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Aboriginal bush medicine heals body and soul
NHULUNBUY, Australia: As the
campfire burns slowly, a group of Aborigines build a “place of
healing” in a remote outback camp where they will treat the ill
using traditional bush medicines. The Healing Place is set in
Gulkula, a stringy bark forest with views of the Gulf of
Carpentaria, about 15km southeast of Nhulunbuy in Arnhem Cape in
the Northern Territory.
Bush healing is a part of the Yolngu aboriginal culture,
remedies from the ancient Dreamtime stories have been handed
down through the generations for more than 40,000 years. Poor
health is a serious issue for Aborigines in this remote outback
community. They have limited access to modern medical services
and the Yolngu women are determined to continue to teach and
practise their traditional bush medicine.
“The older ladies, the mothers of the people here, the mothers
of this land, are concerned that it’s not being handed on like
it used to be,” Tash Eles from the aboriginal Yothu Yindi
Foundation, which promotes Yolngu culture, said. The Healing
Place is a Yothu Yindi project currently on a six-month trial
basis.
“There’s an urgency, as traditions and oral histories are handed
on through generations. If you skip a generation, you lose a
whole body of knowledge,” Eles said.
Australia’s 460,000 Aborigines make up 2% of the 20 million
population and have a life expectancy 17 years less than white
Australians. They have far higher rates of heart disease,
diabetes, alcohol and drug abuse and domestic violence.
At The Healing Place, Yolngu women will treat people with
traditional bush healing alongside mainstream medicines.
Aboriginal remedies vary between clans. During the last 20
years, anthropologists have worked to record a complex and
sophisticated aboriginal pharmacopoeia. A “bush sauna”, when
liquid is poured over a multitude of native flora and fauna, is
a common treatment for easing arthritic pain. Clear liquid
squeezed from a bush cockroach’s anus is used for its
anaesthetic and antiseptic properties.
In many parts of Australia, wounds are dressed with dirt or ash
and some Aborigines eat small balls of white clay and pieces of
termite mound to cure diarrhea and stomach upsets. Bush remedies
for headaches range from a bath of crushed Red Ash (alphitonia
excelsa) leaves to inhaling a crushed vine (clematis microphylla)
to rubbing a crushed liniment tree (melaleuca symphyocarpa) on
the head. Some of the most well known aboriginal remedies are
readily available in most Australian supermarkets – goanna oil,
tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil.
Before the healing begins, three women drive off into the bush
and return a couple of hours later with shrubs, nuts, leaves and
paper bark, laughing and chattering in their native language.
They use basic tools like an axe to strip the bark without
damaging the trees.
Back at the camp, the women fill two big pots of water and place
them on the open fire, adding some of the bush ingredients they
have gathered. The rest is placed in a hole in the ground, about
2m in length and set alight. The burning nuts give off an aroma
like almonds when heated. After a while, the fire is doused with
fluid from the pots, giving off a strong eucalyptus scent, like
an open air steam room in the outback bush. Paper bark is then
laid over the doused fire, with the damp side facing up so it is
moist to lie on. Yolngu elder Gungulu Munugurr, who has
difficulty breathing and who has been waiting weeks to be
healed, sits in the sun before she is treated.
“With Western medicine, a lot of people have to leave the
community and go away from their families, especially for the
old people,” Dhangal Gurruwiwi, a senior Yolngu member, said.
“So they seek traditional medicine that Earth has supplied us.”
After removing most of her clothes, Munugurr lies on top of the
paper bark while the healing women smother her skin in a slime
like substance from one of the pots. They then wrapped her in
more paperbark and proceed to walk over her while chanting,
almost in a meditative form. “It’s not just a place of physical
healing, but emotional healing, as well as spiritual – it’s a
healing that the land holds. If the spirit is healed, the body
will heal,” Gurruwiwi said. – Reuters
 
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