In conversation with Bush Girl Medicine: The healing power of the Cayman Islands’ plants

Photo: Hannah Reid Ford. Retrieved from wanderlustmagazine.com.

Part of the isolation and the remoteness of Cayman in the early days meant if something went wrong, you had to be able to fix it yourself, and that included your health. Bush medicine is about being able to utilise specific plants, herbs, fruits and flowers to heal ailments, and in those early days in Cayman, this was an important part of maintaining health.

Caymaninan culture developed in close relationship with the natural environment because early Caymanians didn’t have access to many imported goods. There had to be a relationship with the land and sea in order to survive. When looking at plants and bush medicine, it’s interesting to consider the common names, rather than the scientific ones. These common names can change from district to district in Cayman and often contain important cultural information about what those plants were used for.

We have a plant called headache bush that was used to treat headaches, and another called fever grass that was used for fevers; worry vine was used to calm anxiety and heart bush was used to fix heart issues. What would have happened around a traditional Cayman cottage is there would have been fruit trees in the yard, some beautiful flowers for aesthetic purposes and also a medicinal part of the garden, so the remedies were close by if you needed them.