Plant medicine is real medicine and it always has been. Chahta imaiyvhohmi (It’s the way of the Chahta)

Traditional and contemporary herbalism meet in this first-of-its-kind approach to plant medicine from new imprint Yard Dragon.

In this exploration of historic and contemporary Chahta (Choctaw) plant medicine, herbalists Summer Wesley and Faith G. Harper draw on reclaimed traditional knowledge as taught to them by their elders and passed down through generations of healers who found the medicine they needed in their surroundings.

This knowledge from their Chahta families and communities is combined with the pre-removal teachings of Alikchi Chitto as recorded by Dr. Gideon Lincecum in the early nineteenth century. The authors demonstrate the importance of plants and place to overall wellness, show us how to prepare plants to support healing and create formulas, and offer specific uses for 134 particular plants. You’ll find properties, uses, and cautions for the following:

Plants native to Oklahoma
Plants whose seeds were brought from Mississippi during the removal
Useful non-native plants from around the world

This is a readable and well-researched resource for herbalists, kitchen witches, traditional knowledge seekers, or anyone interested in plant-based health.

Read on for an excerpt!

Introduction

Plant Medicine

For millennia, across the world, humans had systems of medical care that were based on the natural world. The advent of Western (“modern”) medicine led to these systems being dismissed as primitive and/or even dangerous. They were (and often still are) considered “pre-scientific” since the mechanisms behind these systems were poorly understood by outsiders.

Take Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for example. TCM written records date back to the third century BCE, but practices may go back as far as the Neolithic period. The concept of meridians in TCM dates back just as far, further than their use even in acupuncture. There are two primary meridians, one of which is Du meridian, also known as the Governing Vessel.

The vagus nerve was discovered by Thomas Willis in 1664, but the extent of the impact of the vagus nerve on the body wasn’t understood until 1996, in the work of Stephen Porges. And his work? Corresponds with what TCM doctors already knew about the Du meridian—because they are the same thing, expressed with the language and cultural understanding of different times. And nowadays you can easily find articles in scientific journals that state (essentially), “Yo guys, it looks like acupuncture is stimulating the vagus system!!!”

These systems of medicine aren’t the least bit primitive, simplified, or dangerous. They simply don’t translate out of context. Conversely, Dr. Gideon Lincecum, who documented Chahta¹ plant medicine the most extensively in the nineteenth century, felt that Western medicine was incredibly damaging to the patient, often worse than just leaving the affliction alone. He noticed that the community in which he lived (known then as the Chahta settlement “Six Towns”) was incredibly healthy and had entirely different mechanisms for maintaining health and treating sickness.

While Western medicine has improved substantially in the intervening centuries, we agree with Dr. Lincecum that plant medicine can also be effective, gentler, and often demonstrate fewer side effects.

And part of what has helped Western medicine grow and improve is how many practitioners agreed with Dr. Lincecum over the intervening decades and have often looked to plant medicine as a starting point. The World Health Organization notes that about 40 percent of pharmaceutical products draw from plant medicine and our traditional knowledge. Willow bark, for instance, is the basis of aspirin. It has been used as an anti-inflammatory, fever reducer, and pain reliever across the world for millennia, including by the Sumerians, Egyptians, and ancient Greeks.

A closer look at these drugs reveals that the scientists behind them built off of traditional knowledge to achieve their breakthrough discoveries. Plant medicine is real medicine and it always has been.

Chahta imaiyvhohmi (It’s the way of the Chahta).

What Should You Expect from This Book?

This book is organized into four distinct sections after this general introduction. First, historical background on Chahta plant medicine including the whys and hows of the plants we chose to include in this herbal. Next, general information about engaging with plants. Finally, there are two materia medicas (plant listings): historically used plants and contemporary plants that we use in our herbal practice.

The historically used plant listings include the historical common names of the plants (not always the names we’d use today), a Chahta name if we have it, the scientific name (genus and species), actions, traditional uses, and cautions.

The contemporary plant listings include much the same, with the addition of a plant identification section and the subtraction of Chahta names because, traditionally, plant common names would reflect appearance and use; however, there has been no contemporary work done to name these plants in the Chahta language, using these strategies or others. Note as well that we did not include cautions on the contemporary plants that are generally considered safe. More on what we included and didn’t in the next chapter.

We can’t give you all the knowledge of a Holhkunna,² but we hope this book will inspire you to learn and explore the medicine and culinary traditions of your own people and places of origin and maybe even inspire you to help re-wild, protect, and restore the spaces you occupy to the healthy ecosystem that they are intended to be. Connection to our people and to the natural world are powerful medicines. And, perhaps, you can even become one who prepares plants into medicines for yourself or others—a person we would call “ikhinsh kanchi.”

Summer Wesley is a Chahta Life Giver who was born on the Choctaw reservation, learning about nature and healing from older Chahta women—as has been the cultural practice for eons. While she left the reservation for many years to earn a living as well as a bachelor’s degree, three master’s degrees, and a Juris Doctor, her heart has always been with helping her culture and community.

In order to better practice the healing arts and preserve such cultural knowledge for future generations, Summer recently purchased a few acres of land within the reservation boundaries and, with the help of her partner-in-crime, independent scholar and traditional naturalist, Joseph Anderson (Mvskoke), has been working tirelessly to eliminate invasive plant species and replace them with transplanted native species that grow in the area. Particular focus is being placed on plants that provide food and/or medicine, so that a population of such beneficial species is protected into the future.

Faith grew up outside of our current reservation boundaries, as many of our peoples have. Her family moved to the Texas panhandle for job opportunities, and her father joined the military, moving the family both more frequently and further away; but Chahta heritage traveled with them. Every new duty station was an opportunity to build a new garden, using the knowledge of our peoples.³ Faith earned a postdoctoral certification in clinical nutrition and has completed certifications through the Center...

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