Full transcript of “Herbalism Books By Black Authors! Books On African American Herbs, Spirituality, Hoodoo and More.”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:08 Welcome back to my channel, Beauty Herbs and Tea. My name is Abrio and I am a successful herbal wellness entrepreneur with herbal products, herbal courses. Why am I swinging? I didn't. And I am a successful herbal wellness entrepreneur with herbal products, herbal courses, and herbal retreats. And here on this channel, I teach you how to do the same. If y'all didn't know, this month is my favorite month of the year, hands down, because in Black History Month, I can be unapologetically black mixed with black mixed with black. I literally love Black History Month. And for this Black History Month, I thought, why not come on here and give
0:53 y'all a video, a Black History Month video. We are going to dive into herbalism books by black authors. Now, this is not going to be your regular herbalism book video. This video I decided to focus not just on herbalism books, but specifically herbalism books and books that cover AfricanAmerican spirituality, African-American herbs, African-American medicine, and hudoo. These are books that dive into herbs that your African-American ancestors use. These are books that explore your traditional Africanamean spirituality. These are books that dive into hoodoo because that is your traditional
1:40 Africanamean spirituality. We're going to talk about my favorite books that dive into our history, our herbs, our medicine, and our spiritual practices. So without further ado, let's go ahead and get started. Okay, let's start with the history of traditional Africanamean herbs and spirituality. When I want to research an herb that our ancestors used, I go to this book. When I want to find out historically how our ancestors use the herbs for food, medicine, and survival, I go to these next two books. So, the first book that I want to dive into that specifically focuses on traditional African-American herbs and how we use them is this book, African-American Slave Medicine. I
2:26 absolutely love this book. I have researched this book and used this book for research purposes to teach a few classes on medicine of enslaved Africans. If you would like to dive into that class, click the description box. I will include it in there. But pretty much I gave you a brief overview of herbs that you can find in your backyard that our ancestors use. These are herbs that we learned from Native Americans. These are herbs that we brought here over to America. These are herbs that we we learned how to use when we got here. It actually has actual quotes from enslaved people talking about how they used these herbs, how they made tea from these herbs, how they would make s out of these herbs, what they would take on
3:11 a plantation. This book is a historical Bible reference. So, I would definitely have this in my collection. If you like to study medicine, if you are a historian, go ahead and pick up this book. Now, the next book that I use as a historical reference for traditional African-American medicine and herbs is this book. Okay, this book is the goat. This book is Working the Roots by Michelle E. Lee. This book is beautifully written. Okay, when I tell you this book gives you interviews, it tells a story. You actually get to listen to actual people that live in the
3:57 early 1900s tell how they use these herbs and how they use this medicine and how these remedies were passed down to them to their family and now how you use them. This book is amazing. Not only that y'all, this book, okay, this book has pictures. This book has pictures. If you know anything about me, I love me a good picture book. Okay, I love me a good picture book. So, this book has interviews. It actually has a list of herbs that we used and then it dives into the herbal profiles and then it gives you herbal recipes. So, when I tell you holy grail in my library, this book right here, did you know that you
4:44 actually have an Africanamean spiritual system? You actually have African-American medicine and it is called hoodoo. That is your medicine. Our medicine that our ancestors created in the deep south for survival. We created this healing spiritual and medicine system to help us survive slavery. Now it was outlawed on the plantations because we was also using it to take out some folks. So they forbid us from practicing it. And because of that they demonize our spiritual practices. So that's why today you will hear a lot of people say that voodoo is demonic, that hoodoo is demonic because we use it to empower us.
5:29 We use it for justice. We use it to fight back. We use it for healing. So in this video, throw out whatever you know, whatever you think about Hudu and have a open mind because your ancestors created this spiritual system in order to help you survive during slavery. And these are traditions that we kept going past slavery. With that said, let's go ahead and dive into some of these books. All right. Now, this next book is one of my favorites. This book right here is Conjuring the Calabash by Maui Bmani. This book dives all into hudoo magic spells and rituals. It is a practical guide. If anyone is looking to dive into their traditional African-American practices, this book gives you a practical guide. Now, I would say that
6:16 this is probably my go-to when I started studying hoodoo. I absolutely love this author. She is so real. Her writing is so real. She will have you key in while teaching you how to manifest some money, okay? Teaching you how to keep that man out your life, while teaching you some justice, okay? This book is it. Now, if you want to learn from this teacher, this author, Maria Bmani, she is actually coming to my platform, the Bipac Herbalism Community School to teach a class on hoodoo rituals. So, if you want to learn directly from this author, click the description box and sign up for our Hudoo Rituals class. She has been a
7:04 speaker on our platform for over two years now. She's taught over three classes. She is the best. She is the goat and she gives you practical steps and practical tools for hudoo and spirituality and how to get into it. So, sign up y'all. The class is only $19.99. It is very affordable and it is this Sunday. And if you can't catch it live, don't worry. We do have replays. So if you see this after next week, don't worry about it. We do have replays. There are so many things, y'all, that you do that's hoodoo that you don't even know. Trust me, hoodoo is deeply intertwined in your life. And there's so many things that you do that's hoodoo that you don't even know. Okay? If you don't open an umbrella in your house, baby, that's
7:50 hoodoo. If you don't put your purse on the floor because you fear your money will go out the door, baby, that's hoodoo. If you ever jumped a fish and somebody wound up pregnant, baby, that's hoodoo. If you don't like to split the poles because you fear that's bad luck, I'm sorry to tell you that is hoodoo. I told you, you've been doing hoodoo all this time and you did not know it. That's because our ancestors pass on these traditions that they created. Now, what they will tell you is that it's superstitions. But superstitious is just a colonized word created to make you fear your own traditional and spiritual practice. >> Now, these are great books if you want to start and dive into the history of
8:35 traditional African-American spirituality, specifically hudoo. If you just want a book on history, this book is full of it. Mojo Working dives into everything you need to know about Hudoo, where it came from, how it started, how it was used, how we still used it. This is an extensive book on the history of Hudoo. Now, y'all bear with me. It is very windy today. That's why my my hammock keeps swinging. So, the next book is The Conjuring of America. Now, this book discovers this book dives into over 400 years of black magical women. Okay, talking about black magical hoodoo workers, spiritual
9:21 workers, it tells you everybody in your history that did some magical things. If you want to learn all about black magical women and over 400 years of this medicine and how we use this medicine to survive and stay ahead, this book is for you. Now, a book in a similar style as work in the roots is this book which is AfricanAmerican folk healing by Stephanie Y. Mitchum. Now, this book gives that same narrative interview style and dives into how we have historically used herbs and medicine for healing, for rituals, for protection. So, if you like to actually hear the words from people who use this medicine,
10:08 go ahead and get this book. I am actually going to read an excerpt from the back cuz I feel like I'm not doing this book justice. It says that through conversations with black Americans, Mitchum demonstrates how herbs, charms, and rituals continue folk healing performances. And she shows that these practices are not simply about healing. They are linked to expression of faith, delineating aspects of holistic epistemology and pointing to disjunctures between African-American views of wellness and illness and those of the culture of institutional medicine. So again, this is another great book to have, especially if you are a history buff. Okay, next we have this book, Jumbalaya by Louisa Teiche. Now, this
10:54 book dives into traditional African and AfricanAmerican spirituality. If you want to learn about hoodoo, you also want to learn about voodoo, get this book. This book is written in a firstp person narrative. So it gets really personable as this author explores herbs and how she learns of medicine and then tells you about rituals and all the things that she learned on her journey. Now I love books where it sounds like and it feels like somebody is talking to me and having a conversation with me and this is like my auntie. That is this book. Actually that is these two books right here. These books are in more of a conversational style. And if you have audio books, these books
11:41 are also great books to listen to on audiobooks as well. All right, y'all. Now, that is my list of books that I love that dive into AfricanAmerican herbs, spirituality, and hudoo and healing. Now, this is not like, again, this is not like your traditional books on herbalism because we have those. And actually, I will include those books in my shorts. These are books if you want to actually dive into your culture. These are amazing herbalism books for you to use to get started on your herbalism journey. And if you are non-affrican-american, it's fine. Use these books for research purposes only. Okay? Research only. It's
12:27 okay to educate yourself, but just know that hoodoo is closed. If you are not African-Amean, the practice is close to you. But educating yourself on the medicine system is fine. Just don't go around practicing it and conjure my ancestors because it will not end well. Okay? It will not end well. So again, that's all I have for you all today. Don't forget that if you actually want to learn more about traditional African-American spirituality from one of these authors, you want to learn about hoodoo and how we use African-American herbs, rituals, and magic, make sure to come to our upcoming class. It is our hoodoo water rituals class. We are going to dive all into how
13:12 to use water rituals for healing, okay? For cleansing, especially living in this state of chaos. So, click the description box. I will see you there. Even if you see this video afterwards, you'll be able to sign up and watch the class on replay. So, if you have a favorite herbalism book by a black author, go ahead and drop them into the comments, okay? Let us know what books are your go-tos. Don't forget to stay safe, stay healthy, and stay blessed. And I will see youall next video. Bye.
