church. The children we played with were either cousins or children of church members. These were the folks who showed up for funerals, wedding showers, baby showers, and during times of illness. Other than relatives, these were the people we depended upon. Several years ago, when Mama was nearing death, it was church members that brought food for us to eat so we didn’t have to worry about feeding ourselves and could take better care of Mama. It was church members who took her to the doctor when we couldn’t, and it was church members who stayed and offered support after her funeral. I still stay in touch with folks that I went to church with in my youth even though I haven’t attended that church since I was a teenager. I still love those people.
When I was a child, my favorite part of meeting was singing. There was no formal choir because every person in church sang; we were the choir. We sang old-time gospel songs at the top of our lungs with complete abandonment—not hymns, mind you, but pat your feet gospel songs complete with four-part harmonies. After singing three or four songs, the preacher might say a few words, not generally a lengthy sermon, and members were then invited to stand and testify—to share with the congregation something about their lives that was bothering them, or how they felt blessed by God, or if they felt any conflict with another member. Sometimes when someone testified, the power of God struck and they moved across the floor under the power, almost a dance. Sometimes, under the power, they would be called to lay hands on someone else who might be in need of healing or cheering up, or on a sinner as a calling to repent.
After everyone who felt the call to testify had done so, another song or two was sang and alter call was announced so that any sinners who felt the call could come before the congregation and pray upon their knees for forgiveness of their sins. A person received the Holy Ghost and was forgiven of their sins when they completely and absolutely gave their life to God and spoke in tongue as evidence of this. If the members had confidence and conviction that this had happened, the person was accepted into the fold. Some folks spoke in tongue the first time at alter, others took years, and some strived but never achieved it. Once a person received the Holy Ghost, they could never sin again and still be part of church. Each person who received the Holy Ghost became a brother or a sister and prefaced other church members with that title. When I was growing up, Brother Morgan was the preacher and his wife was Sister Lettie.
When a person received the Holy Ghost, they were baptized, generally at a river or pond. The folks on the bank sang several songs (we did like singing), and then the person getting baptized would walk out into the water with the preacher. The preacher would put one hand on the upper back of the person and drop them back into the water and raise them quickly back up. Songs began again. Usually the freshly dipped person had dry clothes ready for a quick change behind a bush or car, and then we’d all go to someone’s house for potluck. This was an opportunity for play with other kids, great food, and, sometimes, homemade ice cream. It was indeed a celebration.
Often, after Sunday service, we would be invited to go home and eat with another family. Sometimes we invited folks to come to our house after church on Sunday instead. Mama preferred cooking food and taking a covered dish to other members’ homes because we didn’t have indoor plumbing and guests had to use the outhouse. We were that poor.
Free Holiness kept themselves apart from general society as much as possible, preferring their community of fellow churchgoers. This has changed somewhat over the years as Southern society has changed and women have entered the workforce in ever-increasing numbers. Church women can’t cut their hair, wear makeup, wear pants or shorts, smoke cigarettes, use profanity, or drink alcohol. Their hair
is long and so are their dresses. Men can’t have facial hair, drink alcohol, gamble, use profanity, and are pacifists in times of war. Men are the head of the household.
Men sit on one side of the church, women on the other, the kids somewhere in the middle, and sinners in the back. Free Holiness churches did not pay their preacher, though a collection was taken for building upkeep and to pay the travel expenses of guest preachers. To the day she passed, Mama wouldn’t go to a church if the preacher was paid. She believed that preachers were called by God and no money should enter into that spiritual contract.
On the fourth Saturday night of each month was the Lord’s Supper and foot-washing. Only members who had received the Holy Ghost could participate. Unleavened bread was cut into small bite-size pieces and washed down with a bit of grape juice. After a few songs, two benches were turned to face each other on both the men’s and women’s sides of the church house. Songs began and continued through the whole process, literally for an hour or more. Basins were filled with water, and while folks were singing, every brother and sister washed and dried another’s feet and had their feet washed and dried in return. Everyone sang and hugged, and the feeling of love and acceptance in the church was just amazing.
Southern Folk Medicine Page 13
