More about herbalists/healers in fantasy

[bunnyjadwiga]

(Sorry if y'all are bored. You may have figured out that I'm re-creating my notes here preparatory to writing it all up in a single doc. Zing me if something sounds wrong or more than usually overgeneralized.)

Another major force behind the emergence of the idealistic herbalist-healer in fantasy was the resurgence of interest in herbs, and herbal medicine in particular.

This also was somewhat related to the women's movement, as there was a strong backlash against "traditional," scientific-style medicine in the women's movement. That backlash was definitely justified; the problems with women's healthcare in that time period are amply documented in many studies and first person narratives from healthcare providers and patients of the 1960s.

In particular, male medical establishments' control over women's health was a major issue. (Though I'm not from that period, I can remember going on the Pill and my personal struggles with having to jump through the hoops of authority to control my body.) The question of herbal contraception (did/does it exist? work safely and reliably?) is one that continues to be disputed. John Riddle's Eve's Herbs argues that there were safe reliable contraceptives used 'under the radar' before the modern period; I personally don't buy his arguments, but some people do. We do know that people used contraception, of some type, off and on from the Roman, through the medieval and modern periods. Catherine of Siena, the 30th 23rd child of her parents, railed against those who practiced it (a clear case of self-interest there!) In fantasy and science fiction, of course, there's nearly always a safe reliable contraceptive of some sort.

During the 1970s and their climate of distrust of modern medicine, interest in herbs went through a renaissance. Around the turn of the 20th century, herbs had become devalued in society, though there was a resurgence in interest in the 1930s and 1940s led by scholarly garden-club women such as Eleanor Rhode and Rosetta Clarkson, leading to the foundation of herbal guilds and societies. However, by the late 1960s, most people knew and cared little about herbs as garden plants, seasonings, or medicines. This began to change when the counterculture (and, to a certain extent, the pre-bicentennial celebrators) embraced and promoted the study and growing of herbs, and the use of herbal medicine.

The old woman who lived in the woods, either as a good or bad witch, or the miraculous young woman who dispensed magical healing, were alread features of the folk and fairy tales ardently collected and dispensed by 19th century ethnologists. But in this time period, studies such as the Foxfire Books brought the 'cunning' and 'wise' men and women who practiced folk healing in remote areas-- the Ozarks, the Appalachians-- as their predecessors in remote areas of 18th and 19th century Europe had practiced folk medicine. We'll call these folk healers 'empirics,' a term that was first used in the middle ages by University-trained physicians for those who were not informed by University knowledge and theory. An example of such a folk-healer, folk-witch appears in Nancy Springer's The Hex Witch of Seldom.

Women's studies historians were attempting to retrieve the history of the daily life of women ("the world's best kept secret: Merely the private lives of one-half of humanity" as Carolyn Kizer put it in "Pro Femina"). Women as nurses, nurturers, home doctors, were traced back, by these historians, to the suppression of the empiric medical practicioners and the witches; and here is where the witches come in to our narrative.

Comments

[thalionar.livejournal.com]

thank you so much for posting this, I find it incredibly fascinating. Of course, I find real herbalism pretty fascinating, too, even if all I really have room for currently is culinary herbs.