Book Review: "Healing Plants: Medicine of the Florida Seminole Indians" by Co-Authors: Alice Micco Snow and Susan Enns Stans

For most of us, driving down Florida's Interstate Highway 95, we see scrubland and vast expanses of green, with bodies of water scattered here and there. Ethnobotany offers an alternative perspective on the landscape, transforming everyday scenes into a place where living medicine is found. This book focuses on the plants and remedies that generations of Seminole people have used to heal themselves and their families.

The author, Alice Micco Snow, spent her life learning and working with the healing properties of plants. As a young person, her mother took her to find plants, teaching her how to identify them by their location and the other plants that grew around them. Her father, Charlie Micco, focused on medicinal plants that Indian doctors used in bundles for the Green Corn ceremony. Some remedies, such as those for an earache, were widely known and commonly used by many mothers. Alice referred to herself as “the legs,” collecting the plants for the older Indian Doctors. Although it created controversy, it was important for her to document her tribe's healing traditions so that they would be preserved for future generations of the Seminole people. Susan Enns Stans, the co-author and anthropologist, helped her convert a yellow pad with notes to an organised book listing the plants with their Creek, Mikaski, English, and Latin names. The book has photos, line illustrations, and brief descriptions of the plants.

The treatments listed in the book are often used along with Western medicine. There are solutions for conditions such as pain, shortness of breath, and strokes, as well as remedies for babies. It also includes remedies for alcohol addiction, sleep, and bad dreams. There is a warning that this type of medicine may be too strong for use by non-native individuals.

Indian Medicine has at least five elements for each treatment:

1. The Patient
2. The Doctor and the Collectors - The patient or their relative can consult either the Indian Doctor or the Collector, who will then contact the Indian Doctor.
3. The Diagnosis
4. The Herbs - These are to be picked fresh and not grown, but collected from wild plants. A few, like sassafras, aren't found in southern Florida and must be brought in from Oklahoma, Northern Florida, or Georgia. The herbs are placed in a container and filled with water for drinking or bathing.
5. The Treatments - Indian Doctors infuse supernatural energy into the treatments by singing special chants and blowing into the herbal mixtures. Training to become an Indian Doctor requires years of study and purification. Recording of the chants is considered improper, so they must be memorized. Unlike Western medicine, some water-based remedies are initially taken orally and/or washed over the face, arms, or legs.

   Restrictions are part of most treatments, such as avoiding certain foods, limiting television time, or refraining from activities like walking in the rain. The cure for alcoholism, called “On the Wagon,” has as one of its restrictions that no alcohol, including beer and wine, is allowed for four months. If any of the restrictions are broken, the condition will worsen.

Indian doctors typically do not request payment for medicine and treatments; instead, they accept gifts. The book lists various gifts by the treatments. They can include items such as yards of fabric of a specific color, a knife, a hog, or money.

The book gives us an appreciation for the adaptability of the Seminole people. It contains a biography of Alice Micco Snow, titled “When I was coming up...”, written in her own words, as well as a genealogy and a brief history of the Seminole Tribe and the Brighton Reservation. I recommend it to people interested in Florida, native plants, and herbal medicines.

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Q&A with Susan Enns Stans, Co-author of "Healing Plants"

1. Did you try one of the Treatments, and what was your experience doing so?

   At the time, I was having nightmares as usual. After my bed was treated with smoking bay leaves, I stopped having them. Since that time, I have started having dreams again. They have all been pleasant ones geared to solving dilemmas and planning activities.

2. You were an assistant professor specializing in medical anthropology. Is there anything you would like the readers to know about this field?

   Medical Anthropology is the study of all aspects of healing, whether in ancient or modern humans. All things associated with human health, such as origins, history, social, physical, linguistic, and shared beliefs. My dissertation and research focused on social learning theory; specifically, how you could predict the chance of a person drinking alcohol if they associated with others who do drink. Sounds like a no-brainer, but produced imperative answers.

3. You helped Alice collect plants for remedies. Were there times when you ran into reptiles, landowners, or off-beat situations that you care to share with the readers?

   I don't remember searching for medicine on a property, except for the tribal reservation land. We would identify plants on private property, but only to test my skill to locate or see a plant that I knew was used by non-natives, such as aloe vera. No reptiles, just climbing over barbed wire to reach plants in the pasture. The cattle raised there generally kept their distance from us.

4. Some members of the Seminole Tribe had concerns about publishing a book about their traditional remedies. Looking back, was it a good idea? What are your thoughts about that now?

   I think so. Many in the tribe bought the book, and the library and school use it. With the tribes proximity to non-Indian society, their culture is being displaced by the major one surrounding it, and their access to more medicine for diseases and injuries that are not treatable by the local community clinic. The clinic was set up through a treaty with the U.S. government. The clinic still operates, but for certain conditions, the tribe will cover the cost of a member's treatment.

5. What did you enjoy the most when you were a guest at Alice's house on the Brighton Reservation?

   Alice was my delight. We had more fun and laughs, and learned a great deal about each other's cultures and families. We looked after each other and enjoyed so many activities together. We had fun learning to write the language, studying, and speaking Creek, as well as sometimes Miccosukee. We even traveled together to other reservations and even to an all-Indian Bible Conference. I made many friends through Alice and vice versa.

Book Details

• Title: Healing Plants: Medicine of the Florida Seminole Indians
• Co-Authors: Alice Micco Snow, Susan Enns Stans
• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Publication date: September 1, 2015
• Book length: 168 pages
• ISBN-10: 0813061725
• ISBN-13: 978-0813061726

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