American Indian Healing Arts: Herbs, Rituals, and Remedies for Every Season of Life

Here are the time-honored tribal rituals performed to promote good health, heal illness, and bring mind and spirit into harmony with nature. Here also are dozens of safe, effective earth remedies--many of which are now being confirmed by modern research.

Each chapter introduces a new stage in the life cycle, from the delightful Navajo First Smile Ceremony (welcoming a new baby) to the Apache Sunrise Ceremony (celebrating puberty) to the Seminole Old People's Dance.

At the heart of the book are more than sixty easy-to-use herbal remedies--including soothing rubs for baby, a yucca face mask for troubled skin, relaxing teas, massage oils, natural insect repellents, and fragrant smudge sticks. There are also guidelines for assembling a basic American Indian medicine chest.

Karen Baar has a degree in public health from the Yale University School of Medicine and writes about gardening and health for The New York Times, Self, Good Housekeeping, and Natural Health, among other publications.

It may be that some little root of the Sacred Tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Hear me, not for myself, but for my people; I am old. Hear me that they may once more go back into the sacred hoop and find the Good Red Road, the shielding tree.
--Black Elk, Oglala Sioux holy man and medicine man

This book explores the healing arts of American Indians. Our native tribes had and still perform a dazzling array of healing rituals; they also know and use hundreds of herbs, fungi, lichens, and other natural materials. Although many of these practices are ancient, they remain vital. Today healers from all over the world--Europe, Australia, India, and China--come to the United States to learn how to use our native medicinal plants. But ironically, many Americans have not yet tapped into this distinctively American tradition, instead choosing European herbal medicine, homeopathy, or acupuncture in their quest for alternatives to conventional medical treatment.

But American Indian healing goes well beyond treating disease. As we approach the end of the twentieth century it offers a rich resource for people who want to connect, both collectively and individually, with their spiritual selves. Throughout their sweeping history, American Indians have held the spiritual side of life to be primary and sacred. Their belief system provides them with a deep and nurturing connection to the earth and the spiritual realm.

Birth and Infancy: "Thank You For Coming To Our Village"

When a new baby is born among the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Clan Mothers welcome the newborn by saying: "Thank you for coming to our village; we hope you will stay with us."
--Katsi Cook, Mohawk midwife from Akwesasne and a research fellow in the American Indian Program at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York

The cry of a newborn child is music to which all people respond. American Indians place special emphasis on welcoming a child not only into the family but also into the tribe and the world. When a baby is born, he emerges from his mother's womb into the womb of Mother Earth.

Of course, childbirth was not always such a smooth transition. In early societies women frequently gave birth outside the village in less-than-ideal or even dangerous situations. Often they were alone and exposed to the elements. But most American Indian women were well equipped to manage within their environments. They were in vigorous good health and quite fit throughout their pregnancies, so that birthing was fairly spontaneous and without much trauma or pause from their normal work. Early records tell of women giving birth in challenging circumstances and then walking great distances with their newborns on their backs.

But not every birth was comfortable or successful. Infant deaths and abnormalities occurred, and mothers died in childbirth or of infections or complications immediately after giving birth.

Across the continent, as native people settled into village life they developed a broad array of ceremonies, rituals, prayers, and special herbs and medicines to protect and sanctify this important life passage. Each tribe used its own sequence of prayers and offerings of sacred substances to ease labor and delivery for the mother and help ensure the infant's survival.

Today, as long as there are no complications, many American Indian mothers choose to give birth at home or in specially prepared family settings. Birthing outside of the hospital allows women to continue to honor their traditional tribal rituals. But even hospital birth need not impede some of the smaller, more private ceremonies. And because some rites take place before labor begins as well as after the baby arrives at home, many people can avail themselves of these special blessings.

In some tribes, rituals for the birth mother begin just before or during labor and delivery. Among the Diné or Navajo, for example, a woman can request that a Blessing Way, or "No Sleep," be done for her before she leaves for the hospital or as she prepares for the birth at home. The name "No Sleep" means a one-night sing; it is much like a vigil. The medicine man sings for her from late evening until "the dawn has a white stripe" in order to ensure that her labor and delivery will be normal and as easy as possible, and that her baby will be healthy and whole.

Birthing practices during and immediately after the birth frequently combine the sacred and the practical. Often part of the midwife's work during labor is to sing to and massage the laboring woman, bathe her in healing herbs, and ritually wash her abdomen, breasts, arms, and legs. In many cultures women do this for themselves, continuing a practice they began during the latter part of pregnancy. The midwife uses sacred herbs and important herbs of childbearing such as sweetgrass, hawthorn berries, or leaves of raspberry, strawberry, bearberry, or juniper submerged in either river or lake water. Not only do these herbs bless the process, they also relax the mother, ease the delivery, and nurture a pure, strong spirit in the baby. In some tribes midwives use other mild herbs, such as blue cohosh root, to gently speed the birth.

After the delivery, the focus is on the baby. A birth attendant ritually bathes the baby in a sacred herbal wash. Relatives may look the infant over for any unusual markings or other signs. For example, among the Delaware, knowledgeable elders read a birthmark as a special sign that means--depending on its size and configuration--good luck or a long life. Sometimes the mark may be attributed to the mother's or father's dream; in other cases it is an indication that either or both parents experienced difficulties with other people.

On occasion family members attending the birth may see an ancient wisdom in the infant's eyes or recognize the soul of an ancestor. In special instances it becomes clear at birth--or sometimes even before--that this particular baby has been blessed and summoned to a specific calling. In the past, a boy might have been dedicated to the path of a great warrior or directed to follow a favored uncle into a secret society. A girl infant might be consecrated to fertility, to skill in tanning, or to the mineral, animal, herbal, and fungal wisdom of the earth.

Families, especially those suffering from the previous loss of one or more children, feel a special urgency about strengthening a just-born member of the family in this way. Many Indian children rebel against this idea, refusing to follow the life path that the tribe has chosen for them. But there are amazing stories of individuals who eventually come around to occupy the roles envisioned for them at birth.

Spiderwebs, the Earliest Dream Catchers

Today's popular dream catchers have their roots in ancient amulets called spiderwebs. Loving family members--parents, aunts, uncles, and siblings--created these graceful ephemeral designs of quill and beadwork on hide. The spiderweb, which can also be seen on early birch-bark scrolls, was a charm meant to hold good energy. And like a true spiderweb, this one could catch everything, especially harm coming from the spirit world or anywhere else, before it reached the baby.

The Great Lakes Algonquian and the Cree of Canada and the central United States were particularly likely to use these charms, whose designs were echoed on the blankets and clothing of the infant. Today these powerful talismans have come to be called dream catchers.

Welcoming a new child does not always involve elaborate ceremony. Paula Dove Jennings, of the Turtle Clan, is a Niantic-Narragansett oral historian. Among her people, traditions center on...