Herbal remedies: Plant-based medicine

Mayan Elder Marina Xoc Castillo de Vásquez, Traditional Knowledge Scholar, Lecturer and Applied Indigenous Studies Professor at Northern Arizona University, found herself falling ill with pneumonia years ago.

The pneumonia eventually spread to her brain, and she developed a rare disease, called encephalitis. It was necessary to open her skull and operate on her brain in order for her to live. Her husband was against the operation, as it caused her to lose her long, beautiful hair, and told the doctors to leave his wife alone. She was in a coma, so she didn’t have a say.

The ailing woman had woken up from the 11-day coma. She had lost her speech, was unable to walk or move properly and remained this way for four years. She took 19 codeine pills each day to cope with the tremendous headaches she dealt with.

“My grandmother came to stay with me for three months and that’s when my recuperation begins,” Vásquez said.

Vásquez’s family is from Guatemala. The people living there rely on curanderos, or medicine men and women, to heal them when they are ill using plant materials and traditional herbal medicines passed down through their ancestors for thousands of years. Her grandmother was an experienced curanderos, and offered remedies to help her unwell granddaughter.

“When my grandmother came, she made the codeine from natural plants,” Vásquez said.

Knowing the addiction associated with codeine medication, Vásquez only shared one of the plants used in the recipe, oregano. This was one of the ingredients in a tea she would drink every four hours.

“I still was mentally ill. I could not focus, I could not have a conversation and for a long time, I had to have a diaper. It took maybe four or six years to fully recuperate,” Vásquez said.

During the time of her recuperation, Vásquez’s cousin came to visit from Guatemala, bringing his girlfriend, who weaved pine needle baskets as a hobby, and did so as Vásquez watched. She was then given the opportunity to learn. Although her cousin believed she wouldn’t remember how to weave the baskets, she was determined. This technique helped lead her to redevelop her lost motor skills.

She promised herself she would continue teaching basket weaving to mentally-ill individuals, because it forced her out of the depression she experienced in her time of recovery.

“During these three months [of Vásquez’s grandmother’s visit], she said ‘You must focus in the plants. You must speak to the plants, you must connect to mother earth. You cannot assimilate like everyone else, otherwise you’re going to get lost,’” Vásquez said.

Nature, for thousands of years, has provided its inhabitants with medicine. Pain relief, soothing properties and other healing powers can derive through certain plant life the earth has produced.

In Vásquez’s indigenous studies class, she teaches her students how to make natural, plant-based cosmetic products, such as toothpaste, deodorant, eye drops, hair oils and soaps made from the yucca plant.

Vásquez said NAU is partnered with Killip Elementary School, where children are taught about gardening, plant life and the proper way to cut plants in order to leave some for other people and other generations.

Vásquez explained that her son had been trained as a medicine man since he was a young boy. He went to medical school for five years, and realized he didn’t agree with western medicine practices. He believed the industry revolved around business rather than healing people.

“I walk the talk. I will never talk about a plant that I have not used for myself, for my husband [or] my kids. My husband, right now, is being diagnosed with cancer,” Vásquez said. “His family are all doctors, so he knows about western medicine. So, I’m going to let him have the chemotherapy. The next chemotherapy is going to be the chemotherapy that I’m going to give him.”

The seed from an apricot is the ingredient Vásquez plans to use to help her husband with his cancer. She will grind up the seed into a powder and put it in his food and in liquids he drinks. It will create numbness in the body, but said it will kill the cancer cells. She has had many family members that have had cancer and have used this method to help them heal. All of them are still alive.

Vásquez has years of knowledge about plants and their healing powers, and continues to share that knowledge with those willing to learn.

Plant medicine, like any form of medicine, can be dangerous if used improperly, and Vásquez said that it is extremely important to learn about them before using them with the body.

“Knowing about plants is so powerful because you can heal yourself and heal others,” Vásquez said.