Healing Plants

The first published record of Florida Seminole herbal medicine and ancient healing practices, Healing Plants is a colorfully illustrated compendium of knowledge and practices passed down orally to Alice Snow from generations of her Native American ancestors.The authors' overview of Seminole history, native medicine, and the life of Snow, a Seminole herbalist (illustrated with personal photographs) places the healing practices in their cultural context and describes actual treatments. Charts with plant names in Creek, Mikasuki, and English and lists of plant properties with their common and botanical names offer easy reference. Color photographs provide clear illustrations of many of the plants. Herbal treatments include those intended for babies, for people who have had a hysterectomy, a stroke, blackouts or shortness of breath, "monkey sickness," alligator bites, or a speeding heart, people who have pain or have been ill for a long time, who like to sleep all the time or can't sleep because of worry or bad dreams, who are pregnant or "on the wagon" or have lost wives or husbands. Alice Snow is both a traditional Seminole and a cultural innovator who combines old and new methods of preserving and teaching "Indian medicine." Her record of medicinal plants and remedies is her contribution toward helping the Seminoles to hold onto their past while living in the present and moving toward the future. Though the book does not reveal the tribal doctors' secret healing songs, believed to empower the plants, it provides Seminoles with a reference handbook of plants; it also offers medical professionals, herbalists, and the general public an understanding of the world of Seminole medicine.