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Everything at Echo Heights has a purpose. Food, medicine, ceremony, spiritual purposes. Everything there is important. All that medicine"

Echo Heights Pharmacy

"I was walking in Echo Heights last month with the university professor, Dr. Nancy Turner. I’m still thinking about that day. We didn’t even get very far along the path because there was so much to talk about. Everywhere I looked I saw medicine. People need to know about this. If we don’t say something now, maybe it’s going to be too late. Here is what I’m saying to you.

 

There’s so much medicine in that one spot alone. We didn’t even go far, only 100 yards and there was so much medicine. I can find all those medicines on Kuper, but not close together, not all in one place like that. I usually have to walk a long ways to find the medicines I need. Some are hard to find. It takes me a long time. Echo Heights is a good place to take our children on a walk to learn. We have to organize a walk through there taking teachers from Kuper. They can learn a lot all in a short distance.

 

There’s more medicine in that one little area where we went to walk than I’ve ever seen all in one place. Only people who understand the medicine at Echo Heights know the value of it. Why should we cut down the pharmacy? That’s the Indian peoples’ pharmacy, Echo Heights is. But money is easier to understand than trees.

 

 

 

That cedar is used for colds, so is balsam fir. Good strong cure, I use it all the time. I use it on all my children. You don’t take more than you need. Just a little handful is usually enough to cure a cold. You can kill a tree by taking too much. The old people say you never over do it. Always take just enough. The prayers that go with taking medicine are important. My grandfather said you can never pray enough. If you don’t know how to pray, you may as well not be that medicine man. That medicine is the one that’s going to save the life of who you are thanking it for. If that tree doesn’t live, that means you’re doing something wrong. We have to be careful how we skin the tree. And we have to look after our pharmacy.

 

There’s strong medicines up there for fighting cancer, like the cherry. Alder is one of our penicillins. Maple is another. You can mix plants to make the medicines stronger. All that takes a lot of time to learn. Not many people know about Indian medicine. You have to study a long time to learn about medicine. My grandfather took a long time to teach me so I know it’s important.When I was a little boy, my grandfather told me “Some day you’ll be buying this.” He had a cup in his hand with water in it. We were at a natural spring that boils out of this ground. I was maybe eight years old. I laughed. I said “Grandpa, don’t talk like that.” He said, “You listen. I’m telling you something. It’s coming. Someday you’ll be buying this water. You won’t be able to scoop it out of the ground.”We aren’t taking our water from the ground to drink anymore. And we see changes in the water table already since all the houses were built up on that hill. If more trees are cut down at Echo Heights, we don’t know what  is going to happen to the water. Everything is connected. Everything there at Echo Heights has a purpose. Food, medicine, ceremony, spiritual purposes. Everything there is important. All that medicine, I couldn’t get over it. I kept saying “there’s not much here we can’t use. This place is so important.”I told the story about Indian people. That Indian people were turned into things to keep our medicines here. A rock was kept there at Echo Heights. It was an old man. He was turned by a trickster into a rock. So he chose which rock he wanted to be. And he chose a medicine rock. That was to keep our medicines here with us. We have to think like that. This forest is alive. We can’t abuse it. That’s what I have to say.

 

August SylvesterPenelakut First Nation Kuper Island, BC

July 19, 2007

Letter to The Mayor and Council, Municipality of North Cowichan

Medicine Valuable to First Nations
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