Michael’s Commentary: Hicks was a Cavalryman, rancher and tracker, who worked in the last decades of his life as the outfitter, ranch manager and friend of Erle Stanley Gardner in that author’s many excursions into Baja California and Sonora. Hicks learned traditional curandismo and country ways from Mexican and Mission Indians…traditions already then fading. Published too soon (or too late), by a long defunct regional publisher, written by a “layman”, it is a remarkable little book about plants and methods little discussed, in a region often ignored. There is also a long excerpt by a friend from Alpine, Texas, W. D. Smithers, discussing similar experiences with healing herbs and the curandismo of the Big Bend area. The book has puzzled many, as the plants are only identified by photographs and obscure local names – I have added the scientific names (no small task!)
(Acrobat File) 1.4 M, 105 Pages, 89 black and white photographs, bookmarked, 1966