Biography

From Lafayette, Louisiana, Mary Broussard Perrin is a wife, mother, and grandmother. She is also a Cajun Traiteuse, or folk healer. As a Lafayette Parish Master Gardener, she co-chairs the Healers’ Garden at Vermilionville Folklife Park in Lafayette and makes traditional medicines from the plants she tends. One of her missions in life is the preservation of the traditional Cajun healing arts and the knowledge of native Louisiana medicinal plants for future generations.

Schedule

10:00 am to 10:45 am
State Library, Fourth Floor
Healing Traditions of South Louisiana: Prayers, Plants, and Poultices
with Beverly Constantine Fuselier and Mary Broussard Perrin

11:00 am to 11:45 am
Cavalier House Books Tent
Book Signing

Healing Traditions of South Louisiana: Prayers, Plants, and Poultices

This book invites you to connect with Acadians, Creoles, and Native Americans as they strive to maintain and restore good health within their families and communities. Many of the remedies and healthful practices included in Healing Traditions of South Louisiana are decades and even hundreds of years old, and, as you will discover, some are still in use today. This book has two distinct parts that eventually overlap in the stories and remedies that come forth.

The beginning starts at “the beginning” of recorded medicine when long ago practices emerged. Advancing to the more recent past you will be swept up in the local tradition of the South Louisiana “Traiteur” or healer, who administered to the restorative health needs of the community with secret prayers passed from one traiteur to another, knowledge of medicinal plants, or the use of both. Yes, traiteurs exist today and still offer prayers and comfort when they are asked and several have been interviewed for this book.

The second part of the book introduces you to medicinal plants that contain a myriad of healing properties that are still relieving symptoms and discomfort today. All of the plants are identified by their common and Latin names. Additionally, their descriptions, growing practices, and interesting folklore bring them to life