Aboriginal Australians Use Native Plants as Bush Medicine

Aboriginal Australians have used native plants as bush medicine for tens of thousands of years. On Larrakia land, medical students are learning how nature can heal.

A bird soaring overhead, brown berries decomposing on the ground, the whistle of the wind in the trees.

Larrakia Elder Richard Fejo notices the little things.

"We're surrounded by food and medicine," he tells Indigenous medical student Kassandra Waia.

"Everything we observe in nature, everything we see, feel, smell, it's all part of being part of nature."

Dr Fejo is the elder on campus at Darwin's Flinders University.

He takes students on regular bush walks, teaching them about country.

And he leads Indigenous knowledge sessions and bush medicine workshops.

Touching the leaves as he passes, Dr Fejo tells Ms Waia many of these plants have been used as bush medicine for tens of thousands of years.

But, he warns, it can be dangerous for people to eat plants — or plant products — if they can't accurately identify or prepare them.

"If you don't know what you're doing, just leave them alone," he says.

Different groups have different uses for the plants.

These are some traditional stories Dr Fejo's been told.

Cycad seeds are toxic as they contain a substance called cycasin, which can lead to liver cell death.

But after the seeds undergo extensive treatment, including washing and re-washing, Larrakia people grind them to make bread.

The ground seeds are also used for pain relief.

The Kakadu plum, or billy goat plum, is a rich source of vitamin C.

First Nations people have long used the fruit as an "immunity boost" and to stave off the effects of colds, headaches and other illnesses.

The pandanus tree is used for many purposes including weaving the leaves into mats or art.

People chew the base of the leaf, where it "tastes like cabbage", to stimulate saliva production.

And to ease a headache, they strip back the leaves to where there's lots of water and wear it as a headband.

The leaves of the sandpaper fig tree, as the name suggests, are very rough.

People use these tough leaves to sand down their skin if they have ringworm, putting the crushed leaves on top to help treat the infection.

The leaves are also used to polish carvings, tools and weapons.

Small sea snails, called periwinkle snails, are naturally high in iron.

Pregnant women eat them as a supplement.

As we walk, Dr Fejo continues to point out how First Nations people have used nature to heal and nourish their bodies.

The bark from a paperbark tree can be used as a bandage.

The soft mud from a termite mound, an antacid to settle the stomach.

"Everything you need to live is here," Dr Fejo says.

"You just need to know what you're looking for."

Dr Fejo isn't the only one who recognises the value of bush medicine.

Protecting cultural knowledge

Southern Cross University senior researcher Alana Gall, a Truwulway and Litamirimina woman, says bush medicine — also known as cultural medicine — has been used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people "since the beginning of time".

"We are the oldest continuing culture on the planet," Dr Gall says.

"And we actually then also have the oldest continually practised medicine on the planet.

"It connects us back through our past and into into our future."

Dr Gall runs a program aiming to preserve and protect cultural medicine.

It's vital this expertise isn't lost, she says, but many Indigenous Australians don't have access to or knowledge about their own traditional cultural medicine.

That's because people typically handed down knowledge verbally, a practice made significantly more challenging after colonisation.

The knowledge First Nations people have about cultural medicine may have implications for the future development of Western medicine, Dr Gall says.

But first, this knowledge must be protected with intellectual property laws, something not currently recognised in Australia.

"It is the knowledge of our people, and the plants wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for our stewardship," she says.

Moving forward, Dr Gall also wants cultural medicines to be properly regulated, much the same as other consumable products, and not appropriated for commercial profit.

Respecting the role of bush medicine is just one step towards creating health systems that are safer for First Nations people.

Culturally safe care leads to better outcomes

Back on Larrakia land, training is underway at the Menzies School of Health Research.

For an hour a week over a six-week block, First Nations research officer Christopher Davis and training facilitator Mario Faggion teach non-Indigenous health workers about how to build a culturally safe environment, where Indigenous patients feel respected, understood and safe.

This program, which aims to improve the experiences First Nations people have in NT hospitals, covers informed consent, working with interpreters and communicating with patients and their families.

"To be clinically safe, you have to be culturally safe," Mr Faggion says.

"What this course does is allow you to go on that journey to better understand yourself and how you think and talk based on your cultural position.

"By helping each individual do that, we're more broadly helping the entire system to become more culturally safe."

Mr Davis, a Kuku Yalanji man, says clinically safe care leads to better outcomes for First Nations patients.

Based off his previous work in Queensland, Mr Davis says patients who feel safe culturally are less likely to discharge themselves against medical advice and more likely to comply with directions for medication.

"If you're treating someone or talking to someone and they feel uncomfortable, or like they're not worthy of being respected, then they're less likely to hear what you're saying because they've switched off," he says.

One suburb over, Dr Fejo and Ms Waia walk together in the bushland behind Royal Darwin Hospital, the Northern Territory's largest medical facility.

About 70 per cent of the people who use the NT's over-stretched public hospital services are Indigenous.

But only about 7 per cent of the people employed by NT Health identify as Aboriginal.

In his work with students, Dr Fejo wants to help bridge this cultural divide.

"Connection to country connects us to our patients," Dr Fejo says.

The medicine knowledge shared in this article is held and cared for by Richard Fejo who shared it, together with the Indigenous Nations, communities, knowledge holders and country from which it comes.