There are many devils and witches among the plants in Western Europe

'Bijvoet, Walnootblad, Wheat, Barley, Saint John's Wort, Yarrow, Farmerswort … ”Ethnobotanist Isabela Pombo Geertsma (33) she points to one by one in wicker who lies in front of her, in her office in the botanical gardens of Utrecht University. But this bundle of dried flowers from Susteren in Limburg is not just a field bouquet. « Every year on August 15, during the celebration of Maria Ascension, the Krudwusj is blessed. People gather the plants, take it to church and hang it up after the blessing in the house, as protection against disaster. It is not for nothing that there are exactly seven species: seven is the holy number.  » A use that started in the tenth century and still stands locally.

Specific plant knowledge is needed to put together such a protective field bouquet. « Once I was present at a Krudwusjworkshop where a participant added Sint-Jacobskruiskruid next to the farmworm herb-also a plant with small yellow flowers, but toxic to cattle. He immediately got upside down, because it was not right according to the 'recipe' and because the Krudwusj traditionally sometimes fed to sick cows. « 

Pombo Geertsma tracked the Krudwusj during her promotional process. « I am investigating associations between plants and witchcraft in Western Europe, in the present and past. And that also includes the Krudwusj, because it would protect against witches-just like the similar Sint-Janstros, which is made annually on 24 June in a few Brabant villages. ” Out of interest, she has sometimes made and blessed a kredwusj. « During a cycling holiday with my friend, through South Limburg. »

Ethnobotany is the field in which the relationship between people and plants is central. « I was searching during my biology study. Then I followed a profession of ethnobotany in Wageningen and I was sold. The combination of botany and history appeals to me. And in my PhD process I can go in all directions. For example, last year I published an article with colleagues in it Journal of Ethnopharmacologyabout why so many Western European plants are named after witches and devils. Think of large witch's herb, witch milk, devil claw. It does not turn out to be the hallucinogenic plants that wear such names, but especially the toxic species and the weeds. ”

Protected against the evil eye

Another part of her research focuses on modern witchcraft and the Newage movement, in which Smudge Sticks play a role. « These are also bundles of dried herbs, but then meant to purify a place of evil energies. » Those sticks are often North American and contain species such as peat grass and white sage. There are the necessary disadvantages to that, she emphasizes. « Because of the commercialization, those plants are no longer harvested in a sustainable way and they become more difficult to get available for the indigenous population. In California and Baja California the trucks with white sage drive. And those sticks are really used every nowadays. When I was in the Alps on a skiing holiday, I also came across them in a store. ”

In the Botanical gardens in Utrecht, the plant also grows, next to the tobacco plant, in the 'satisfied smokers' box – a stone's throw from the 'Witch herbs and holy plants' sign.

Pombo Geertsma was born in Brazil. « My mother, who is mathematician and physicist, comes from there, my father is from the Netherlands. When I was one and a half we moved here, but during my biology study I was back for my thesis. In Belém, a large city in the north of the country, I then visited a large market for medicinal plants. There you could buy wine window, among other things. If you put a branch behind your ear, you would be protected against the evil eye. ”

Former and contemporary witches

She herself is not spiritual or religious. « But I had a romantic idea. Even when I was small, my mother told about the native peoples in the Amazonian forest and I like to read books about medicinal plants and in my imagination, earlier and contemporary witches had a great knowledge of herbal medicine. ” The reality turned out to be more prosaic. « In the handwritten reports of historic sixteenth and seventeenth-century witch processes in the Netherlands that I am currently decoding, plants do not always have a central role. One of the few references that I have found so far is an Amersfoort man who used the leaf of an alder with his sons in an attempt to influence it again. ”

Modern witches buy them Smudge Sticks Very often online or in a newage store instead of collecting herbs yourself. « Even with those ready-made sticks it is not always easy to find out the precise composition. Then it says, for example, on the label that there is wood in the mastic tree, Pistacia Lentiscusbut then it is very different. I still called after it to find out what kind of wood it was, but they did not record, did not want to say anything or did not know it either. I just felt the Inspection service of Value. « 

In the Netherlands, botanical knowledge seems to be mainly among biologists, says Pombo Geertsma. « You hardly have a field like herbal medicine here – it is soon put away as homeopathy. And I think that's a shame, because plants are super interesting to delve into. « 

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