North American Indigenous Herbal Medicines

[bat_hawk]

Setting: Not exactly Earth, but a region with great similarities to the Great Basin and Rocky Mountains. Time period is indeterminate, but pre modern medicine

Comments

[anonymous]

I don't know anything about Native American cultures, but I compiled a list of links for downloading books about healing with herbs and medicinal plants. (Links and files are safe.) Try also Open Library.

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s205/sh/f2cb98f4-72b6-4635-9cb5-34612f335217/055d4806d99bd21cce795657ac8b18c0

If I were you, I'd choose an herb for the occasion and then look up preparation onlineA.

[anonymous]

I provided a list of links to books, but it was marked as spam, alas. You might try OpenLibrary as well.

[bat_hawk]

I was still able to find it under the suspicious comments. ;) Thanks for the help!

[full_metal_ox]

Big sagebrush is used for a variety of ritual and medicinal purposes by various Native American tribes, and particularly venerated by the Navajo. Note that the plant's volatile oils are highly toxic (the only ruminants who eat big sagebrush are pronghorns and, in the early spring when the young leaves are milder, sheep.) Moreover, some desert Indians have a genetic sensitivity to the coumarin therein--dosage, along with a knowledge of the patient's family history, is critical; those are points on which you could demonstrate your heroine's expertise. (My source, in addition to the above link, is Why Some Like It Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity by Gary Paul Nabhan; Nabhan's references include Diné bike' yyahdoo ch'il nanise' altaas'e'i': Plants of Navajoland. Chinle, AZ: Chinle Curriculum Center. Motulsky, A. G. 1996, by Navajo medicine man MIke Mitchell.)

[bat_hawk]

Oh, awesome, thanks so much!

[full_metal_ox]

My apologies for buggering up the formatting, but you seem to have understood me all right. (Note that Mitchell's book--as you may have deduced from the title--is bilingual, in mirrored Navajo and English.)

[cactuswren]

You might also check the works of Michael Moore (not the filmmaker), including Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West, Medicinal Plants of the Desert and Canyon West, Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West, and Los Remedios: Traditional Herbal Remedies of the Southwest.

ETA: He gives detailed instructions on how to make the various preparations (infusions, decoctions, tinctures, salves), and for each plant listed he includes description, habitat, collection instructions, part(s) used, medicinal uses, and commentary ("I have drunk fair amounts of {Turkey Mullein} tea at one time to see what would happen, but I just sweated so much I needed a blotter. This is called organoleptic testing, and it is probably why herbalists, homeopaths, and natural-products chemists have trouble getting medical insurance").

[bat_hawk]

Lol, sounds awesome, I'll definitely look into that, thanks!

[whswhs]

I don't have anything directly helpful, but I have an anecdote: Many years ago I took a look at a book on indigenous American herbal remedies, published even longer ago, maybe in the forties or thirties. It included a short account of an herb which it said the women of some cultures claimed could be eaten to prevent pregnancy-but, it said, this could be regarded as only folk legend, as no substance known to scientific medicine had this effect when taken orally.

Of course that sounds a little different to us now. Mind you, I'm not saying it actually worked!

[bat_hawk]

Hmm, interesting! Something to look into, at least. Thanks!