• Healing Traditions of Acadiana — Herbalism & the Civil War

    Vermilionville - Performance Center

    Lanier Cordell, a native of Louisiana, began studying alternative medicine and the use of medicinal herbs while still in high school and has continued this study for 55 years.. She grew up in Metairie and has lived in a wide variety of growing zones including Nashville, Tennessee, Bennington, Vermont, Troy, New York, Westchester County, New York, and south Louisiana. Her paternal grandmother introduced her to the wonders of the elder plant and began her several decades journey in the study of medicinal herbs. Lanier is a former Louisiana master gardener, a past member of The Herb Society of America and a past chair of the Baton Rouge Unit. Lanier is an accredited public relations professional and has worked in marketing, public relations and advertising for more than 30 years. She is also a writer and has had feature articles in numerous national publications and is a published author. Her book, Equinomics: The Secret to Making Money with Your Horse Business was a top seller on Amazon.com for several years. She is an internationally certified yoga therapist and teaches yoga at Miles Perret Cancer Services and The Center for Loss and Transition at Hospice of Acadiana. She lives on a 32-acre […]

  • Healing Traditions of Acadiana — From Prayers to Plants: how plant remedies are used in traitement

    Vermilionville - Performance Center

    Dr. Dana David Gravot highlights a local understanding of traitement, or treatment as it is called in English, a healing tradition specific to Francophone Louisiana. After the Acadian resettlement in Louisiana—a Spanish colony at the time—the Cajuns developed a unique, blended culture in response to both a physical environment (which included swamps, bayous, marshes, and prairies) and a social environment that mixed continental and Caribbean French peoples, Germans, Spaniards, Indigenous peoples, and African and Anglo-Americans. Sharing the need for medical attention, the practice of traitement—and the importance of traiteurs—was born. The presentation will highlight uses of local plants to address illnesses.