Donna Kerridge (Ngāti Tahinga, Ngāti Mahuta) is a registered medical herbalist and practitioner of rongoā Māori (traditional Māori healing), with a small clinic in Ōakura, Northland.
She’s also the founder of Ora New Zealand, an advocacy organisation for traditional healing; the spokesperson for the national collective of rongoā Māori practitioners,
Te Kāhui Rongoā; and the kind of interviewee you’d happily sit and listen to all day (you actually can, thanks to her workshops) – her kindness, calmness, and wisdom befitting the philosophies she espouses.
“We’ve recently signed an agreement with the Ministry of Health concerning working together more, which is a huge step in our approach towards the wellbeing of our citizens,” Donna tells Verve. “And the fact that ACC has now included rongoā Māori as a funded service has certainly lifted the profile. More people – rightly or wrongly – see that as adding legitimacy to our practice.”
Donna’s goal is to see rongoā Māori in every home in Aotearoa, a return to the days when the population employed greater self-sufficiency rather than heading straight to the doctor’s surgery at the first sign of a cough or sniffle.
“I would love to see us all, Māori and non-Māori alike, reclaiming the ability to tend to those things rather than clogging up our primary healthcare services. There is a lot more that we could be doing for ourselves and saving the health system for when it’s really needed – especially during these times of Covid and the pressure it places on our communities.”
Growing up Donna says that rongoā Māori wasn’t seen as medicine, but simply a part of life, and vividly remembers the kūmarahou plant foraged from the bush to be boiled up “whenever anyone was feeling fluey”. I ask if medicinal plants should be grown in the same way some grow veggie patches or herb gardens.
“It’s not just about the plants that we directly use for ourselves,” she says. “We must also consider medicine for the ground, for the animals. To plant a field full of kūmarahou, for example, is not the answer because that’s monoculture.
Kūmarahou is only going to be a good medicine based on who grows around it. It needs diversity in the environment for it to be as good a healer as it can be. And that’s no different to people. I am who I am because of the people around me. Plants need to grow in a natural environment to gain that strength and healing capability. Artificial planting is a great source of learning and understanding, but not necessarily the best source of healing.”
Donna emphasises the importance of the “bigger universe” for rongoā Māori practitioners, that if the land is not well, then there is no way that its population can ever be, either.
“You can gauge the health of a population by looking at the health of their land. If you live in a toxic environment, the people suffer, as can be seen on many reservations around the world. The first patient for rongoā Māori is always the land, the whenua. Keeping the land well keeps the people well. It’s not a pseudo-medical practice, it’s a way of living in the world where everything is connected. Nothing exists in isolation, and nothing can heal in isolation.”
Donna has travelled internationally to spend time with other indigenous traditional practitioners, including a group of Maya in Mexico.
“What’s really interesting is that wherever you go, the philosophies are always the same, based on the local landscape. In Mexico, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with healers sourcing medicine from the jungle. Even though I’d never visited before, I was able to look at a plant and ask if it was, say, good for the stomach. And I’d be right. Though you don’t know for certainty, seasoned practitioners learn to read the landscapes, see where plants grow, how they grow, and who they grow with. I don’t think we ever came across a plant that I was not able to identify what it could be used for, even though I’d never met those plants before.”
I ask what Western medicine can learn from traditional practices.
Donna emphasises the importance of the“bigger universe” for rongoā Māori practitioners, that if the land is not well, then there is no way that its population can ever be, either.
“Western medicine is very good at what it does, and we’d be hard pushed to find a person in Aotearoa that hasn’t benefited from it,” she says. “Rongoā Māori is not about being better or worse, it’s just different. Traditional practitioners are not doctors, and nor do we want to be. For me, rongoā Māori is about helping lift the mana (authority, spiritual power) and the mauri (life force) of the people and of the planet. It’s about learning to address the needs of the people, rather than fight disease.
“When people come to see me, I tell them to leave their diagnosis at the door. My focus is on what’s paining them, rather than what their disease is. Don’t tell me you have cancer because I can’t treat cancer. But is the issue that you’re afraid of dying? That you can’t move your arm because you’ve had lymph nodes removed? We use the seen and the unseen. We see people as both their physical, and spiritual selves. It’s a balanced approach in that how we feel is as important as how our bodies function. But, if I’m in a car accident and something’s falling off, please, please take me to the hospital!”
What can people expect from your workshops?
“We look at the philosophy of traditional Māori medicine, take people into the bush and help them understand how we identify plants and how they have a healing role in the bush community and how we apply that to our human community. We also talk to people about how we live through these times of Covid using maramataka (lunar calendar) – which a lot of people think is just about when you should fish or garden, but it’s much more than that. It’s about planning ahead – ensuring our homes are warm and that there’s enough firewood for winter. Preparing healthy stocks and broths, the things that carried Māori through the influenza pandemic. Should we have to isolate, do we have supplies? Maramataka teaches us to look forward. To act today, not for today, but for the future.”
Donna says that her audience has varied greatly in the 20-or-so years she’s been running her workshops, but now seems to have settled at round 50-50 in terms of Māori and non-Māori attendees.
“A lot of the people that we teach are just regular people with an interest in nature and healthcare. There are a lot of parents looking at ways to keep their families healthy, and we have a number of Māori looking to reconnect more strongly with their culture. We also have a lot of immigrants who find themselves in a new country, who are used to using indigenous medicine, and want to learn their new local ways. It’s a great cross section. There are a lot of policy people, particularly from health organisations and government agencies.”
I ask if there’s seasonal significance for rongoā Māori.
“From a Māori perspective, there are right times of the year – and even days – to harvest plants. Plants are generally most suitable for harvest when we are most likely to need them. Berries for instance, a source of vitamin C and many of the nutrients we need in preparation for winter, are ready in autumn. That’s how nature works, it provides what we need when we are most likely to need it. So, we will harvest according to the time of the year, and maramataka. Plants that you want dry and in store for the rest of the year you’ll harvest on a waning moon as they have less moisture and dry more effectively. Plants that you want immediately are more likely to be harvested during a waxing moon when they carry more vitality and moisture from the earth. During different times of the day, certain plants activate or repress some of their special gifts according to the light and weather. The secret for knowing these things comes with the ability to observe the bush.”
Donna stresses the need to harvest sustainably to ensure plant populations – and therefore human populations – remain healthy.
“Learning what’s best for the plants is the same as learning what’s best for us. Learning to live in nature, our rightful place in nature, is the key to a healthy and rewarding life. We know that the land is our source of sustenance, our Papatūānuku (Mother Earth). If we don’t care for the land, then we can’t be well. If we can’t keep the water clean, if we don’t have clean air, no clever medicine is going to save us.”
Discover more at oranewzealand.com
