Ancestral Herbal Narratives

[00:10] Nicole Wines: Welcome Manuela. My name is Nicole Wines with Raíces Cultural Center. I am, I’m happy to be interviewing Manuela Arciniegas who I know in a different capacity than the topic that we’ll be talking about today, which is, we’re interviewing for the Ancestral Herbal Narratives, oral history collection and project that Raíces started back in 2020. And it’s an ongoing project that we’re continuing to add into. I know Manuela through her work in music and cultural preservation, which is related to healing, which is part of why we’re doing this series of interviews. So thank you so much for joining us, and if you could make a brief introduction of yourself and just tell us where you, where you were born?

[1:01] Manuela Arciniegas: Sure. So, hi, my name is Manuela Arciniegas. I am, my pronouns are she/hers. I am of Afro-Dominican descent. I was born in Hollywood, Florida, and then left Florida and lived in Dominican Republic until I was about six and a half years old. I migrated back to the US to the South Bronx where I spent my life until I headed off to college in Boston and came back to New York. So I currently reside in upstate New York in Goshen. It’s a little town near the Woodbury Commons. And that’s a little bit about me.

[1:42] Nicole: Great. Thank you for sharing. And thank you again for being here today to share. So I’m gonna start off with kind of a big question and then narrow it down closer into the stories that you may have to share with us. What does healing mean to you?

[1:59] Manuela: So, healing is such an attractive concept word as I reflect on my life, having worked as a cultural teaching artist and Afro-Puerto Rican and Afro-Dominican drum traditions, having worked as a community organizer in the South Bronx, even working now as a funder philanthropist, resourcing education, justice organizing groups across the country, or running my own all women’s drumming group called Legacy Women, being a cultural organizer as well. Being a priestess of Afro-Cuban Lucumí and Palo Mayombe traditions. And recently an initiate of Isese traditions from the Yoruba based, indigenous belief system from Nigeria. I think I’ve always been searching for healing. For me, healing is a concept of restoring balance and right relationship, be in the self and between the self and nature and self and family, self and community. We can tell when something is out of right relationship because it causes dis-ease, literally, disease, unease. It causes imbalance, stress. There is a lack of reciprocity. There isn’t a cyclical flow that is generative. And so when the flow ends abruptly, ends life ends connection and wellness and sustainability, there is a lack of healing. And so healing is a, a process. It’s also an intention setting, the intention to be in right relationships, setting the intention to tend to ourselves and others, to the the things we’re all in relationship with. Healing is a, is a, is a prayer, a commitment to nurture and fortify. Something to untie. I wanna quote my, one of our late mentors and teachers. Dr. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, he was a teacher from the Congo who was an expert in traditional belief systems, traditional culture. I met him through my work at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute. And he actually had multiple PhDs in community development and all the things. And Tata Fu-Kiau, Tata meaning elder, Father Fu-Kiau, he taught us that a lot of us are born and have a lifeline and everything that is, we go through and whether through our own choices or behaviors or forces that we’re inflicted, are inflicted upon us in society, has a capacity to create a knot in the rope of life. And so, Tata Fu-Kiau would describe healing as a process of untying knots, untying knots in terms of our role in society, our relation to ourselves. These knots become illnesses, ruptures, flags and almost like stoppages of natural life energy flowing in, that is the cosmic intelligence nature. So that’s what healing is. It’s actually nature’s disposition to always be generating and restoring and taking us through healthy cycles of life.

[5:54] Nicole: Through your life, what connection have you had to herbalism and herbal healing traditions? And if none, what healing traditions have you been exposed to or been, kinda had touched you throughout your life?

[6:11] Manuela: Sure. So, my first connection to herbs was just watching the very regular devoted practice of my grandmother Rumaldara Hugo. She had tea every night, and the tea depended on what she was feeling and what she needed. She was a big fan of tilo, linden tea, which I understand to be cool, soothing to the nerves, the nervous system. At an early age, my father actually sold natural medicine, and they were all you know supplements made from, from plants. It was a company called Nature Sunshine, and he was like a doctor of, of natural medicine. Everybody went to him for different ailments, and it was all through plant medicines. My mother also she was a seamstress and a mother of four, a woman who migrated to the United States, didn’t speak English, but was always a resource to the people around her and this love for everyone around her. And the only book I ever actually saw my mother read and carry around, like the Bible, was a Spanish book called Las plantas curan, Plants Heal. And it was like a, almost like a, an index of a bunch of plants and what their medicinal properties were. So she was very well versed in making teas, using plants for spiritual cleanings and baths. I remember an early memory sitting on my bed doing my homework, and she came in and started shaking plants with some liquid on them, and it wet my homework and I got upset, Ma, you wet my homework [laughs]. But she was like, she was doing healing for the home. The energetic frequency of the home was out of balance. She wanted to restore that. She wanted to restore all of us. She wanted to bless us, and that was, she actively used plants, in multiple forms to make sure that we were in, in, in balance and right relationship with each other, with our bodies, with the, with our home space, with our, with nature. So and so, now I’m a priestess of Afro-Cuban Palo Mayombe tradition. And mayombe refers to the name of the forest in the, in central Africa, in the Congo and our in Africa, the tradition that we practice where it’s originally born, it’s called Nkisi Malongo, which means who salutes Mother Nature. It’s a practice that is directly related to people who have a deep understanding of nature, of animals, of plants, of natural processes, and the medicine that moves through that tradition, for not just physical, emotional and spiritual health, is based on a profound knowledge of plants and herbs and trees and their combinations and what they’re used for. They’re endowed with energy and they have spirit. And when we need assistance through our connection to nature, we can call upon our plant elders to help us. And so that is a, a tradition that is deeply rooted in plants and herbs. And the seniority and expertise of elders in the tradition is based on their ability to identify, prescribe plants for spiritual wellness. You might make baths or tincture. We use cool water when we make our baths. We don’t boil our plants like you might find in other African based traditions. We pray upon them, we ask for blessings, a particular, entities, and then we take these baths in ceremonial ways for, for, for our own healing. And so that’s right you see similar methodology in Afro-Cuban Lucumí Orisha Isese traditions- nature’s everything. Nature has all of the remedies in the medicines. And so for us, our, see, our elders in our traditions are actually just ex, they’re like biologists. They’re, they’re political scientists. They’re conflict mediators. They’re history teachers, wisdom keepers. All of that happens in the context of understanding and being in, in balance and relationship with nature around you. The trees are sacred. The animals are sacred. The bodies of water are sacred. The rain that falls from the sky sacred, the plant has all of those elements. It has fire from the, from the sun. It’s got water from the, from the sky. It’s got animal energy that might crawl around it or has become the, the fertilizer that gave birth to it. It’s all one interconnectedness.

[11:31] Nicole: Thank you for sharing. How, how are these traditions taught in, is it in a formal way? You a lot, you mentioned a few different things. You mentioned your family and just kind of having it around you in family and in community. So, but are there form formal ways of passing these different traditional knowledge sets or you know, how, how, how, how is it taught in your community?

[12:04] Manuela: Sure. I think it’s layered. I believe they are all, all formal in the sense that the people who show up to teach and engage other community members with it, have entered into a covenant, whether through initiation or through pacts that they make with their own elders will support their, their journey as healers. So most of the time, let’s say as a, a person who’s beginning to encounter their needs, request and support, if you didn’t grow up in the traditions, you might get prescriptions when you visit with an elder and you report ailments or need a need for help. And some of those prescriptions and remedies might entail plant medicine baths, right? And so that will be like your first encounter. If you visit with elders and seek guidance long-term, you might start to find patterns for the kinds of remedies that are being prescribed specific to the, the challenges you’re facing or to your person. Some people might be prescribed similar things over and over because those tend to be the places where you fall out of balance and out of health. When, if and when you decide to be initiated and you find a trusted, trustworthy, knowledgeable elder, then that might happen through selecting a, a godparent or a Baba Ifá or a Tata or Yaya of Palo Mayombe. These folks once you become initiated, they will put you under apprenticeship and you’ll learn, you’ll learn through practice and lived experience, showing up to ritual, showing up to ceremony, showing up to spiritual divinations and readings. That’s where you begin to develop a knowledge base. Some people learn or try to teach themselves on YouTube or with their own books. And I’ve never been someone to knock folks trying to read books. Like books are good. That being said, the majority of these traditions don’t, the best apprenticeship and most adequate and appropriate is through direct tutelage or apprenticeship with an elder. That’s the best way to do it because you might not know about the relationships between remedies or the nuance that can’t be taught. Every, every remedy should be holistic and very context specific to the specific needs of that person. And so you only learn that through experience with an elder who knows how to read for those things. And, and it’s a, a full, you know, combo. It’s not, oh, my stomach hurts. Okay, I have some peppermint. Sure. But then there might be other things based on divination that are underneath that. And so it, it is something that is a holistic approach the psychological, social, and emotional imbalances that live and are reflected through the illness. And so it’s not, you know, it’s helpful to know the basic tools and plants and what things we can all access, but then combinations of and frequency and pacing and cadence, all of that, that comes through a more formalized system that accounts for a number of other things. So that’s how most people learn in some places, you know  for example, in the Isese tradition, we, in our house, we enter into a formalized apprenticeship with our teacher where we learn all the things, all the rituals, all of the and it’s a long process. Some of us may not graduate [laughs]  and it’s okay because we’re going to elders who have spent and devoted lifetimes to learn and be well schooled. And the knowledge base is deep, and it’s, it’s not necessarily something you can assume to complete in four years, like a college degree or what have you. So that’s a little bit about what I’ve experienced. I’m sure there might be resonances with other indigenous or African based traditions, but I, it is only my experience. I can’t profess to speak for all of it. And it looks very different depending on whose house, what tradition, what elders, their method. So really, you know, you only know one, one, there might be some standard practices, but mostly like it’s, it folks should really like, be exposed, be in community, and take your time to learn. You might, you might, you’ve come to see nuances and distinctions. In some traditions there’s a overarching system and there’s some key tenants that’ll be shared, or like the Lucumí tradition around what’s appropriate, protocol apprenticeship, et cetera. And then in others it’s really like, based on how that lineage and that house runs their, their affairs. So.

[17:32] Nicole: And how about your family members? Do you know where they learned from or where they got their knowledge of, yeah.They learn from their mamas [laughs], from their aunties and their uncles, their grandparents. I, I mentioned, I’m Dominican. My mother was raised in a cerro. It”s like a, like a hill kind of community in Salcedo  in el Cibao in Dominican Republic. And so they were from the country and they were low income folks who were, high wealth in terms of their knowledge of nature and land. And really it’s oral tradition, it’s through lived experience from other elders. Some people learn how to heal themselves when through their relationship with nature and with other folks who, who share remedies. So when I was little we rarely took medicine. We always resolved with plants and the teas that my mother made or the prayers. We were mostly on the preventative side, what not to do, so you wouldn’t get sick, you know, and some doctors might scoff at it now, but when we were little, hey, don’t go outside with your head wet in the winter after a shower. You know, don’t walk barefoot on the floor when you have, when you’re on your moon. Things like that.

[19:04] Nicole: That’s a another similar thread in a lot of the conversations that we’ve been having in this series.

[19:10] Manuela: Yeah, sometimes people also receive knowledge and dreams, like sometimes in our traditions there’s a cosmic wisdom and intelligence that exists in the environment, and some of what is in the environment is not readily seen through the eye. Like you can’t see yourself with your eyes, but it doesn’t mean it’s not there. And so that is what sometimes for us, our intuition or spirit energy will communicate through dreams and literally walk you to the tree that has a remedy that you need. And you’ll know in the dream it might be said explicitly or it might be a sense of what was being revealed. But sometimes even prophetic dreams can reveal plant medicines that are other kinds of medicines that are required for people’s healing.

[20:16] Nicole: So I’m going to jump right off of what you just said and ask you to reflect a little bit on how you see the connection to healing, of healing to energy and to spirit.

[20:34] Manuela: Sure. So What’s the best way to share this? Every system, every like, belief system or cosmology relates to energy or spirit in different ways. Some don’t have concepts for this at all, right? Like I think about atheist friends we’re like, I don’t know what that is. But then we’ll go to a club and like, oh, I don’t like that energy. Okay, we should leave. It feels like danger, right? Something is unsettling. Okay? So you don’t believe in energy, but there’s energy, right? For healing, I think you know, and I feel like we don’t always register all that we are noticing and is knowledge in our bodies, right? Something is out of alignment, out of whack. Something is not flowing correctly or there is a hunger or a need that is unmet. There’s also maybe an excess, right? For example, just think of the, the way our world functions. Now, there’s certain communities with excess of abundance while others have a drastic deficit because it’s been taken or stolen, right? Those are all illnesses. Too much money is an illness. Not enough is an illness, right? ‘Cause you can’t sustain yourself. You can’t eat, you can’t buy medicine. You can’t feed, house yourself. So for healing to happen, it has to be holistic. It has to flow not just in the context of the intellectual, emotional, physical, psychological around that individual. But then there’s individual in family, in peer groups and in community, there’s relational. And so if you don’t have friends or you’re suffering isolation or you don’t have networks of connections to take care of you, there’s an illness there. If you think of it more at a macro level, those of us societies and groups that are not in well, good relationship with the other groups around us that’s also a lack of, of healing, right? There’s the lack of health there because those dynamics might be about power over a group or leaning on force and war. Like the things that we’re seeing now taking place in, in Palestine and Yemen today for, these are the things around how one group is inflicting force upon another and causing death and destruction. If you look in nature in any situation where there’s massive death or destruction, we’re talking about extinction. Genocide is a form of like manmade extinction. And that will cause a rupture in the entire ecology of humanity and on the planet. That’s what the war has done. These are things that are out of alignment and imbalanced and diseased. And that will have ripple effects because, you know, on the oceans, on other humans, on the psychology of those of us witnessing through social media what’s happening, the babies and mothers, all of that is a collective global disease. And, and, invites deep, deep healing between all of us. And I think you know, to your question on like, how do we, and I’m hoping I’m remembering the questions, I feel like I kind of went, went off here on a tangent. I feel like  the healing that we need and spirit, spirit and people with a cosmology articulate spirituality is based on an understanding of what is a healthy order, between people, planet, each other, ourselves, healthy order and relationships, marriages, parenting, those all sustain groups of people being together and good relationship with the land. So we can continue. And when we don’t have a spirit, a sense of like a higher view of the morality of a order that is correct, then some people say there’s a God energy or there’s a spirit that will speak to rectifying and putting us back on path to, to what is righteous, what is correct, what will be well and inflict no harm. And for me, spirit and healing is connected, at least within the indigenous Afro-Indigenous traditions. I practice because spirit is, is cosmic law. And when we’re out of right relationship, it’s like science. A reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. Those things will come to, to bear. And we will have, it will be known. We will feel the damage and the repercussion and it’s, and its impacts will be widespread. If we don’t rectify and remind ourselves what does alignment look like and where, where does higher power invite us to, what’s the type of relationship it invites us to be in and be in integrity with that, those deep understandings that have been developed throughout time, you can find them in a bunch of different cultures, but I think they all invite like a deep reflection on personal morality what is healthy and correct. What is, what is loving and empathetic and generative and sustainable. What it accounts for the needs of the collective over the individual. Where’s their deep creativity and and innovation which happens in nature all the time and in biology and all the things all the time. Where’s evolution and innovation that towards a better improved version. So I don’t know if that answers your question around spirit and healing, but spirit is always cheering for us to be healed and we just have to listen.

[27:36] Nicole: I agree. And it does answer the question a hundred percent. Can you discuss a little bit the connection of, of culture and your culture specifically to these traditions that you practice?

[27:55] Manuela: Sure. So I mentioned I’m Afro-Dominican descent. I, sorry about, I dunno if you can hear the little people in the background or, okay, good. Okay. So, I was mostly raised in New York and my first encounter with Afro-Caribbean or Afro-Atlantic cultural traditions, I was in, you know, it was eighth grade. And my mother took me to see an elder who practiced Afro-Dominican traditions called 20, la 21 divisiones,  the 21 divisions. And they believe in spirit possession. And they, when spirit comes to visit, they prescribe medicines and, and predict prophesize, et cetera. They read the room, they reveal what is the, the place where we should all have attention and where actions should be taken to rectify, reveal new understandings that cause healing, et cetera. As an adult, I was, I initiated in Afro-Cuban traditions of Lucumí and Palo Mayombe and I mentioned Isese from Yoruba traditions. Yeah, so those are kind of the places where, where I started to learn a little bit more about these things.

[29:20] Nicole: Do you think that these practices and traditions have changed and evolved in modern times and in their movement between places and how?

[29:37] Manuela: Yeah. I mean, you know, I, I realize I didn’t answer the previous question. Like culture is like the things we, it’s like the, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the music we make and the songs we sing, the way we relate to each other, our culture is not stagnant. It does evolve in response to the conditions and the environment that we’re in. But many cultures have like fundamental arrangements that constitute it, right? And so even for African descendant people who were many forced across the, the Atlantic through the transatlantic slave trade, and then have been on this side of the hemisphere we’re in relationship with our native ancestors on whose land we came. All of those things created sharing and interaction. Sometimes violence, sometimes generous and inclusive. And so the cultures that we practice, you will see these historical forces imprinted on the cultures and also the culture responding and protecting itself in light of it. So, you know, hence secrecy around some of these, some of these Afro-Cuban, Afro-Caribbean traditions, because they were, they were, they were to be punished, right? If people revealed that they were, you know, were drumming or, or participating they’re always impacted by what’s happening around us. They’re also impacted by the changes in the, in the environment, like maybe in Nigeria. We would cast kola nuts for divination, we get to the Americas, and if we don’t find kola nuts, let’s replace it with coconut. Like, you know, people make use of their environment and try to be in relationship with it and, and continue their practices and evolve their practices. I believe in the power of these systems as they have been, as I’ve inherited them, and also know that a lot was lost through the journey. But a lot has been fortified in the Americas by virtue of the fact that so many communities came together and we’re able to add and, and, and strengthen knowledge around different plants or different animals or new remedies. And so that happens through relationship. Like these cultures are reflections of our relationships. And it’s, it’s almost inevitable. But I do support and celebrate those elders who’ve done a lot of work. People who are cultural preservers and cultural keepers, folks like you trying to preserve and document this is, it’s very rich and there are many forces in society designed to obliterate or silence or make them not the can and not the center. And you know, we know that white supremacy culture can do that. So we wanna be aware to do our work, to preserve and sustain and strengthen it, and lift up the leader, the leaders and the elders and the practitioners, the institutions who are trying to preserve it, make sure that this sacred knowledge is not lost. Yeah.

[33:17] Nicole: Do you think we’re in danger of losing this knowledge in our communities?

[33:25] Manuela: It’s interesting. I feel like, you know, recently I, I heard a statistic that like, Ifá tradition is like the fourth largest belief system being reported in the world. So I do think there has been some evolutions to, you know, that are a result of like social media and airplanes and migrations, and you know, now you have, practitioners who are from all kinds of ethnic and racial groups and nationalities because they, they understand the relevance of the cosmology in the worldview, and they see resonance and healing within it. So there, in a way, it has, you’ve seen explosions of the, the public disability, even in the mainstream of some of these practices you’ve seen like Hollywood movies referencing them. We’ve always seen that, you know, like the 19 hundreds and the films on voodoo that were like gross caricatures of, traditions that were not understood and were like, demonized. But then you see like other folks where it’s becoming like normalized and artists who are wearing like, elekes. And, you know, I think, I think there’s a lot of forces and it’s a dynamic push pull. I think new folks who are getting into the traditions, younger folks like me, we, we really, each generation really has to do its part to make sure that we don’t lose an understanding. I think capitalism, too is, impacting very negatively our ability to practice and to preserve and push forward these traditions. For example, now, like people wanna get readings on, get readings, through Instagram, and then there you go, like, it’s abstracted, it’s commodified, it’s, it’s all about sales. And I think, some of those forces centered can take away the commitment to true healing, in the practices. So I think it’s, I know for a fact that if black led institutions are not supported, who are committed to supporting people’s cultures, you’re going to see a loss of places for people to gather, places to, for people to meet elders, places for people to tap in and continue and learn and pass it forward. So it’s, it’s gonna take a broad concerted effort for us not to, but if we didn’t lose it through the transatlantic slave trade, I have faith that our cosmology in our and, and our, our spirit force will see us through the next centuries. So.

[36:23] Nicole: Finally, why do you think it’s so important to preserve and share this knowledge?

[36:29] Manuela: There’s just some humanness values that I think are baked into our traditions. They lift up collectivism, like no initiation can happen without the gathering of a group, a large group. They lift up the importance of seeing healing and restoration in the lives of the people who participate. They lift up, mutual aid. They’re literally vehicles for mutual aid and sharing, not just of knowledge, but of resources, information, plants, medicines. There are places of deep learning and history and knowledge, historical knowledge, artistic and cultural knowledge. Music, dance is very deep, profound, rich. And you will not see it in many, many formal US based institutions and universities. And so it really is work that’s happening outside of the academy. It’s happening in community, it’s happening in people’s homes. It’s highly relational. These are ways of being also, they’re not just information. And so it’s important to lift up alternative ways of being. And it’s funny to call ’em alternative ’cause maybe they’re the most ancient and where should be the center, right? These ways of being that are about ensuring the, the whole, ensuring the collective as well. Ensuring that we are protecting the environment that we’re intricately connected to with, if we can’t do that without the environment and nature, we can’t live in, in our practices in our culture, in our traditions. If we can’t take care of nature, then they don’t survive. And so that kind of feels like the mandate, right? To our tradition, worships nature is in deep relationship with nature. The call is to protect nature because she protects us, she feeds us, she clothes us, she sustains us. So that symbiotic relationship is the, is the imperative. Oh, sorry. You’re on mute, Nicole.

[38:46] Nicole: So I said, I couldn’t agree more.

[38:48] Manuela: Okay [laughs].

[38:50] Nicole: To close, do you, and bring it back to herbs and plant specifically. Do you have a plant that you are working really closely with right now or studying, or you can just hold very close to you as,

[39:09] Manuela: Yeah.

[39:10] Nicole: You love to work with?

[39:11] Manuela: I do. It’s actually basil. Basil’s, my go-to plant for mental health, for cool mind for refreshed aura. Basil’s a a safe, beautiful plant that anyone can work with. You can take a little leaf and put it behind your ear. You can make a basil bath, you can eat it, you can drink it. Like, it really is like an all around super powerful very heavenly plant. Very restorative, very healing. That’s my favorite plant. There are many, many others. Like I’m learning, I’m learning, I’m still a student. I, I try to right now, like relate to each one and like try to develop a personal relationship with each of them. And a lot of them are their own, their guardians are like different deities or spirits that through my relationship with that plant, I also learn about those guardians and those entities. And so I feel like that usually is like a tri, triad relationship, under, under, like, based on who those plans belong to and the role that they play to heal me and my life.

[40:37] Nicole: Okay. Well thank you again for taking the time to share these, from your experiences, your stories with us.

[40:45] Manuela: Yeah. I just wanna shout out before we close my teachers, for anyone who’s watching, I was initiated in the Ifá tradition under Chief [Name]  My Baba Ifá is Jose Rodriguez in the [Secunderin] Temples across the world and the Americas. My padrino, the madrinas in the Lucumí tradition, Carmen Rosario Omilana and Mirna Encarnacíon [Chango Laye]. My Obba was Pedro Raposo Eshu [Baleyo] and all of the beautiful folks who’ve created spaces for really encountering and engaging in these traditions through cultural institutions like the Caribbean Cultural Center, African Diaspora Institute, founded by Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, led by, Iyalorisha Melody Capote, also, daughter of Oshún. My Palo Mayombe teachers who were my first elders in African based traditions, Barbara Solé Alvez, [Carmen Siete Saya] ibae, and “Luanganga” Florencio Miguel Garzon, my Tata in Palo Mayombe and one of the most knowledgeable elders in the, Sacampeño Mayombe tradition in the house of Sacampeño  which my husband leads here in, in New, in the US in New York City. His name is Alex LaSalle. So yeah, just, you know, if it wasn’t for these humans and their, their generosity and their, their, their love and also like the real struggle of like being in relationship with each other, like, this is how knowledge is passed down and, and the communities that they convene to make sure we could all learn. So I’m grateful to them.

[42:46] Nicole: Thank you. And I’m grateful to you for, for helping us to preserve those stories.

[42:52] Manuela: Awesome.

[42:53] Nicole: By sharing yours with us. So thank you.

[42:55] Manuela: Sure. Right on. So thank you, Nicole.