Decolonizing Alternative Medicine: Empowering the Future with Bahamian Bush Medicine
This is Decolonizing Alternative Medicine, a series dedicated to elevating the work of healers, medicine workers, and herbalists from traditions and cultures that span the globe.
Martha Hanna-Smith is an educator who grew up on the 92 square-mile island of Acklins in the Bahamas.
As an artisan and educator, Hanna-Smith has been teaching local residents how to turn their crafts into entrepreneurship for over 40 years.
She works with the natural materials of her homeland, including straw, shells, and sand, to make culturally relevant art. Other specialties include her herbal teas, jams, and jellies.
“I drank bush teas all my life, so that’s all I know. I knew nothing about cocoa or Ovaltine, so I had to resort to what we had in the backyard,” Hanna-Smith says. “All of the plants, like the soursop and all of the others, were there.”