Issue:
106
Page: 76-78
Lloyd “Jamba” Scott
1937-2014
by Eugene Zampieron, ND, Ellen Kamhi, PhD
HerbalGram.
2015; American Botanical Council
Lloyd
“Jamba” Scott, a
Jamaican herbalist of the Maroon tradition and educator of scores of
naturopathic physicians and herbalists, died in Jamaica in November 2014 of
natural causes. He was 77.
Lloyd
Scott was born in Penn Hill, in the Jamaican parish of St. Mary. As a young
man, he was a gifted athlete and excelled in boxing and cycling, winning many
championship cycling events in Jamaica. He was a talented farmer on land
inherited by his family in Islington, Jamaica, where he grew commercial smilax
(Smilax spp., Smilacaceae), ginger (Zingiber
officinale,
Zingiberaceae), and turmeric (Curcuma longa,
Zingiberaceae), as well as many other herbs, for the market in the United
States.
He
was also a master sculptor and carver, taking the name Chamba (later, Jamba),
which means “chopping
up of wood” in Patois, a creole language of Jamaica. A champion
fisherman, his student Mike Daum documented on film Jamba's catching barracuda with only a hand line and his machete.
He
studied herbal medicine by spending time with elder family members and friends
and apprenticing in the Jamaican Cockpit country on the parish of Trelawny,
learning the many closely held herbal medicines used by the Maroons. Later, he
served as the village bush doctor and elder in Islington, where he treated the
villagers for many decades.
Jamaican
Maroons are the descendants of indentured servants and slaves brought from
Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Sierra Leone to Jamaica by the Spanish in the 1500s.
(Maroon comes from the Spanish word cimarrón meaning “wild” or “untamed.”) The Maroons kept alive their Ashanti and Coromantee
languages and medicine customs from Africa, combining them with native Jamaican
Arawak traditions. The Maroons were continuously joined by many other fugitive
slaves, and the word Maroon became synonymous with the “untamed,
fugitive slave people of the hills.”
Following
a 14-year struggle called the First Maroon War against British colonizers, the
Maroons signed a peace treaty granting them total freedom. The Maroons of
Jamaica still maintain their independence and identity as The Maroon
Federation, and Maroon territory is considered a sovereign nation within the
tiny island of Jamaica. One of their strongest tenets is the healing power of
nature and their deep knowledge of the myriad Jamaican herbs and their uses.
As
a young biology student, I (EZ) traveled with my high school classmates to the
remote regions of Jamaica. There, I met and befriended Jamba Scott. While in
Jamaica pursuing a graduate level course over winter recess, I fell ill with
intestinal dysentery. I tried conventional medicine, which caused significant
adverse effects and did not seem to be helping. Feeling weak and depleted, I
approached Jamba and one of Jamba’s herbal
teachers, an elder bush doctor known as Pop-A-Top, for help and advice. They
suggested that “Maroon science” and herbology would bring rapid, welcomed relief where Babylon
medicine” (Western medicine) would not.
For
three days I received a steady diet of a strong decoction made from ferns,
Jamaica allspice (Pimenta dioica,
Myrtaceae), cloves (Syzygium aromaticum, Myrtaceae), guava (Psidium
guajava, Myrtaceae), sea grape (Coccoloba uvifera, Polygonaceae),
and many other Maroon herbs. The remedies were prepared by Jamba and Pop using
their traditional “Maroon science.”
The
herbal treatment quickly produced positive results that the conventional
medicines did not. This experience prompted a personal conversion in me, and I
began researching ethnobotany — the cultural, medical, and spiritual aspects of plant
healing. I asked Jamba if I could become his apprentice, even though I was a
non-Maroon. Jamba agreed; he was advised by his grandmother’s duppy (spirit) in a dream that he could trust me with this
sacred knowledge and that I would be the right person to help pass his secrets
on to the world as an “ethical ethnobotanist,” giving back to the community and the local people.
Jamba
continued to mentor me and my students, teaching them self-sufficiency and the
benefits of living as he did, a Jamaican countryman close to the earth. Many
people would accompany me to Jamaica, and Jamba’s teachings radically changed the lives of many of these visitors. In
addition, Jamba worked with the Jamaica Wholistic Herbal Association, leading
workshops with herbalists throughout Jamaica, and was one of the first farmers
in St. Mary to introduce neem (Azadirachta indica,
Meliaceae) as a natural insecticide.
Jamba
worked with my business partner Ellen Kamhi, PhD, RN, photographer Tom “Asher” Hammang,
and me to document the Jamaican bush. Ellen and I co-authored The Natural
Medicine Chest (M. Evans & Company, 1999), which includes a section, “Herbs from The
Shaman’s Garden,” that chronicles Jamba’s herbal knowledge. His contributions included sections on the Maroon
ethnobotany and medical uses of 20 herbs. Jamba, Ellen, and I also collaborated
on several other projects, including EcoTours for Cures, an adventure travel
company focusing on ethnobotanical and cultural journeys so that interested travelers
could observe, work with, respect, and preserve indigenous cultures and their
knowledge, chronicling it for future generations. Jamba has been featured in
many international magazines, articles, and radio programs discussing the
medicinal herbs of the West Indies.
Since
1990, Jamba instructed scores of naturopathic students and herbalists eager to
meet and work with him and immerse themselves in field research about Jamaican
botanical medicines, including noted herbal leaders such as Ric Scalzo, founder
and CEO of Gaia Herbs; Geo Espinosa, ND, director of the Integrated Urology
Center at New York University; and Jamaica's most esteemed herbalist, Diane Robertson.
As
Mark Plotkin, PhD, a world-renowned ethnobotanist and expert on the Maroons,
has stated on Ellen's and my syndicated radio program Natural
Alternatives: “Every time a shaman dies, it is like a whole library of
information being burnt to the ground, lost forever.”
Lindsay
Chimileski, ND, who wrote her naturopathic thesis on Jamaican herbs, said of
Jamba, “I
am honored to have learned from and connect[ed] with Jamba. I know that his
strong spirit lives on through [Dr. Zampieron] and all his students, friends,
and family…but I feel a weight on my heart thinking about Jamaica
without Jamba's physical presence, knowing eyes, loving smile, and
one-of-a-kind dancing.”
A
tribute and memorial ceremony was held for Jamba in March 2015 in Jamaica.
—Eugene
Zampieron, ND, RH(AHG)
—Ellen Kamhi, PhD, RN, AHG, AHN-BC
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