Nobody in My Family Ever Said, "Let's Try Alternative Medicine."
Nobody in my family ever said:
“Let’s try alternative medicine.”
That sentence simply didn’t exist.
Instead, you’d hear:
“Go pick some cerasee.”
“Boil some fever grass.”
Or simply:
“Yuh need some bush.”
Growing up in Jamaica, herbs weren’t something you discovered in the wellness aisle. They were part of everyday life.
And I think that distinction explains a lot about Jamaican bush medicine.
We didn’t discover herbs. We grew up around them.
Our backyards were useful.
There were fruit trees, food, herbs and plants that someone in the family knew by name.
Some went into dinner.
Some became tea.
Others were traditionally used when someone wasn’t feeling their best.
As a child, I didn’t think of any of this as “herbalism.”
It was normal.
It wasn’t until I got older that I realized how much knowledge was hiding in those ordinary moments.
In many Jamaican homes, the backyard doubled as a pantry, garden and source of traditional remedies.
The knowledge lived in people.
My grandfather- Pappy- was one of those people.
He knew plants.
You could ask him about a bush and chances were he knew its name, where it grew and how people traditionally used it.
There was no certification hanging on the wall.
The knowledge came from decades of experience and what had been passed down to him.
That's an important part of understanding bush medicine.
It wasn't primarily a written tradition.
A lot of the knowledge moved from person to person:
Grandparent to grandchild.
Neighbor to neighbor.
Farmer to family.
Someone showed you the plant.
Someone told you what part they used.
You remembered.
Herbal knowledge was often preserved through conversation, observation and practice.
And that's also what makes this knowledge vulnerable.
When the person who knows dies without passing it on, part of the library disappears with them.
But traditional doesn’t automatically mean true.
This is where I think we need a better conversation about herbs.
We don't have to choose between:
“Our ancestors used it, so it must work.”
and
“There isn't enough modern research, so it's useless.”
Both positions are too easy.
Traditional use tells us something important: people observed a plant closely enough, and valued it enough, to continue using it across generations.
That's worth investigating.
But tradition alone doesn't establish that every claimed use is effective or safe.
Modern research gives us tools to investigate those traditions more carefully- identifying compounds, exploring biological activity, studying safety and eventually determining whether traditional observations hold up under controlled testing.
That's where Roots & Remedies will spend a lot of time.
Not blindly defending tradition.
Not dismissing it either.
Following the evidence while preserving the story.
We’ve also changed the way we relate to plants.
This might be the part that interests me most.
Modern wellness often begins with:
“What should I buy?”
Traditional herbal knowledge often began with:
“What grows here?”
That difference is bigger than it sounds.
People had to recognize plants.
Know their seasons.
Know which part was traditionally used.
Know how it was prepared.
Know who in the community knew more than they did.
Today, many of us can name dozens of supplements but couldn't identify five useful plants growing around us.
We gained convenience.
But somewhere along the way, we lost some familiarity.
Modern wellness and traditional herbalism often begin in very different places.
That’s why Roots & Remedies exists.
I don't want this to become another wellness blog publishing “10 Amazing Benefits of ___.”
There are enough of those.
I want to document Jamaican herbs properly.
Where did the tradition come from?
Why did people use the plant?
Which part did they use?
How was it prepared?
What does modern research actually tell us?
What hasn't been studied?
And where has social media turned an interesting plant into an exaggerated promise?
Some articles will explore familiar herbs like cerasee, guinea hen weed and fever grass.
Others will introduce plants many people outside Jamaica- and perhaps some Jamaicans- have never heard of.
We'll talk to tradition.
We'll look at research.
And when the evidence isn't there, we'll say so.
Because preserving Jamaican herbal knowledge doesn't require exaggerating it.
It requires taking it seriously.
🌿 Roots & Remedies Takeaways
Bush medicine wasn't an “alternative” for many Jamaican families. It was part of everyday life.
Much of that knowledge survived through people rather than books- which means some of it can disappear within a generation.
Traditional use deserves investigation, not automatic belief or automatic dismissal.
And perhaps most importantly:
We don't need to make Jamaican herbal tradition sound miraculous to make it worth preserving.
One More Thing
Ask the oldest Jamaican in your family:
“Which bush did everybody know when you were growing up?”
Then ask why.
The answer might lead to a story worth keeping.
Continue Reading
Next: Why Jamaicans Call It “Bush”- And What the Word Really Means
Coming soon: Guinea Hen Weed: Tradition, Research & What We Actually Know
About Roots & Remedies
Roots & Remedies is the editorial journal of Jamrock Naturals, exploring Jamaican herbal traditions, plant history and modern research without the hype.