NATIVE AMERICAL HERBAL RECIPES: Traditional Healing Plants and Medicinal Remedies (2023 Guide for Beginners)

By Vivian Robinett

This book offers a comprehensive guide to the traditional healing plants and medicinal remedies used by Native American tribes for centuries. From the Plains to the Southwest, each tribe has its own unique understanding of the natural world and how to use it to promote h

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vivian Robinett
• Release date: May 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9783988313492

Book preview

Introduction

For thousands of years, Native Americans have used herbs to heal the body, purify the spirit, and restore balance to their lives and environments. According to oral traditions, they learned about the medicinal qualities of herbs and other plants by watching sick animals. Before Europeans met the first American tribes, there were no written records of how herbs were used by the native peoples. This began to change as Native Americans shared their knowledge of using nature's medicines with the newcomers.

Tobacco was sacred among the hundreds of herbs and plants used in Native American treatments. It was used in rituals and ceremonies as well as to treat a variety of ailments. It was smoked unadulterated, with no additives added, as it is today.

Sage was another important plant to Native Americans because it was thought to not only heal a variety of ailments affecting the stomach, colon, kidneys, liver, lungs, skin, and other organs but also to protect against evil spirits and draw them out of the body or soul.

Though the medicinal herbs carried in a healer's medicine bundle are numerous and varied, the most commonly used, such as remedies for common colds, such as American Ginseng or Boneset; herbs for aches and pains, such as Wild Black Cherry, Pennyroyal, and Hops; and fever remedies, such as Dogwood, Feverwort, and Willow Bark, were frequently carried.

This list has a lot of plants that Native Americans used, as well as other plants that have been found to help with different problems throughout history. It also includes herbs used to treat a variety of modern illnesses.

Medicine's Brief History

Before colonization, Native Americans in the United States relied on the exploitation of natural herbs and spiritual beliefs for therapeutic purposes.

People learned how to use herbs to treat themselves and turned to experts like shamans or medicine men for more serious illnesses (Hammond 4). Once there were colonies in America, both natives and newcomers used plant treatments as their main source of medicine. Plant therapeutic characteristics were widely discussed and exchanged by families and communities to prevent and cure sickness and ailments.

Anyone could practice medicine; healers volunteered their services in an unregulated environment; all types of medicine were performed concurrently, with doctors learning from the experiences of their patients.

In 1790, New York passed the Medical Practices Act, which was the first law to define who could be a doctor. The licensure regulation was designed to protect the public from unskilled and unqualified healers.

Government officials issued licenses to healers who demonstrated sufficient expertise and penalized those who did not. In 1806, medical societies were added to the certification process, and healers were granted licensure with proof of graduation from a medical college.

State licensing was not strictly enforced until the 1840s, despite efforts to regulate.

However, numerous medical associations arose during this period, and by 1830, nearly every state in the Union had a medical society. These formal organizations were established in order to promote and defend specific medical methods in order to consolidate reputation, influence, and economic control over a patient population, while condemning and denouncing competing therapeutic approaches. Although legislative regulation was intended to protect patients from harmful treatments, the control of medical societies resulted in a bias in who was admitted or excluded from practicing medicine. Medical societies were used by local legal authorities to credential practitioners and determine which kinds of medical procedures were safe and acceptable to the American public.

Because there were more medical societies, 400 medical schools were opened between 1800 and 1900.Medical universities were founded on the doctor knows best attitude, which was supported by medical associations, and universities were soon given the authority to license graduates. Most schools adhered to Hippocrates' belief system, which defined all disease as an excess or deficiency of one of the four humors: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. Therapies such as bloodletting, purgatives, vomiting, intense sweating, and blistering were used instead of long-established, traditional procedures involving preventative measures, personal responsibility, herbal medicine, and spiritual therapy.

Physicians who did not practice the aggressive four-humor method known as heroic medicine were chastised and barred from practice (Cohen, 17).

A hundred years of pharmaceutical treatment would be required to cure a disease. Still, local governments continued to be lobbied and licensed practitioners rewarded by established medical societies or "medical colleges (History of Medicine Minnesota).

Fortunately, new treatment options arose in response to heroic medicine.

Thomson’s was the most well-known alternative treatment. It focused mostly on herbal medicines and self-care for the patient.

Traditional physicians, on the other hand, sued Thomsonianism and other alternative practitioners for illegal practice, and Thomson’s eventually died out in the medical community. Soon after, eclectic doctors entered the picture, combining treatments from Native American experts, herbalists, and other alternative medical disciplines.

Because it was less harmful than heroic treatment and more adaptable to a common understanding, homoeopathy quickly gained traction and appeal. As a result, homoeopathy has emerged as the primary competitor to traditional medicine. Once again, orthodox physicians used all available means to expel homoeopaths, and by 1850, homoeopathic physicians had been expelled from every medical organization in the country except Massachusetts. By the end of the nineteenth century, conventional medicine had completely dominated the American healthcare system, with no other competing practices. The development of anesthesia in 1842, disinfection processes in 1865, and the 'germ hypothesis of disease' in 1870 all contributed to the establishment of orthodox