Ep. 230: Traditional African Medicine with Olatokunboh Obasi

Today AC & Isaac welcome herbalist and teacher Olatokunboh Obasi back to the Plant Cunning Podcast for a second interview, now speaking from outside Nairobi, Kenya. Obasi shares that she’s finishing a doctorate in clinical nutrition while working toward opening an integrative women’s health clinic, and explains how nutrition, changing food systems, and modern indoor life affect herbal outcomes. She discusses divination and geomancy, genetics as “codes” responding to environment, and how she navigates multiple traditions—Yoruba as her root, alongside Taíno and Kenyan indigenous practices—without collapsing them into one. They explore Kenyan healing culture, including lineage-based herbalism, diviners, birth workers, and bone-setting (lila) meridian work, plus a story of discovering an East African betony for headaches. Obasi also defines traditional African medicine as diverse, spiritually centered, and regionally distinct, and critiques material reductionism in Western herbalism while pointing to figures like Culpeper and Hildegard as bridges back to spirit.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

01:45 Ola’s Life in Kenya

03:50 Why Clinical Nutrition

05:52 Divination and Genetics

09:31 Lineages and Training

11:41 Navigating Multiple Traditions

16:47 Plants Calling in Kenya

22:15 Healing Culture in Kenya

24:40 Bone Setting and Lila

28:32 Community-Based Medicine

34:32 Defining African Traditional Medicine

36:16 Spirit First Healing

36:47 Lineage And Bioregions

37:45 Cross Cultural Herbal Exchange

41:37 Reclaiming Spirit In Herbalism

44:02 Traditional Western Medicine

45:44 Astrology, Culpeper, Hildegard

50:17 Centering Over Scrolling

53:07 Rest Boredom And Reading

54:07 Rethinking Academia And Art

58:27 Craft Culture And Kenya