Taino Spirit World

🌿🇵🇷 BORICUAS BUILDING RESILIENCE
The Medicine Growing Around Us: From Our Indigenous Ancestors to Today's Boricua Home

Long before pharmacies stood on every corner, the people of Borikén had another pharmacy: the land itself.

Our Indigenous ancestors developed extensive knowledge of the plants surrounding them. The behique served partly as healer, using medicinal plants alongside spiritual practices to care for the community. After colonization began, Europeans adopted some Indigenous medicinal knowledge, while Africans brought their own botanical traditions. Over generations, those traditions mixed and helped create Puerto Rico's rich culture of remedios caseros.

And some of the plants connected to that long history remain familiar to Boricuas today.

🌿 Achiote — Bixa orellana
Far more than the seasoning that gives our food its familiar color. Puerto Rican traditional medicine used achiote leaves in preparations for headaches, hemorrhoids, and throat irritation. Achiote itself is among the Indigenous crops that remained part of Puerto Rican culture after colonization.

🌳 Guayacán — Guaiacum officinale
Known historically as palo santo, guayacán became an important medicinal tree during the colonial period. Historical Puerto Rican accounts describe decoctions involving guayacán being used for illnesses such as yaws.

🍈 Guanábana — Annona muricata
Another plant with a long Caribbean history. Colonial-era Puerto Rican records describe preparations made from guanábana being used medicinally for fever-like illnesses. That's historical use—not evidence for some of the exaggerated modern claims that circulate online about guanábana "curing" serious diseases.

🌿 Tabaco — Nicotiana tabacum
Before to***co became a commercial commodity, it held profound importance in Indigenous Caribbean culture. Historical Puerto Rican medicine also recorded to***co juice being used externally in treatments. To***co later became one of Puerto Rico's major agricultural products. That history should not be interpreted as recommending smoking or consuming to***co medicinally today.

🌳 Tabonuco — Dacryodes excelsa
One of Borikén's magnificent native trees. Indigenous peoples used its aromatic resin for several purposes—including medicine, incense, torches, and waterproofing canoes. The tree remains an iconic part of Puerto Rico's mountain forests.

And the tradition didn't disappear.

Grandmothers boiling leaves. A tecito when somebody's stomach wasn't right. Plants growing beside the house because "eso es bueno para..." Knowledge passed from grandmother to mother to daughter, neighbor to neighbor, generation after generation.

But there's an important distinction: traditional use and scientifically proven medical effectiveness aren't automatically the same thing. Some medicinal plants have active compounds worthy of scientific study; others can interact with medications, cause toxicity, or be dangerous during pregnancy or at certain doses. Puerto Rico's own UPR School of Pharmacy maintains a medicinal-plant garden containing more than 150 species used by Puerto Rican communities and documenting reported or scientifically supported properties.

So this series shouldn't teach people to abandon doctors.

It should teach something equally important:

Our ancestors weren't waiting for somebody to bring knowledge to Borikén. They were already producing it.

They observed their environment. They experimented. They cultivated plants. They passed knowledge between generations. And fragments of that botanical knowledge survived conquest, colonization, migration, and modernization.

Sometimes our history isn't sitting inside a museum.

Sometimes it's growing in Abuela's backyard. 🌿🇵🇷

We Stand With Colombia 🇨🇴 🇵🇷

Puerto Rico is preparing for a national strike and shutdown on Tuesday at 12:00 noon, according to the call spread in the image. The protest raises demands related to water and energy problems, public services, hospitals, police and teacher conditions, as well as demands for transparency, accountability, and respect for the people.

The image also places Governor Jennifer González at the center of the claim and presents the message that there is strong discontent among sectors of the population. Political accusations or allegations must be investigated and should not be assumed as proven facts just because they appear in a call.

The question is for you: would you support this national strike?
👍 Yes, I support it
❤️ No, I don't support it

Where is it? Where are those united people who, in difficult times, traveled south to help our brothers and sisters?

Where is that community where a man would never allow an elderly person to struggle and would step in to help?

Where is that neighbor who would run an extension cord from their generator to the house next door—or share their water?

Where are the people I once knew—people who, regardless of political affiliation or religious beliefs, would still offer a helping hand, a “good morning,” or a “good afternoon”?

Because let me tell you something: what makes you Boricua is not simply being born in Puerto Rico. It is loving, defending, and caring for your people and your homeland.

“The first duty of a person is to love the land that gave them birth.”

—Pedro Albizu Campos

Donde esta?
Donde esta ese pueblo unido, que en momentos difíciles bajamos al sur a ayudar a nuestros hermanos?
Donde esta esa comunidad donde el barón no dejaba que un anciano pasara trabajo y la ayudaba?
Donde esta esa ese vecino/a que le daba un cable al vecino/a de su planta o le daba agua? Donde esta ese pueblo que algun dia vi? Que podía ser cualquier nominacion política o creencia y le brindaba ayuda un buenos dias o un buenas tardes?
Por que déjeme decirle! Lo que te hace boricua no es que nazcas en Puerto Rico, es que ames, defiendas y cuides a los tuyos y a tu tierra.
"El primer deber del hombre es amar la tierra que le vio nacer"
-Pedro Albizu Campos

La Verdad!!