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For Marika Alvarado, being a medicine woman was not a choice – it was her destiny.
Born into a lineage of Native American medicine women, her grandmother declared her a healer at birth, and her purpose was confirmed when Marika reported seeing the spirits of her ancestors at the age of 5. Her training began quickly.
After years of shadowing her grandmother, mother and aunts, the holistic and traditional healing methods of the locals became her life’s work – with ceremonies, cupping rituals and above all the use of indigenous plants and wildflowers to make tinctures and preparations that could aid the healing process. But after Alvarado’s grandmother and mother died, she felt a change.
“Suddenly I was standing alone,” she said. “I have my own medicine that will die with me because there are no Apaches to pass it on. I would hate to know that it’s going to be lost. “
Since then, medicine woman Lipan Mescalero Apache has made it her mission to impart generations of teachings to aspiring healers and medical professionals across the state and to educate them about the importance of natural and indigenous medicine. Her students now call her Abuela or Grandmother.
“It is important that we know how to take care of the body – the whole mind, body and soul,” said Alvarado.
The former midwife and tribal healer, who has been offering alternative healing methods in the Lone Star Circle of Care clinic in Austin for two years, founded the Of the Earth Institute of Indigenous Cultures and Teachings in Austin. Her six-month certificate program, taught to approximately 25 students this year, focuses on nutrition and nutrition, nutritional patterns, and plant medicine, and is based on Apache traditions and cuanderismo, a holistic traditional Latin American healing system popular in Mexico and areas of Texas.
Your lessons are packed with facts about healthy foods, indigenous traditions, body functions, and recipes for students to prepare for their families at home. On a recent Sunday, Alvarado passed herbal samples around to make warming teas or a natural, cleansing mouthwash; tart but tasty tinctures made from Texas wildflowers and plants; and gut-friendly fermented foods like tepache, a sweet drink common in Mexico made from soaked pineapple peel.
“We have to be the shift,” said Alvarado. “We have to educate and let everyone know what we do, how we do it and how we do it with plants.”
Plants are powerful, she said.
“It’s like anyone who says, ‘What’s the difference between medicine and poison?’ It’s always the dosage, ”said Alvarado.
However, while teaching students about plant functions and natural remedies for common ailments like high blood pressure or diabetes, she’s not trying to replace western medicine, she said. She tries to work alongside.
However, their offers tend to go one step further than the typical visit to the doctor. With meetings that last at least an hour, it’s not uncommon for her to start client appointments with a disarming cup of warm tea and a conversation or to travel to see her clients, especially those who are afraid of doctor’s offices, she said. In some cases, Alvarado acts as a caretaker who works with social workers or families to ensure clients have everything they need to support them during important life events, including medical ones.
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“It’s always how can I help you? And that’s what I tell my students, ”said Alvarado. “We are really here to learn.”
Students of other Native American or Latin American indigenous groups say that Alvarado’s work was crucial in reconnecting them with their own culture. And she’s helped people from other countries look for natural remedies that are similar to those they might have used at home.
“Abuela knows intangibles that I can’t learn from reading a book,” said Carina Souflee, 33, a fourth year medical student at the University of Texas at Dell Medical Center in Austin.
The adopted medical student used Alvarado’s class to develop her roots as a descendant of the Rarámuri, a group of indigenous peoples from Chihuahua, Mexico.
But for her it is “not so much a personal project as it is a professional one,” she said, noting that the collaboration and exchange between Alvarado and medical students has been enlightening for healers and medical professionals, bridging the gaps between natural and medical approaches Health, while legitimizing patients’ cultural experiences and history.
“What Abuela is building is a community in Austin that enables (traditional healers) to have conversations with medical professionals on an equal footing,” said Souflee, “because when medical professionals understand that people are afraid to go to the doctor or to contact them Want to keep nutrition -based medicine it is important to work together on these things. “
While students strive to learn Alvarado’s traditional methods, the state has yet to recognize their approach as a legitimate practice. However, many local medical experts take notes.
UT’s Dell Medical School hired Alvarado to teach several workshops on indigenous medicine and its approach to community service to create a unique collaboration between the medical school and a local healer.
Christina Jarvis, program administrator for the medical school’s community-based initiatives, said the workshops supported Dell’s goal of better serving underrepresented communities and populations with health inequalities while teaching professionals about the history and culture of those communities.
“Health is the place where you live. We know there are people out there who know what they need and we are interested in hearing what they have to say, ”said Jarvis. “It only takes into account and respects the traditional healing methods, which in my opinion are also important in science – being able to include healthy, natural things as well.”
Brandon Allport-Altillo, assistant professor of internal medicine, population health and pediatrics at Dell Medical School, said Alvarado’s workshops taught him about indigenous remedies like guava leaf tea to aid with diabetes, which were used in a similar way when he was growing up in his Afro-Caribbean Family.
“That was enlightening to me,” said Allport-Altillo, noting that it inspired him to explore what compounds in plants might help control glycemic.
“For mainstream or western medicine, it is important to realize that a lot of our innovations come from nature, so we cannot reject things that come from nature or indigenous culture. … We’re all on the same team, ”he said.
While advocating the power of modern medicine, Allport-Altillo said he has since suggested Alvarado’s services to his patients, especially those who may initially be reluctant to try drugs. Allowing patients to discuss their problems from a perspective that is related to their cultural environment and their socio-cultural and historical traditions is a compliment for his work, he said. He is now also an internal medicine specialist in the Lone Star Circle of Care.
However, teaching ancestral medicine to outsiders is frowned upon for some Native American communities.
The Alabama Coushatta Tribe of Texas, located in the Big Thicket area, receives frequent inquiries about their medical practices, but leaders forbid tribal members from doing their healing or medicine with or for anyone outside the tribe, Bryant Celestine said, the tribe’s monument conservator.
The tribe’s fears of their doctrine or practice were being exploited, he said, as in the past.
Resources could also become scarce, especially since climate change is a threat. The tribe even goes so far as to provide a preservation officer with a list of the resources they wish to protect or harvest, who is then required to maintain secrecy, Celestine said.
“It’s a really difficult thing to talk about,” he said. “As soon as certain plants are mentioned or demonstrated, the elders fear that we will lose this proprietary information. Elders tell us not to do it. “
Though Alvarado still holds sacred aspects of their healing, such as craft, if not passed on.
“When elders in our church have knowledge, it is a great gift for everyone. Their knowledge will stay with them unless they pass it on, ”said Soufflee.
Alvarado agreed.
“We want to hold on like that, but we have to share,” she said. “This is how medicine is lost.”
britany.britto@chron.com
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