Head of a Serpent, a Pinch of Rue

Abstract

French physicians denigrated traditional medicines in Morocco as the magic and sorcery of Moroccan women—ancient “matrones”—even as French pharmaceutical companies, pharmacists, and scholarly societies bioprospected among Moroccan healing plants looking for new drugs. Morocco had centuries of male Galenic physicians whose pharmacological texts informed popular practice, and Muslim women historically translated between this “high” tradition and family health. Because Moroccan women were identified as the primary practitioners of traditional pharmacy, but they were protected from official French interference, French women were enlisted to report on their practices. Among these was colonial wife Aline Reveillaud de Lens (Pratiques des harems marocains) and physician Dr. Françoise Legey (Essai de folklore marocain). Dr. Abel Charnot, founder of the first toxicology laboratory in Morocco, viewed Moroccan women as criminals and toxicology as the civilizing science to conquer women’s sorcery. French colonial pharmacy was thus patriarchal as well as colonizing and positivist. Healing plants in colonized Morocco were polysemous—simultaneously circulating in healing systems, colonial political economies, and the epistemic struggle of French colonialism against Moroccan knowing. Traditional pharmacopeia remains popular therapy in postcolonial Morocco. Argan oil, souak, and other “women’s” plants are popular on the global market with ambivalent implications for local women’s empowerment.