Medicine As Resistance As Medicine

Nicole Telkes

Herbalist

Part 1 The Festival

I stood on top of a mountain overlooking the town where the Festival de las Plantas Medicinales was being held and sighed. Flowers bloomed, the air smelled sweet, and pine trees swayed gently in the breeze. The first thing that struck me as I panned across the horizon was the fullness of the mountainsides. There were no roads, no fences, and no patches where lumber companies had shaved the earth. I turned to look at the herbalist leading the plant walk. He was cracking jokes and doing some sort of acupressure, or what was called “traditional massage”, to my friend. The man leading us was another one of the amazing people I met who led a simple working class life and was also a great herbalist. I felt at home in Michoacan, the people I met were kind and unpretentious. At the festival, I was surrounded by what I felt to be a wonderful popular medicine movement led by traditional healers. One of the first zines I picked up laying on a table outside the herb fair was entitled “Traditional Medicine as Resistance” and inside was filled with articles and pictures chronicling campaigns and detailed accounts of the most recent history of the traditional medicine movement throughout Mexico. In the spirit of civil disobedience and a firm commitment to indigenous culture, these people were determined not to lose their medicine. In response, several “mixed hospitals” have opened where doctors share space with traditional healers and midwives. One can choose whom their primary care comes from and then the practitioners work together as needed. Three more mixed hospitals are opening this year in Michoacan and the idea seems to be spreading.

The Festival consisted of around 1500 people who came from all over Mexico, Central America, and some from as far as South America. Getting to the gathering was an adventure unto itself. I flew into a small airport in Morelia, Michoacan. Morelia is a pretty progressive college town in the middle of the state. From there, we went to a friend’s house, dropped off some things for safekeeping, and went on to the bus station. Floods washed out some of the roads so we had to wait an extra few hours to get on a bus to Urupuan. We arrived in Urupuan and our cab ride to the hotel consisted of questions surrounding whether we were in town for the “brujas” gathering. The next morning started with fresh juice and a long cab ride through Organic avocado orchards and into the mountains. We continued through small Indian towns until we got to our destination. The town was amazing. It isn’t a community used to much tourism nor does it seem like it wants it. “Zapatismo” was celebrated throughout the region. The taxi driver shared in our excitement on the way as he explained that Subcommandante Marcos had spoken just three years earlier at the school the Medicinal Plant Fest was being held at. I don’t think I would have been able to even get there and find my way around very easily if it hadn’t been for my friend who was from the area.

The gathering was very well organized but no one was there to hold your hand, you pretty much had to figure a lot out on your own. The organizers made sure there was space for all of the many workshops going on and that food was provided. You could sleep in the school if you wanted or figure out your own accommodations. We decided to camp outside an abandoned government building that had been reclaimed as an Indigenous peoples radio station for the area. The structure to participate in the gathering was that you were to choose a workshop and stick with it the whole weekend. I, of course, was much too curious about all of them to choose any one. I went from a workshop on the traditional medicine of Huayapan to a workshop on Acupunctura Rustica, from what I gather was a technique of healing developed by Mayans in which they use cactus spines to treat meridian imbalances. My friend had spoken with some of the healers who use these practices and they insisted it was their own system they had been using for as long as they could remember. Surrounding the Festival was an amazing market. Fresh fruits of all kinds, fresh veggies, fresh herbs, and beautiful hand-woven clothing lined the streets. Everything I ate was delicious and mostly vegetarian. Someone was even selling vegetarian chorizo sausage at the market. The gathering had compounded the vendors. On top of all of the regular merchants, healers, artists, farmers, and seamstresses from many places in Mexico and as far as Peru were there. Interspersed amongst the brightly beaded gourds and shawls were Bach flower essences, homeopathic remedies, herbs, herbal preparations, chiropractors, Reiki practitioners, tarot readers, traditional healers, massage therapists and more. I spent hours eating the meatiest and tastiest corn con Chile y Limon, staring at everything in wonder.

The school was the center of the festival, and the traditional medicine and dancing was there. All of the other sorts of workshops like Reiki, university professors speaking on plant medicines, classes on organic farming methods, etc were in the surrounding buildings in town. All through the gathering the “Curative” dancers, who helped dance away illness, were pounding out rhythms in the center of the schoolyard. The dancing continued all day and all night and through the next day. Several tribes danced together, different men and women taking the lead. People were smudged and allowed to enter the circle if they felt like it at anytime. At night sweats were held and some people from the gathering went to the middle of the town plaza and spoke on holistic health and other issues surrounding community health like genetic engineering of food and plant patenting. The gathering also happened to be right before Mexican Independence Day so many people were in a festive spirit. Dancers and musicians performed around the speakers and the last night of the Festival was a big party and dance at the school. I was very lucky to meet some Shamans and Curanderas and invited them to occupied Mexico, (Tejas) to have them speak. I learned to incorporate animal medicine and several other types of devices and rituals into my healing regime. Most importantly I saw that many of the healers were not gurus, not above anyone because of their knowledge. They were real people, some of them were alcoholics, some sick, some smoked, some wore wranglers and cowboy hats, some were older, and some younger. They were easy to approach and from what I understood, easy to find in the communities they served. The experience was extremely cleansing and inspiring.

The few days went by extremely quickly. I took lots of pictures and tried to eat meals every chance I got. The town even had its own type of security, known as “civilian protection”. It was group of trusted individuals in the town who took care of people’s safety. Police and Federales that came into the area every now and then were not particularly welcomed. People took care of their own safety, there own food by farming, their own herbs by wildcrafting, and their own garbage by dividing up sections of the street and picking up. I fell in love very quickly with the town who’s water supply was “born from the side of a mountain” as explained to us by a young adolescent who was showing off some English.

Healthcare trends Part 2

The entire attitude towards health in the Mexican towns I visited was different than the U.S. and I kept trying to put my finger on just what that difference was. I began to reexamine holistic healing trends and the way herbalism is evolving in the U.S. How did we get to where we are now? The more research I do, the angrier I get. The U.S. government and big money has done a really good job of taking care of their interests at the expense of a large percentage of its citizens. Lucky for us, the hippies, activists, and herbalists of the 1960’s and 1970’s helped to revitalize herbal medicine usage in the country. Now it feels we are standing at a crossroads, and have been for a while. Where do we go? Herbal medicine trends, according to some major U.S. herb organizations I have spoken with, should take example from Europe. The German Commission E Monograph translations came out in the 1990’s as an “authoritative” voice on herbal medicine for the U.S. While there are some exceptionally skilled practitioners in Europe, many of the trends there are not necessarily ones that we need to mimic. The examples I have seen in different parts of Europe of dried plants and pills mixed up with Tylenol boxes (or their equivalent) are not exactly progress to me. When I have gone into European stores that sell herbs, it’s usually a pharmacy. My experience is that you ask a pharmacist who has a very basic understanding of ailments and drugs, for an herbal substitute and there you go, a box of yucca pills for inflammation. No thanks. I see this same trend happening in herb sections of natural food stores in the U.S. Herbalism to me is not just using herbs, it is an art form. Formulas lacking the artistry of looking at individual constitutions, and plant energetics are boring, semi-effective, and set a dangerous precedent. If herbs are just substitutes to pharmaceuticals, then why do we need herbalists? The Flexner Report of 1910 closed down all medical schools that did not conform to American Medical Association (AMA) standards, which were standards of the multimillion-dollar Carnegie Foundation monies that funded the organization. What came in its place? All schools in the U.S. were to adopt German-style medical school models. After that, almost all prospective students of medicine had to be rich, white, males in order to become a doctor. Women, people of color, especially traditional healers were pretty much left out of medicine. Herbalists in the U.S. skate a dangerous, fragile, fine line between medicine and counselor of sorts for individuals wishing health consultations. Many I know don’t join professional organizations because they don’t know they exist nor do they think they make too much of a difference in their practice. It’s a very hard place to be and at times very lonely.

The trends that excited me as an herbalist were ones I saw in Mexico. We have a lot to learn from Traditional healers. What makes the U.S. and other westernized countries so different from the indigenous cultures I mixed with in the way they look at health? I think one of the biggest differences is that health has not been commodified in the parts of Mexico that I saw the way it has in the U.S. I went to a workshop where people were sharing information about how to treat oneself with acupuncture needles at certain meridian points. People weren’t trying to compete about who knew more, or who had written the most books or papers. Instead, they were trying to help each other understand medicine so that they could help others in the areas they were coming from.

Health was about healing, not profit. Enter Oral Tradition. Being a part of a huge oral traditionalist gathering solidified my commitment to my path of health and healing. I came back to Texas and began flipping through the book “Witches, Midwives and Nurses” and read some of the lost history of medicine in the U.S. and a lot of things started to fall into place. What is alternative Medicine? Well it surely isn’t the holistically based medicine stemming from 5000 years of oral tradition and experience that the traditional healers I know draw from. I would have to say that if anything allopathic medicine is alternative medicine. In fact there are many examples throughout history where allopathics kept trying to legitimize their medicine, even changing the language so that they called themselves the “regulars” when the regulars were actually a minority of practitioners at the time. So how did our holistic, oral traditions get almost stamped out in the U.S.? Let’s take a look.

One big difference between the U.S. and Mexico is that many tribes have been able to join in a strong showing of resistance to being absorbed and homogenized into western culture. They were able to become a threat to their government. Even recently the U.S. government has put millions of dollars towards any attempt Indigenous people made to resist assimilation with CIA counterintelligence operations, holding political prisoners, offering substandard living conditions, and more. The EZLN and other rebel groups in Mexico are demanding that their lands and culture be treated with respect and that Traditional Medicine, medicine of their culture, be seen just as legitimately as allopathic medicine. Herbs abound the markets, the buses, and the everyday life of the people.

Part 3 Conclusions

If there is any direction that I would like to see the U.S. go, it would be in the direction of that Mexico is going in terms of integration, not assimilation. In order for us to truly be able to celebrate the long oral history of herbal medicine and natural therapies this country still has to offer, we need to more than just educate on the plants themselves, we need to educate on tradition. Education can be through story telling, puppetry, community garden projects and other creative means. We need to know our history as herbalists, not just concentrate on clinical trials funded by pharmaceutical companies. Western medicine is very good at treating diseases, not curing them. It offers many good diagnostics and tools, but it is very young, and by no means offers the safest and healthiest therapies. Without addressing the commodification of health and working to educate our communities on the true tradition of herbal medicine and other healing modalities, we will lose the art behind the medicine. It will turn into a homogenous substitute to western meds. Instead, it’s time to reclaim a lost and dying art of herbalism that comes from thousands of years of oral tradition. It’s time to support not just herb companies, but herbalists, who are trying to keep both the science and art alive.