Harvesting Medicine on the Hill
Harvesting Medicine on the Hill Harvesting Medicine on the Hill Picture yourself in a pharmacy, standing in front of the shelves of medicines. Rows and rows of perfectly shaped pills in white sterile bottles, topped off with balls of cotton and tamper-proof caps, stand at attention. Now turn around, and imagine time slipping backwards, backwards, backwards. The flickering fluorescent lights fade, the walls of the store dissolve away, and you are-where? It is a long, long time ago in the 1500s,
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Harvesting Medicine on the Hill
Harvesting Medicine on the Hill
Picture yourself in a pharmacy, standing in front of the shelves of medicines.Rows and rows of perfectly shaped pills in white sterile bottles,topped off with balls of cotton and tamper-proof caps, stand at attention.Now turn around, and imagine time slipping backwards, backwards, backwards.The flickering fluorescent lights fade, the walls of the store dissolve away, and you are-where?
It is a long, long time ago in the 1500s,and you are standing alone on the crest of a hill that overlooks the wild California coast.Gnarled oaks spot the golden yellow hills beneath you,all the way down to where the ocean crashes against the shore.The pharmacy is gone and all the medicines in it-or are they?
Surprising as it might seem, the slopes of these sun-baked hills are a kind of pharmacy.The brush, bushes, wildflowers, and weeds have all been used for thousands of years to cure and prevent illness.
As you look over this hill of wildly flowering medicines, you see an old man hobbling up the steep side of the hill.Somehow, you know him. His name is Bent Oak Kitsepawit, and he is a Chumash elder.You also recognize his grandson, Red Hawk, following at a respectful distance.The bit of root around his neck bounces on his collarbone as he scrambles up the slopes.
"Are we almost there?" he calls out to Bent Oak.
"If I remember correctly," the old man replies."I saw some chuchupate growing by the marshy place near the stream, back last spring."
"Why didn't you pick it in the spring, then?" the boy asks innocently.
"Remember, my child," Bent Oak answers evenly, "we do not pick chuchupate in the spring.We pick it in fall, when all the power is in the roots."
Bent Oak squats beside another plant and asks, "Do you recall what yerba mansa is used for?"
Red Hawk is still learning - it has only been a year now that he has been accompanying his grandfather to the hills."Yerba mansa cures burning pains under the skin," he recites slowly and carefully.
"That's right, my child," Bent Oak replies."Put yerba mansa on wounds and they will heal. Drink it as tea to purify the blood.We will pull up the roots now, bring them back to the 'ap, and dry them.In a few weeks, we can slice them and begin to use them for medicine."
As Bent Oak stands and looks toward the coast,he frowns at a building, much larger than the 'ap where he and the boy live, that is under construction.
"What are they doing, Grandfather?" the boy asks about the foreigners who are working on the strange-looking building.
"They are cutting down too many of our oak trees," Bent Oak says curtly."That takes too many trees that give food."
Red Hawk nods. Though most of the food in the village comes from the sea,they eat bread from the chia, or acorns - the seeds of the oak tree - every day.
Red Hawk looks back to where the workers labor on the building for the Spanish strangers.He can see them breaking up the earth to plant seeds.What will their arrival mean to our people? he wonders.
"We should not stand here idly," says the grandfather, turning his back on the new building."We have many more medicinal plants to find."The urgency in Bent Oak's voice makes the boy uneasy.He thinks about the rumors he has heard at night in the 'ap, about the sickness in the south,where people break out in rashes of oozing red sores.They said the sick went blind or died.Red Hawk worries that the sickness will reach his village too.For weeks, he has been afraid to ask his grandfather whether the sickness will continue its deadly trek up north.
Casting a last nervous look behind him, Red Hawk asks, "What else do we need?" trying to hide his fear.
The old man touches his hand to the bit of twisted root he wears on a cord around his neck.It is an answer, and the boy understands."Chuchupate," Bent Oak smiles. "And do you remember why it is important?"
"It guards against rattlesnakes," the boy answers promptly."Grandmother chews the root for headaches.Uncle rubs it on his sore body after fishing, and mother gives me chuchupate tea when I am sick with a cold."
The grandfather nods. "Yes, chuchupate has many uses.You can see how important it is that we bring more home to the village.Come up the hill to where it grows. You should know by now where to find it."
"Grandfather," the boy pants, scrambling after the old medicine man,"if the chuchupate is so important, why don't we plant it near the village?"
"Chuchupate does not consent to be grown just anywhere," Bent Oak answers."Some plants can be cultivated, but chuchupate only grows where it wants.Do you remember why we must be careful when we pick chuchupate?"
Red Hawk says slowly and thoughtfully, "It is because we take the root.If we only took the flower, the plant would still be there next year.But because we take the root, there will be no plants left at all if we take too much."
His grandfather nods. "That is why," Bent Oak says, "and that is what the strangers do not understand.I do not want to tell them about the chuchupate."
"Don't they know about it?" the boy asks curiously.The old man shakes his head. The boy is amazed."And is it true that they have no doctors - no pipe doctors, or ant doctors, or herb doctors?"
