Healing Ways / Medicine Ways / Healing Plants / Paul Ortega with large Yucca plant, Mescalero, New Mexico,…
Paul Ortega with large Yucca plant, Mescalero, New Mexico, 2011
Yucca (Mescalero Apache name: Huskane. Scientific name: Yucca elata Englemann)
Yucca root is used as a soap and shampoo. A poultice of roots and leaves can be used to treat insect bites. The raw fruit has a laxative effect. The trunk is used to make a tobacco mix and a sore throat chew. The plant is also used ceremonially in fertility rites.
“The Yucca plant is as useful today as it was in the past to the Mescalero Apache as an important part of their traditional and religious practices.”
— Medicine man Paul Ortega, 2011
Courtesy National Library of Medicine, photo by Paul Ortega