Iris Bayley
It is customary for many Barbados inhabitants to use watery infusions of various plants, known as “bush teas”, as remedies when they are ill. If the disease has definite characteristics, such as skin rashes, swelling or pain, the infusion is applied locally, or pieces of the plant are bandaged upon the affected part of the body. Medical consultation is considered as a last resort or to avoid post-mortem examination, the latter being the subject of much superstitious dread.
The practice of drinking bush teas is still common, although in recent years, owing to improved educational standards, the majority of the people no longer have such complete faith in these concoctions, and experts in the use and administration of herbs are gradually becoming extinct. One of my interests in this subject was to collect the still remaining data concerning the use of these domestic remedies before they were entirely lost.
Once the enquiries had begun, it was surprising to note the wealth of material available for study. Over one hundred and fifty different species of plants in use at the present time have already been carefully investigated for this piece of research, and from time to time, a new plant with alleged medicinal properties has been brought to my notice.
The flora of Barbados has changed dramatically during the three hundred years following the arrival of the first settlers. E.G.B. Gooding, who has conducted a comprehensive study of the subject, states that we now have about six to seven hundred species of flowering plants, both indigenous and imported, instead of thousands that were originally found here.
The island is extensively cultivated, chiefly with sugar cane, and a minimum of land is allotted to pasture and woodland. Indeed, only tiny patches of the original virgin forest remain, and even in those areas, many plants will be found to be alien to the island due to the dispersal of the seeds of the introduced species. Plants were brought here from other lands soon after the island was colonised, and those that found suitable ecological conditions increased and spread. They were brought from Europe, West Africa, India, the East Indies, North and South America and the other Caribbean islands. Most of the plants were imported for agricultural purposes, like the breadfruit from Tahiti, romantically associated with the voyage of Captain Bligh of the” Bounty”, but some plants were imported for ornamental purposes, and a great many because they were medicinally helpful.
Iris Bayley “The Bush Teas of Barbados” was first published in the Journal of the Barbados Museum & Historical Society in May 1949 .
To be continued
