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Indigenous Medicine: About

Indigenous Medicine

Link to Honoring the medicine : the essential guide to Native American healing by Kenneth
Link to Plant Spirit Medicine by Nicola McIntosh in Freading
Link to Plant Spirit Medicine by Eliot Cowan in Hoopla
Link to Medicinal and Other Uses of North American Plants by Charlotte Erichsen-Brown in Hoopla
Link to Identifying & Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants by Steve Brill & Evelyn Dean in Hoopla
Link to Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer & Monique Gray Smith in Hoopla
Link to Sacred Medicine by by Lissa Rankin, M. D. in Hoopla
Link to Peterson field guide to medicinal plants and herbs of eastern and central North America by Steven Foster and James A. Duke in the catalog
Link to Native American healing meditations by Lewis Mehl-Madrona in the catalog

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Native American Remedies

For thousands of years, Native Americans have used herbs to heal the body, purify the spirit, and bring balance into their lives and surroundings. Oral traditions indicate that they learned about the healing powers of herbs and other plants by watching sick animals. There are no written records of herbal use by the indigenous people of America before the first contact between Europeans and the tribes. However, this changed as Native Americans shared their knowledge of how to use nature’s medicines with the new settlers.

While hundreds of herbs and plants were used in Native American remedies, one of the most sacred was tobacco, which was used to heal numerous conditions, rituals, and ceremonies. It was smoked pure and not mixed with any chemicals as it is today. Another essential herb to the Native Americans was Sage, which was said to not only heal multiple problems of the stomach, colon, kidneys, liver, lungs, skin, and more, but it was also believed to protect against harmful spirits and to draw them out of the body or the soul.

Though the list of medicinal herbs that might be carried in a Healer’s medicine bundle are many and varied, those that were most often used were frequently carried, such as remedies for common colds, which might include American Ginseng or Boneset; herbs for aches and pains including Wild Black Cherry, Pennyroyal, and Hops; remedies for fever, including Dogwood, Feverwort, and Willow Bark. Continue reading from Legends of America

Learn More About the History, Culture and Current Social Concerns of Native Peoples

Link to Celebrate Native American Culture Resource Guide
Link to Indigenous Medicine resource guide
Link to Native American Arts & Crafts resource guide
Link to Indian Child Welfare Act resource guide
Link to Indigenous American Mythologies Resource Guide
Link to Local Indigenous Peoples resource guide
Link to The Trail of Tears Resource Guide
Link to Native American Music Resource Guide
Link to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Resource Guide
Link to Indigenous American Cuisine Resource Guide
Link to The True Story of Pocahontas Resource Guide
Link to Navajo Code Talkers resource guide
Link to The Lost Children of the Residential School System Resource Guide
Link to The Pequot War Resource Guide
Link to Native American Heritage Month resource guide
Link to Native American Activism Resource Guide
Link to The Wounded Knee Massacre Resource Guide
Link to Pipelines on Tribal Land Resource Guide

Link to Indigenous American Heritage Resource Guide Series Homepage