A Poultice and a Prayer – Guideposts

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Mamaw Clark’s faded homespun skirt trailed in the leaves as she walked along the creek at the forest’s edge. Mamaw bent down beneath a cedar sapling and picked a handful of wild mint.

 

I took a handful myself and breathed in the sweet, cool scent.

 

“Don’t go eating that there mint,” Mamaw warned me. “It’s still green as grass and will upset your innards. You can chew on a sprig, but don’t swallow a drop or you’ll be sorry.”

 

Mamaw was a fourth generation medicine woman. Her own mother was full-blooded Cherokee. Mamaw didn’t talk about that much, because when she was growing up a lot of people looked down on her heritage. But she did learn all her mother’s secrets about home remedies and nature’s healing.

 

Deep in the Great Smoky Mountains, professional medical care was scarce and expensive. People swore by Mamaw’s cures, even if they didn’t understand how they all worked.

 

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