Hoodoo Medicine: Gullah Herbal Remedies by Faith Mitchell

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 the 1970s 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