Osha Root for Sore Throat and a Tired Voice

A scratchy morning after a long day of talking sends a lot of people looking up osha root for sore throat, and osha has a long written record tied to the throat and the voice. Zuni healers, Diné singers, Pueblo families along the Rio Grande and Spanish-speaking ranchers in New Mexico all reached for the same root, Ligusticum porteri. This is what they did with it, as recorded by the people who wrote it down, and how to take Bear Root in the evening now.

Osha root for sore throat, as the old records tell it

The clearest early record comes from the Zuni Pueblo in western New Mexico. In 1980 Scott Camazine and Robert Bye published a study of Zuni medical plants in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology. They recorded that Zuni people crushed the root of osha, mixed it with water and used it as a wash and a drink for sore throat. An infusion of the root went to body aches, and the root was chewed during curing ceremonies.

The Zuni were not alone. A 2017 University of Kansas thesis by Natasha Myhal, which gathered osha uses from across the region into a single table, lists Cochití and Taos Pueblo families taking the root as a tea, or chewing it, for a sore throat. Kelly Kindscher's 2013 harvest study for the same university names the Apache, Navajo, Ute, Zuni, other Pueblo tribes, the Lakota and Hispanic New Mexicans as people who used the plant.

A gravelly voice on the powwow circuit

For the Diné (Navajo), osha belongs to the bear. Ethnobotanist Shawn Sigstedt recorded the Diné story that the bear gave osha to the people as a medicine and showed them where it grew.

The voice comes into it through Arnold Clifford, a Diné ethnobotanist from Beclahbito, New Mexico, who knows the plants of the Four Corners. In an August 2016 interview for Myhal's thesis, he described Diné people sucking on the root for a sore throat and for colds, and singers at powwows reaching for it when their voice turned gravelly. Clifford's account is the clearest written link between osha and singers.

What is chuchupate tea?

Chuchupate is the Spanish name Hispanic ranchers in New Mexico use for osha. You will also see chuchupaste, chupate and chuchufate. Another common English name is Colorado cough root.

Estevan Arellano, writing about New Mexico folk remedies, called oshá one of the most popular herbs in the state. In a 2012 piece for the New Mexico Acequia Association, he wrote that people took it for colds and that many chewed the root for a sore throat. His mother made sure the family carried a piece on trips into the mountains for firewood. Earlier, Leonora Curtin's 1947 book on Rio Grande remedies described the root ground to a powder and taken for colds, coughs and flu.

So "chuchupate tea" names a household habit more than a fixed recipe, and the Cochití and Taos records describe the root taken as a tea. People searching for it today want the same warm cup in the evening, without digging a wild root.

In Chihuahua the Rarámuri call it wasía

Mara's Bear Root is a mountain plant of Northern Mexico. In the Sierra Madre Occidental of Chihuahua, the Rarámuri (Tarahumara) call it wasía, according to Irigoyen-Rascón and Paredes in their 2015 book Tarahumara Medicine. Rarámuri families carried the root to keep snakes away and tied it around a newborn's neck for protection.

That Rarámuri root reached a laboratory in 2008. At the University of Texas at El Paso, Oscar Beltran tested three plants used in northern Mexico and the Southwest for tuberculosis, including L. porteri under its local name chuchupaste. In the lab, the osha extract stopped more than half the growth of the TB bacterium (Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv) at the lowest concentration tested. Beltran published the finding in his master's thesis that year.

How people take Bear Root in the evening

Bear Root fits the way chuchupate has long been taken, warm and in the evening. The product page gives two ways to take it, and both fit any evening.

• Stir a dropper into a mug of hot water with a spoon of honey, or into a cup of black or ginger tea, and drink it slowly.
• Hold a dropper under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds, then swallow.

The daily amount on the label is 1 to 2 droppers. You can split it, with one dropper in tea after dinner and one more under the tongue before bed.

The taste is earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite from the root. That bite makes sense once you know osha is in the carrot and parsley family, a cousin of lovage. In hot water with honey, the earthiness softens and the warmth stays. Under the tongue you get it straight, and the celery note lingers for a minute after you swallow.

For people who talk or sing for work, the under-the-tongue method is the one that fits a day. The bottle sits in a bag or a pocket, and a dropper before a long shift or a rehearsal takes half a minute.

Why the extract is the practical choice now

The families in these records dug their own root. Today that is a poor idea.

Osha grows slowly at 1,500 to 3,500 metres, and roots worth harvesting usually come from plants at least ten years old. Almost all of it is still wild-harvested, and United Plant Savers lists it as At-Risk. The plant also looks a lot like poison hemlock, and people without training should not try to tell the two apart on a mountainside.

A tincture takes care of all of that. You get a measured dropper every time instead of guessing at a handful of chopped root. Bear Root's ingredients are short: premium quality extract. One 50 ml bottle lasts 30 to 50 days at 1 to 2 droppers a day.

Look at the glass, too. Dark amber is a step in the right direction. The gold standard is dark Miron glass, which keeps light off the extract and is what Mara uses for Bear Root.

Bear Root – Osha Root Tincture

50 ml dropper bottle. Ligusticum porteri from the mountains of Northern Mexico.

Add to bag

For the full story of the plant, from the Lakota name mato tapejuta to the Utah medicine bundle it was found in, read our osha root guide.

Bear Root considerations

This is the recommendation from the product page. Contains alcohol. Not recommended during pregnancy. If you're nursing or taking medication, ask your doctor before using it.

Questions people ask

Is osha root used for cough as well?

Yes, in the records. Curtin's 1947 book on New Mexico remedies includes the ground root for coughs and colds, and one of the plant's English names is Colorado cough root. We cover the chest side of the story in osha root for lungs.

Is chuchupate the same plant as osha?

Yes. Chuchupate is the New Mexican Spanish name for Ligusticum porteri, the same plant sold as osha and bear root.

How do people take osha root in tea?

With Bear Root, stir 1 dropper into hot water or tea, add honey if you like, and drink it warm. The label amount is 1 to 2 droppers a day.

What does osha root taste like in hot water?

Earthy and warming, with a celery-like bite from the root. Honey rounds off the bite and leaves the warmth.