Indigenous healing traditions of North America

North America is home to hundreds of Indigenous peoples, each with their own language, culture and knowledge of plants and healing. That knowledge is thousands of years old and was passed on mainly orally and through ceremony.

Europeans learned a great deal from Indigenous healers. A well-known example is the winter of 1535 to 1536, when Jacques Cartier’s crew suffered from scurvy near present-day Quebec. They were cured with an infusion of a tree, the annedda, probably the eastern white cedar, on the advice of Domagaya, a son of the Iroquoian chief Donnacona.

At the same time Indigenous traditions were heavily suppressed. In the United States the Code of Indian Offenses of 1883 banned many ceremonies. In Canada the potlatch was banned from 1884 to 1951. Only in 1978 did the American Indian Religious Freedom Act protect the right of Native Americans to practise their religion, including ceremonies and sacred plants.

There is no single Indigenous medicine, but many peoples share the idea that health is balance between body, mind, community and nature. The English word medicine often has a broader meaning in Indigenous traditions: it is also about spiritual power and protection.

Among many peoples, such as the Anishinaabe and the peoples of the Prairies, there are four sacred medicines: tobacco, sage, sweetgrass and cedar. They are burned to cleanse, to pray and to protect.

The sweat lodge is, for many peoples, a ceremony of purification and prayer. The medicine wheel, with its four directions, is an important symbol for some peoples too, but not for all.

Healers are often called medicine men or medicine women. They usually learn for years from an experienced healer, and their role is recognised by the community.

Among the Anishinaabe there is the Midewiwin, the Grand Medicine Society, with several degrees of initiation. Knowledge is passed on there through ceremonies, songs and birchbark scrolls.

Much knowledge is sacred or meant only for initiates. Not everything is meant to be shared with outsiders.

The knowledge is mainly oral. What has been written down often comes from outsiders. A major reference work is Daniel Moerman’s Native American Ethnobotany of 1998, with thousands of plants and uses among hundreds of peoples.

The Midewiwin keep knowledge on wiigwaasabakoon, birchbark scrolls with symbols.

The National Library of Medicine in the United States created the exhibition Native Voices, in which Indigenous people themselves speak about health and healing.

Indigenous medicine is experiencing a revival. Some hospitals and clinics, for instance within the Indian Health Service in the United States and in Canada, offer traditional healing alongside Western care.

Many plants from Indigenous knowledge have become known worldwide, such as echinacea, goldenseal and black cohosh.

There are concerns too. Popular plants are overharvested in the wild, and Indigenous ceremonies are sometimes adopted or sold without respect.

The plant knowledge is enormous. Echinacea was used by Prairie peoples for snakebites, toothache and infections. The bark of wild cherry and of slippery elm served for coughs and sore throats.

Goldenseal was used by the Cherokee and other peoples for inflammation. Black cohosh for women’s complaints. Bloodroot gave a red dye and was used as a remedy.

White sage (Salvia apiana) grows in California and is burned in ceremonies by the Indigenous peoples there.

Indigenous knowledge belongs to Indigenous peoples. Ceremonies such as the sweat lodge do not belong in a wellness centre.

Because of the demand for “smudge sticks”, white sage is overharvested in the wild, which affects Indigenous peoples in California. Prefer other herbs. Goldenseal is also threatened by overharvesting.