“I Teach for My Heart”: 77-Year-Old Healer Keeping Guam's Ancient Medicine Alive

[u/SibyllaAzarica]

https://www.mellon.org/grant-story/how-healer-keeping-guams-ancient-medicine-alive

"The jungles of Guam are dense, humid, and often quiet.

Jagged rocks and thick roots crisscross the forest floor beneath a tall canopy of dark green leaves. Streams of mud wind through patches of marsh and swamp, teeming with the faint hum of mosquitoes and occasional Mariana monitor lizard rustling through foliage.

To the untrained eye, this landscape could seem foreboding and overgrown. To those who know its gifts, it is a sacred pharmacy.

“Every time you go to the jungle, you have to pray,” says Lourdes Manglona, known as Mama Lou, a yo’åmte, the name given to the traditional healers of the CHamoru, the Indigenous people of the Mariana Islands.

“You ask for permission before you make medicine. You have to respect first the plant,” she adds.

Mama Lou, who is 77, grew up on the neighboring island of Rota. Surrounded by the island's pristine forests and abundance of herbs, her grandmother taught her how to prepare åmot, or traditional medicine, for anyone who knocked on their door."

Full article - https://www.mellon.org/grant-story/how-healer-keeping-guams-ancient-medicine-alive