First Nations Medicine

The Colonists

The early settlers of the 17th Century arrived weakened by the long voyage, often suffering fevers or scurvy. If the settlers set out in late spring to avoid bad weather on the crossing they arrived too late in summer to prepare and plant crops, and had to endure hard New England winters ill prepared.

During the first winter in Plymouth, more than half of the first 100 colonists died. By 1625, barely 1000 were left of the original 7,500 Jamestown colonists.

All the colonies were subject to epidemic diseases that swept through them like wildfire; malaria, bacillary dysentery, influenza and smallpox. The colonists brought most of these over to America with them.

The first serious epidemic in New England killed one of the few surgeon/physicians to leave comfortable and lucrative practices to make the crossing. Such men, even common apothecaries, were rare in the colonies and even the most competent of pioneer housewives could hardly be expected to cope with major epidemics of infectious disease.

In 1663, a man called John Josselyn came to New England. He stayed eight years and made it his business to study healing plants. He observed Indian use of herbs and in 1672 published his findings in a book called New Englands Rarities Discovered, full of praise for the skilled native use of herbs. Many of his remedies eventually found their way into the American pharmacopoeia and he demonstrated that cures were there for those humble enough to learn from the Indians.

Many colonial housewives had brought plants and seeds with them to make their own English physic gardens. Mullein (Verbascum thapsus), plantain (Plantago major) and pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium) were all introduced by settlers and taken up by the native peoples. Other treasured herbs were already growing wild there: woundwort (Stachys palustris), maidenhair fern (Adiantum capilla-veneris), marjoram, yarrow, brooklime and comfrey.

At a professional level, however, there was very little attempt to learn physic from the Indians. And the increasing hostilities soon made such dialogue impossible. For the most part, European settlers relied on importation of their own complicated, costly and sometimes dangerous mixtures and compounds.

NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE

And so it is over.

I did not know then how much was ended.

When I look back now

from this high hill of my old age,

I can still see the butchered women and children

lying heaped and scattered

all along the crooked gulch

as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young.

And I can see that something else died there

in the bloody mud,

and was buried in the blizzard.

A people’s dream died there.

It was a beautiful dream…

The nation’s hoop is broken and scattered.

There is no centre any longer,

and the sacred tree is dead.

Black Elk – Sioux Medicine Man

The experience of the Native peoples of North America is somewhat different to the stereotypical cowboy and Indian films of Hollywood. The indigenous people suffered cruelly at the hands of the invading colonists. Early on, the settlers brought disease epidemics that ravaged humans and animals alike. Some estimates suggest that before the Europeans arrived there were 10 million indigenous inhabitants of N. America, but by the time contact had been well established between the races, this number had been reduced to fewer than 1 million.

As the greed for land expanded, indigenous people were no longer seen as welcoming guests and understandably the Indians began to defend themselves. Disease epidemics were actively encouraged, for example, by supplying smallpox-ridden blankets to the native people. European settlers also took to hunting the buffalo for no clear gain to themselves. In a 10-year period at the end of the last century the buffalo population was reduced from in excess of 60 million to around 200. This hunting became policy and ensured that the plains tribes had no source of food, clothing or shelter. It was also easier to kill the buffalo than the Native Americans themselves.

Total surrender was inevitable.

NATIVE AMERICAN MEDICINE AND SPIRITUALITY

There are still descendants of the Native peoples who remember the old ways. In more recent years there has been more recognition of the injustices carried out against Native Americans, and more respect for their culture.

The people of Turtle Island, which is what Native Americans called America, saw themselves as totally connected to everything around them. Animals and plants were gifts from the Great Spirit to be received with gratitude. When collecting herbs for instance, the person would ask permission from the ‘chief’ spirit of the herb, the largest of that type in the area. If the request to pick was denied, they would move on. If granted, they would always leave the first seven herbs they came to, so that the herb would continue to flourish and be available for the next seven generations of their tribe.

Medicine people say that plants talk with colours and animals with pictures, both of which may be seen with the inner eye of spirit. Occasionally they may even use words. To understand the language of nature we have to enter into a different type of awareness that is poetic and magical, based on the senses and intuition, very similar to the state of childhood.

For indigenous Americans, everything was alive and all forms of life were seen as our relations. Medicine people must earn the right to the knowledge which nature can reveal to them. If they petition with humility, a plant spirit may take pity on them and reveal the medicine power of certain herbs, or an animal may become a totem or spirit guide, imparting its particular wisdom. A medicine person who has built up a relationship with a particular herb, tree or rock can call on that energy to assist them in their life and their medicine work.

The people of Turtle Island constructed medicine wheels to focus and direct the energy of the earth and stars. In them, they honoured the four directions:

East	South	West	North
Air	Fire	Water	Earth
Red	Yellow	Black	White
Spiritual	Mental	Emotional	Physical
Childhood	Youth	Maturity	Old age
Winter	Spring	Summer	Autumn

Above is Father Sky and below is Mother Earth and at the centre is each individual.

To the Native American Indian, mind body and spirit were inseparable. Thus whilst external injuries might be treated by straightforward applications of herbs, internal disease for which there was no obvious cause were treated holistically. The entire tribe might be assembled by the medicine man to sing and pray over the patient and to help drive away, by loud music, rattles and chanting the evil spirits causing his sickness. This concern and involvement of the whole tribe was believed to impart special curative powers to the plants the medicine man would use.

Herbs were known to have the power to spiritually purify and bring balance to those unhealthy in spirit, mind or body. Not all the sacred uses of plants have been revealed by the medicine people who know these secrets but some knowledge has been made available for common use. The healing powers of different plants were learnt by observing the animals, who would naturally seek out certain herbs when they were unwell.

Medicine people have the ability to see in the spirit world and they can also perceive plants speaking to us in colour. The right herb might be found by observing the colour aura of the sick person and then finding the herb with the right colour in its aura to bring healing.

SACRED HERBS

Tobacco

This is one of the most sacred plants. It is burnt, smoked or used as an offering, or as a call for help to spirit guides. The Native Americans did not abuse tobacco; smoking was not a casual or unconscious activity. It was traditionally used in the ‘Peace Pipe’ during council meetings as well as for healing and cleansing. It has the power to connect those who take it with the world of spirit.

Sage

Like many other cultures, sage was associated with wisdom. It is believed to be a protection against malevolent powers and is therefore used before beginning a ceremony to drive away any evil spirits. It is a powerful purifier and is used in ‘smudging’ and the ceremony of the sweat lodge, as well as those preparing for a Vision Quest. It is said to have the power to help problems of the stomach, colon, nasal passages, kidneys, liver, lungs, pores of the skin, bones and sex organs.

Cedar

Cedar is said to be the third gift of the creator. It is a strong plant that can nurture and protect. In the old days, cedar bark was used for parts of houses, clothing, canoes and other artifacts. Cedar boughs were put on tipis to ward off lightening. Both the boughs and the inner bark were used in ceremonies.

Cedar is also used in smudging. Cedar leaves and bark may be burned on their own to cleanse the air after sickness. The fruit and leaves are boiled and taken internally for coughs, both in humans and horses. For a head cold, twigs are burned and inhaled.

Sweetgrass

It is sometimes called ‘Hair of the Mother’ because its long, reed like leaves are often braided before they are picked. It grows in damp places. Sweetgrass is often burnt by shaving little bits of this braid onto hot coals or by lighting the end of the braid and waving it through the air. Sweetgrass is mixed with sage and cedar for smudging and as a purifier in the sweat lodge. Certain tribes use it in all their ceremonies to call the good spirits and send prayers to the creator on the rising smoke. Sweetgrass is believed to carry the deep wisdom of the Earth. Its sweet aroma attracts positive spirits to the person burning it.

As with many other ancient cultures, emetics and purges were strongly emphasised in the treatment of diseases. The Indians believed that sickness was introduced via the digestive tract. As many of their diseases must have been parasitic in origin this is sound medicine. After purging and vomiting, the sick person was given a healing preparation of herbs and then fasted before being put on a light diet of gruel made from grains and roots until recovery was complete.

The Native Americans were a great deal cleaner than many Europeans of the time. Almost all tribes used a kind of sauna to sweat out illnesses or for a thorough cleansing. Sometimes medicinal herbs would be included in the water, thrown on the red-hot stones. After sweating, an icy plunge in the nearest river followed.

Few generalisations can be made about the medicinal practice of a great race scattered over a vast continent and organised into hundreds of different tribes, apart from one fact: their materia medica was almost exclusively herbal.

Different tribes used the same plant for different diseases. E.g. blue flag (Iris versicolor) was cultivated by the Creek Indians as a cathartic, the Albany Indians used the crushed root as a poultice for leg ulcers and the Meskwakis made a decoction of the roots for colds and lung problems; the Ojibwa considered it to be emetic; and to the Penobscots it was a complete panacea, one of their most treasured medicines.

Other popular herbs included:

Boneset Eupatorium perfoliatum

Wild cherry Prunus virginiana

White pine Pinus strobus

The following herbs were also used by Native Americans and most are still used today by European Herbalists:

Bearberry Arctostaphylos uva-ursi

Pleurisy root Asclepias tuberosa

False Indigo root Baptisia tinctoria

Blue cohosh Caulophyllum thalictorides

Black cohosh Cimicifuga racemosa

Stone root Collinsonia canadensis

Wintergreen Gaultheria procumbens

Witch hazel Hamamelis virginiana

Lobelia Lobelia inflata

Squaw vine Mitchella repens

Evening primrose Oenothera biennis

Passion flower Passiflora incarnata

Pokeweed Phytollacca americana

Mayapple Podophyllum peltatum

Bloodroot Sanguinaria canadensis

Sassafras Sassafras albidum

Skullcap Scutellaria laterifolia

Trillium Trillium erecta

Plants were used as singles often as specific cures for specific infections. The most widely used preparation was a decoction made by simmering the herb in water in iron-hard birchwood kettles. Other plants were steeped in cold water. Roots and inner skins of barks were dried and pulverised between flat stones, boiled and crushed into soft poultices or made into ointments with animal fat. Oils were extracted from nuts (acorns were highly esteemed) by boiling until the oil settled on the surface.

The indigenous people of North America left a valuable legacy of medicinal knowledge, the benefit of which we are still reaping today. But the exploitation of their land still continues. Many of the herbs that are now the basis of multi-million pound markets are endangered or virtually extinct in the wild in North America, herbs such as Echinacea spp., Golden seal (Hydrastis canadensis), Lady’s slipper (Cypripedium pubescens).

It is fitting that Chief Seattle should have the last word:

And when the last Red Man shall have perished

and the memory of my tribe

shall have become a myth among the White Men,

these shores will swim

with the invisible dead of my tribe,

and when your children’s children

think themselves alone

in the field, the store, the shop,

upon the highway

or in the silence of a pathless wood,

they will not be alone.

At night when the streets of your cities

and villages are silent

and you think them deserted,

they will throng with the returning hosts

that once filled and still love this beautiful land.

The White Man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people,

for the dead are not powerless.

Dead did I say?

There is no death, only a change of worlds.

Chief Seattle 1854

Sources:

New Green Pharmacy, Barbara Griggs

Native American Spirituality, Wa’Na’Nee’Che’ & T. Freke The Illustrated Herb Encyclopaedia, Kathi Keville