Curitive Herbs used by Houma Indians

Saving the healing herbs of the bayou

BY   MY-THUAN TRAN, LOS ANGELES TIMES

SEP. 5, 2010

Jason Pitre grew up hearing stories of how his great-grandfather healed babies on the cusp of death using herbs and plants found along Louisiana’s bayous. The tribal healer, or traiteur, was known by the native Houma people for his potions and salves that seemed to treat any sickness.

Now, the traditional herbs are in danger, Pitre said, threatened by decades of coastal erosion, hurricanes and development that have crept up on Golden Meadow in Bayou Lafourche, where many members of the United Houma Nation once lived.

“A lot of the plants that my great-grandfather used and that my grandfather grew up with are no longer there,” he said. 

So Pitre, 26, and his grandfather began uprooting herbs to replant them on higher ground. Recently,  Pitre  visited a small blue house in Golden Meadow — the home of his grandfather, Whitney Dardar, 74.

years ago, people came long distances and knocked on the door at all hours of the night to be treated by his late father. “My father would go into the woods and pick plants for every sickness,” Dardar said.

He pointed out a row of plants — tall dark-green straws poking out from the ground. The Houma people, who once spoke a mix of French and Houma, call the plant prelle, Dardar said.

He plucked one of the straws and ripped it into sections. “You get an odd number of them, tie it with a thread, and boil it to make a strong tea,” he said. “It’s good for blood infections.”

A few steps away grew a saw palmetto. The trunk and fruit of the plant, which looks like a miniature palm tree, were used to treat prostate problems, and the leaves could be used to weave baskets.

Surrounding the house were other plants his father used: a plantain tree, whose large leaves were crushed to make a salve to treat poison ivy, heat stroke and skin swelling. 

The leaves of the bon blanc plant were used to brew a minty tea for babies with colic. 

The leaves of the sage-like venera treated colds.