Product Description

Hoodoo Medicine is a unique record of nearly lost African-American folk culture. It documents herbal medicines used for centuries, from the 1600s until recent decades, by the slaves and later their freed descendants, in the South Carolina Sea Islands. The Seas Island people, also called the Gullah, were unusually isolated from other slave groups by the creeks and marshes of the Low Country. They maintained strong African influences on their speech, social customs, and beliefs, long after other American blacks had lost this connection. Likewise, their folk medicine mixed medicines that originated in Africa with cures learned from the American Indians and European settlers. Hoodoo Medicine is a window into Gullah traditions, which in recent years have been threatened by the migration of families, the invasion of the Sea Islands by suburban developers, and the gradual death of the elder generation. More than that, it captures folk practices that lasted longer in the Sea Islands than elsewhere, but were once widespread throughout African-American communities of the South.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #802052 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 113 pages

From the Author
My first trip to the South Carolina Sea Islands, in 1971, was life changing. Having grown up in Michigan, I was excited about the opportunity to learn more about southern black culture. Up to that time, I had never spent any time in the south. When I got to the Sea Islands I was shocked by the poverty; at that time, telephones, cars, and even running water were still scarce. I was stunned by some of the more remote backwoods settlements, where very little had changed since slavery. But I was most deeply affected by the rich, fertile beauty of the Islands and by the strength and integrity of the families I met - natural wealth that belied the widespread material poverty. I soon discovered that the Sea Islands were also as abundant in culture - ghost stories, animal tales, the Gullah language, plant knowledge - as they were in animal and plant life. These first experiences among the Gullah people led me to a lifelong interest in African American history and culture.

From the Back Cover
The Sea Island the southeastern Atlantic coast are known for their tropical beauty and for the Gullah people, African-Americans who descended from slavery to develop a distinctive dialect and rich folk heritage. As late as 1960, many of these islands were still unreachable except by boat, thus allowing Gullah culture to remain largely intact. Faith Mitchell, a medical anthropologist, lived with the Gullah people in the1970s to learn firsthand the folk medicine still practiced by its oldest citizens. Today, this knowledge has been nearly lost.

Hoodoo Medicine describes in rare detail the medicinal plants and herbs historically used by the Gullah people. Part I includes a brief history of the Sea Islands, and the source for African-American folk medicine. Part II is a directory of all the medicinal roots, herbs and plants, detailing their use in the Gullah culture as well as Native American and Euro-American uses. Included are more than 50 drawings of various medicinal plants.

About the Author
Throughout her career, Faith Mitchell has worked in domestic and international public policy, with a focus on social development and health. Her experience includes field research, university teaching, philanthropy, and government service. Dr. Mitchell is currently director of the Social and Economic Studies division of the National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council.

In 1993, the White House named Faith Mitchell the Senior Coordinator for Population in the Bureau of Population Refugees, and Migration of the Department of State. Dr. Mitchell played a central role in the preparations for the 1994 International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt. She was a member of the U.S. delegation to ICPD, as well as serving on other high-level delegations.

From 1988 to 1993, Dr. Mitchell directed the population program of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in Menlo Park, California. Prior to that time, she was a Program Executive at the San Francisco Foundation (1985-1988) and an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco (1980-1985). While at the University of California, Dr. Mitchell held postdoctoral fellowships with the Inter-American Foundation and the Health Policy Program of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Faith Mitchell has published articles on topics that include teenage pregnancy, the doctor-patient relationship, and health care in Jamaica and Haiti. She is co-editor for a 1997 National Research Council book on mortality trends in the United States and racial trends in the United States.