poison oak and "chumash ethnobotany"

this is an appropriate place to remind the reader that i do not endorse any of the remedies discussed in this book. the chumash regarded poison oak as a useful medicinal plant, both applied externally and drunk as a tea.

mission documents from the early 19th century describe plasters of "yedra" ... as very effective in healing wounds. the priest at san luis obispo himself had seen a man who had been badly lacerated by a bear healed only with an application of powdered poison oak ...

as a treatment for severe dysentery or diarrhea, the root of poison oak was boiled, being careful not to allow the vapor to get into the eyes, lest blindness result ...

although many anglo-americans develop severe dermatitis ... this seems not to have been the problem for many indian people. indians may have had some degree of natural immunity to urushiol, the active component; perhaps they were also willing to tolerate a certain level of discomfort ...

... different indian groups had varying susceptibility to poison oak. the yokuts, a neighboring inland group, were said to be severely affected by it when they visited the coast, but the local chumash were affected little or not at all ...

immunity seems to have diminished with the proportion of chumash ancestry ...

by the late 1950s, chumash descendants no longer made any medicinal use of poison oak but eagerly sought remedies for its effects ... mugwort has now come to be regarded as a specific for poison oak rash.

some individuals claim that immunity can be obtained by spitting on the plant or by drinking a decoction of boiled poison oak root. others who do not get the rash believe that their practice of eating a poison oak leaf now and then has made them immune ...

seeds of miner's lettuce, which closely resemble those of red maids (calandrinia), were a traditional food of the chumash. surprisingly, none of harrington's consultants actually described eating fresh raw leaves of miner's lettuce, though many other california peoples did and continue to do so. they did say that the leaves were boiled and eaten. this practice may have been introduced in historic times, however, for there is little evidence that the chumash formerly ate cooked greens.