“Sagaligesw” means “family doctor” in the Mi’kmaq language. Well okay, it actually means “Plant Woman”. But the Plant Woman once filled very much this role in the life of members of the eastern Canadian communities of the Mi’kmaq. Although fewer have chosen this path in recent years, Jeorgina Larocque, a Mi’kmaq elder and medicine woman feels this need is still very much present. The traditional healer uses a pharmacopoeia of plants and herbs, as well as prayer and spiritual guidance to effect his or her cures. Properly addressed as “Grandmother”, a salutation of great respect among her people, Ms. Larocque spoke about her vocation to a small group at the Fundy Museum in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia a few years ago.
Dressed in the symbolic garb of the Plant Woman, she explained that the tradition of healer is shrouded in great antiquity. The position is passed down from grandparent to a grandchild, who is chosen at the age of seven to become an apprentice. In Ms. Larocque’s case, she did not have much chance to evade her calling as both her legs were paralyzed when her grandmother literally came and carried her off. Her father was of the Mi’kmaq people, stationed in England with the Canadian forces during World War II. Her mother, however, was English and Jeorgina still marvels that her grandmother should pick the “most white” of her 22 grandchildren to learn the craft.
Ms. Larocque’s early education was also literally her treatment, as her grandmother laboured to restore function to her granddaughter’s lower limbs. It obviously worked for she is quite mobile today, though with the use of an elegant hand crafted staff. She explained that she had become a much more effective healer through suffering her own illness. One of the foremost things Jeorgina says she was taught early in life was respect. “When grandmother held aloft her raven’s feather it was expected that I would listen.” (The raven remains sacred to her to this day). Her grandmother also often used to maintain that “the pathway of the healer is the pathway of patience”, something contemporary physicians and their patients would do well to remember.
Ms. Larocque spoke of the fourfold principles of healing, encompassing the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. As a medicine woman she would incorporate her treatment into all four areas (as should any effective family physician). She maintains that everyone has the instinct to heal and gave the example of even small children who will empathetically respond to a hurt playmate or ailing parent by trying to touch or rub the injured part. On a spiritual note, Jeorgina spoke of the five stations through which we may pass. From the base ego state of the first stage we must learn courtesy, compassion and consideration. Further progress is based on letting go of imbalance and achieving harmony in all areas, a more difficult task than we might believe. Apparently the Mi’kmaq were early practitioners of mental health techniques. I see these same principles propounded repeatedly in the psychology section at my local book store.
Prayer and meditation make up a great deal of the traditional healer’s day. Other activities include fasting, smudging (burning of plant matter, traditionally done with pleasantly scented sweet grass) and use of a sweat lodge. Jeorgina spoke of once being invited to a seminar on meditation and discovered that it was only what her grandmother had called “entering the Sacred Space”, a technique she had been taught in childhood.
Methods for treatment of the ill include “listening, respect, energy work (therapeutic touch) and plants.” The traditional healer calls on a large armamentarium of plants to help fight different illnesses. Ms. Larocque decried the uncontrolled commercialization of herbal remedies. As with the potent prescription drugs physicians use, herbals can be misused and can be hazardous if not taken with proper guidance or in the proper manner. As well, the method of collection is crucial and must done in the correct manner for the remedies to be effective. Although she had previously gathered all her own plants she now has trained assistants helping out, due to the demand for her services. It became evident in our discussion that Ms. Larocque had developed quite a knowledge of botany, using the latin as well as the traditional nomenclature, and she has also discovered two previously uncatalogued plant varieties in Nova Scotia.
“Traditional herbal remedies are administered in one of the ‘seven sacred ways’, which include teas, brews, ointments, poultices, tinctures, essences and smokes,” says Ms. Larocque. Colt’s Foot and Pearly Everlasting are good remedies for the common cold, while mullein is an effective agent for asthma and can be administered to children in an infusion of warm milk. Echinacea and chives are used for their antibiotic properties and thyme tea in small doses relieves a cough. Another traditional asthma remedy is a necklet of porcupine quills. An oil secreted from a membrane on the fresh quills is believed to penetrate the skin to produce its effect. Larch needle tea will stop the burning of a urinary tract infection while a six day course of “uva ursi” clears the infection. The latter imparts a distinct color change in the urine of which she warns her client.
Ms. Larocque believes the whole plant should be used, rather than extracting a specific compound as the various components have a “synchronous” effect which balance each other. For example, her clients rarely have GI distress with the naturally occurring salicylates in white willow bark, which she uses for pain such as that of toothache. An old Mi’kmaq remedy for arthritic pain is a liniment of wintergreen, cedar, cayenne pepper and olive oil. This remedy was utilizing topical methyl salicylate (found in wintergreen) and capsaicin (from the pepper) long before modern pharmaceutical companies incorporated both these agents into topical anti-arthritics.
For more serious problems such as Crohn’s, lupus or malignancies, “Elders’ Medicine” is a specific that has been used for many centuries by the Mi’kmaq. It incorporates the bark of “ground hemlock”, a type of juniper, plus cedar taken in the form of a tea. It is interesting that traditional remedies for cancer in other parts of the world have included periwinkle, from which the modern chemotherapeutic agent, vinblastine, was later isolated. One of the most promising new therapies for metastatic breast cancer is Taxol, derived from the bark of the Pacific yew.
Jeorgina stresses that her healing methods are complementary to those of modern allopathic techniques and encourages her clients to obtain benefit in a balanced and sensible manner from all therapeutic areas. Her clients with malignancies are often those with advanced disease for whom oncologists have nothing more to offer.
Despite her increased numbers of clients, Jeorgina takes no money for her services. A gift of a pouch of tobacco, or perhaps sweet grass serves just as well now as it did hundreds of years ago to secure the services of an herbal healer.
The increased demand on Ms. Larocque’s time is due in part to her recent selection for the National Council of Elders. This would be the equivalent in the white man’s world to being elected to the Senate in terms of prestige as well as time demands. Despite this she continues to live simply with her husband in a trailer in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia.
Elders from tribal groups all over the world meet periodically and Ms. Larocque has spoken with council representatives from as far off as Japan, Ecuador and Africa. What she hears disturbs her, and the consensus is that ecological imbalances from pollution, deforestation, and population pressures have occurred which will have dire consequences for mankind in the not too distant future.
Despite this, Jeorgina retains a cheerful aspect. Her advice for happiness is “do what you love to do and the rest will follow.” This modest but remarkable Plant Woman seems very solidly rooted in her life’s calling. And yes, she does take referrals.
Image credits:
Via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Heather Macleod says
Great articles well written, informative and interesting!