Page 6
Herbs not chants
work folk cures
By RHONDA WATTERS
Battalion Reporter
illness: Malaria
Cure: Take the leaves of the
cenizo plant, make into a tea and
put in the bath water.
Just what the doctor ordered?
Probably not, but there are many
people who still believe in cures
like this one. And for good reason.
Some of them really work.
‘‘We know that much of folk
medicine works and we know why
it works,” said Clarissa Kimber, an
assistant professor and teacher of
a new folk medicine course in the
Geography department.
‘‘Folk medicine is hard to define,
but I think of it as a medical system
that has grown up empirically in the
population,” Kimber said.
Folk medicine is often thought of
being associated with tribes and
underdeveloped peoples, she said,
but a big part of it can be found
around us in common family re
cipes.
Kimber has studied folk
medicine in the West Indies, the
French West Indies and Africa. But
most of her work has been done in
South Texas. The use of folk cures
is very prevalent in the Mexican
culture, she said.
“We have at least five different
kinds of folk medicine in Texas,”
Kimber said. There is the German
hill country, East Texas, Mexican
American, black and the wide
spread “old hometime” types.
Folk medicine has two different
sides — the instrumental side,
which is treating a certain condi
tion, and the emotional side, where
concern and empathy is very im
portant.
“Most folk curists are good
psychiatrists,” she said, “but I am
making no claims for the validity of
all these cures. I’m interested in
what these people believe in and
what they practice.”
Kimber said she became in
terested in South Texas Folk
medicine when a work-study stu
dent told her that some of the cures
she had found in the West Indies
were the same as ones he had
seen in his South Texas
hometown.
She went down to investigate
and found that the use of folk cures
was very widespread and that
some herb-packaging houses
there that were doing profitable
business.
There are three large packaging
houses in Laredo, she said. Work
ers pick certain herbs and bring
them to the plant where they are
measured and packaged. The
herbs are then sent to different
stores where they are sold inex
pensively.
There is at least one place in this
area where folk cures can be pur
chased. It is a Mexican bakery in
downtown Bryan.
The part of the plant that the
cures are made from are called
“medicinals,” Kimber said. From
her travels and research, she has
collected over 400.
She also has a collection of folk
recipes, many of which are from
Texas.
Kimber uses different methods
to find her folk cures and recipes.
She looks in fields, countrysides,
and backyards — just about
everywhere. “Many times people
call me up and say they have found
something interesting.”
Many folk cures are replaced by
some modern drugs that are easily
obtained, she said. One example is
aspirin.
Kimber said she is always find
ing new folk cures because folk
medicine, like many other things, is
constantly changing.
“New things come in and old
things go out.”
This statue is a representation of a “curandero”, a folk healer,
named Don Pedrito Jamarilla. Folk medicine is very prevalent in the
Mexican communities. Above, Clarissa Kimber shows just a few of
over 400 medicinals that She has collected. Photos by Lynn Blanco
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