Cascarilla is the botanical Croton elueteria, also called sweetwood bark, sweet bark, Bahama cascarilla, elutheria, clutia eleuteria, cascarillae cortex, cortex theuris, aromatic quinquina, and false quinquina.
It is native to the Caribbean, and part of the medicinal and spiritual traditions of the Bahamas. It is imported from Nassau, in New Providence. White, red, and black cascarillas are also found in commerce, differing in form and properties, but these are other names for varieties of quinquina.
Cascarilla is also the name of Quina morada, the bark of Pogonopus febrifugus, which is used in the Argentine Republic as a substitute for cinchona bark (which is used to treat malaria).
Cascarilla is a small tree which is almost always under 20 feet in height, with scanty, alternate, ovate-lanceolate leaves, which are approximately 2 inches long.
Its flowers are dainty, with little white petals. They appear in March and April.
The outer, thin, corky layer of the bark is eggshell white to a yellowish tone. The second layer is brownish, and sometimes shows through where the white and yellowish bark is fissured.
The richly scented bark smells spicy, peppery, musky, and woody. The white crustaceous lichen attached to the outer surface of the bark is generally Verrucaria albissima. The bark is hard and compact, breaking apart easily into small resinous pieces. When dried, it is a chalky white and leaves a powdery substance on skin when handled.
The taste is nauseating, warm and bitter. It is sometimes smoked in fumigating pastilles or mixed with tobacco, which is known to cause giddiness and symptoms of intoxication. Cascarilla bark contains anywhere between 1 and 3 percent volatile oils.
Medicinally, cascarilla is used as an aromatic, bitter tonic. It is possibly narcotic. Traditionally, it has been used to treat dyspepsia (pain and discomfort in the upper middle part of the stomach), fever, vomiting, flatulence, diarrhea, and dysentery. Because it is a stimulant to mucous membranes, it is sometimes used for chronic bronchitis as an expectorant. Added to cinchona when treating malaria, it will arrest the vomiting caused by ingesting cinchona.
In Brazilian herbal medicine systems, the bark is prepared as a decoction and utilized for anemia, hemorrhoids, and high blood pressure, as well as for all the digestive concerns listed above.
Laboratory studies indicate that the bark’s essential oil is antimicrobial. The traditional use of cascarilla for digestive concerns was verified by scientists in 2003. Researchers in Italy reported that cascarilla and its major chemical compound, cascarillin, were found to significantly increase histamine-induced gastric acid secretion in the stomachs of laboratory mice.
Cascarilla bark is also used to flavour the liqueurs Campari and Vermouth.
The appropriate dose of cascarilla depends on several factors such as the user’s age, health, and several other conditions, including what other medication and herbs the person is ingesting. Please, keep in mind that natural products are not always necessarily safe and dosages can be important. Be sure to consult a medical professional before using.
Of the powdered bark, the average dose is 20 to 30 grains. Of the herbal hot water infusion, made by steeping 1 ounce of plant matter in ½ pint of hot, but not boiling water, then straining out the plant matter, the average dose is 1 to 2 fluid ounces.
Historically, like Santeria itself, the use of the powdered bark of cascarilla can be traced back to the native traditions of West Africa. Santeria, also known as Regla de Ochá, or La Regla de Ifá, or Lucumi is an Afro-American religion of Caribbean origin. It developed in the Spanish Empire among West African descendants.
Santeria has its roots in the Yoruba people of West Africa. The slave trade forcibly brought many Africans to Cuba, Brazil, Haiti, the southern United States of America, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and other Caribbean basin nations. Although most slaves were forced to convert to Catholicism, many continued to practice their native religions at the same time. Practitioners of Regla de Ocha or Santeria may describe themselves as Catholic, attend Catholic masses, and baptize their children as Catholic, while also practicing their African-based religion in their ilé, or Lucumí temple-house, in their own homes or in the home of a religious elder. Regla de Ocha or Santeria is a closed tradition.
Among other beliefs, these people brought to New World the concept of sacred white earth they called efun. This substance provided a person with protection against evil. Cut off from their ancestral lands, they sought an alternative that could achieve the same effects. This came in the form of the herbal powder called cascarilla. Cascarilla was in use as a medicinal and spiritual plant amongst the First Nations peoples of the Caribbean basin nations.
Because cascarilla was a good substitute for the sacred white earth, many used it in place of it (others used chalk and/or talcum powder; in certain areas, cornstarch was also common).
In North America, as cascarilla became difficult to get, some practitioners substituted powdered egg shell for the powdered bark. As many families have now only known cascarilla to be powdered egg shell, for many many generations, they then insist that this is the only thing cascarilla has ever been.
However, powdered egg shell does not have some of the uses that the powdered bark does, so be careful when using this substitution (it doesn’t treat bronchitis, for example.)
Magically, cascarilla is used to expel negative energy in all its forms. This can include negativity you accumulate through your own trials and tribulations or that which is set upon you. It is also used in rebirth ceremonies.
Cascarilla is typically sold in pressed form. This permits it to be used like a chalk for writing or marking. It is used to draw boundaries – some boundaries are used to separate a place or person from energies, such as warding a house or person from harm, while some boundaries are drawn to contain and keep separate the energies raised in spiritual rituals.
In powdered form, cascarilla is scattered for cleansing, added to floor cleaners, added to ritual incenses, or even incorporated into baths.
Customarily, cascarilla baths are performed weekly and include honey and holy water as ingredients.
About three cups of cascarilla are used with one-sixth this amount of honey.
Roses Taste as sweet as they smell 