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Indian medicine - medicinal plants and medicine
contents
- Holistic thinking
- medicine Men
- medicinal plants
- coneflower
- The black cohosh
- yucca
- White sage
- Goldenrod
- Bergamot
- vanilla grass
- Traditional Native American Medicine today
- Literature:
"The books of the white man are not enough for me. The Great Spirit has given me the opportunity to study at the College of Nature, the forests and rivers, the mountains and the wildlife. " (Tatanga Mani)
Shamanic ritual in Indian medicine. Image: Konstanze Gruber - fotolia Namely, North American cultures did not know an abstract hereafter that faced a world of this: death meant to them another dimension of life, in which the cycle of life and decay continued. So they did not understand animals and plants as things, but, like humans, as part of the mystery of life. Long despised in the West, spiritual practices of Indian teachers have entered into psychotherapy.
A romantic image of the shaman, who is in contact with spiritual powers, haunts the esoteric scene and hides the American natives, who believed in supernatural beings but also had a vast knowledge of medicinal plants and minerals.
Holistic thinking
Traditional cultures of North America saw diseases in a cosmic context that encompassed all life and also metals, stones and elements. Healing meant to balance the patient with these forces.
The natives believed that the spirits only supported healings when the rituals were right. A wrong move ruined the whole process. Indian medicine men deliberately set themselves in a state of higher mindfulness in order to establish the connection to metaphysical beings.
The European conquerors outlawed the medicine men as charlatans and lunatics, the Christians saw in the rituals the devil at work; The missionaries fought the shamans as direct competitors.
While the immigrants scourged the work of the shaman as a superstition, they used their medicine wherever they could. Around 1800, more than 200 Indian medicinal plants were found in whites' pharmacies and many Euro-American doctors described themselves as "Indian doctors".
medicine Men
Medicine men were next to chiefs the most important people in the tribe. There were bear, snake, bison, wolf and otter surgeons specializing in various diseases.
The word verballhornt, according to one theory, the term Mededwiwin from the Chippewa for the specialists. These medicine men cured diseases, but they could also cause and mediate between the natural and the supernatural, preserved tradition as an Indian historian, summon the weather, initiate hunting luck with rituals, drive evil spirits out of the sick of the sick, and bring in the spirit world Lost souls back and made sure that people were mentally healthy.
medicinal plants
Shamanic rituals are in the interplay of philosophy and psychotherapy, but healing was also based on a comprehensive knowledge of hundreds of medicinal plants.
Indian medicine knows many medicinal plants that are still used today. Image: goldbany - fotolia Today, modern medicine recognizes more than 600 native Indian plants and uses their own substances. These include everyday plants such as dandelion as well as witch hazel, which nourishes small bleeding and is processed in pharmacies as a remedy for itching in ointments.
In 1536, Indians rescued French pioneers in St. Lawrence who were suffering from vitamin deficiencies. One in four sailors had already died of scurvy, and the locals supplied the survivors with strawberries and saved their lives through the vitamins they contained.
Indigenous people used the bark of the fennel wood tree against colic and flatulence, its leaves and berries helped against rheumatic diseases, as a wound plaster and the root marrow as a narcotic.
Natives took mold from trees and painted them on wounds, anticipating penicillin.
They used the yam root as a contraceptive. Yams contains progesterone, a key component of the contraceptive pill.
The Indian water diet is today in Contramutan, a remedy for influenza infections, inflammation of the nose and throat. The natives used it to promote the flow of sweat and took the leaves and branches for a fever.
American Natives brew a bearberry tea to promote urine flow, speed up and control labor. They mixed this tea with wood ash. This will make the urine alkaline.
From the comfrey root they stamped a porridge and put it on wounds. They treated fractures as well as sprains, bruises, swelling and gout. A tea from the roots they drank for cough, colds and hemorrhids. Infusions from the leaves were used against diseases of the bile, against inflammation of the skin and stomach discomfort, as well as against infections in the renal pelvis.
Medicinal root Comfrey root. Picture: emer - fotolia The California Gold Poppy, also known as Golden Poppy, is distributed from Mexico to the state of Washington. The Natives used their taproot as a means to fall asleep and use the fresh juice as a light narcotic.
Birch wood laid them on hot stones and breathed in the smoke. This helped against respiratory diseases and bronchitis. They used to smoke out tents and houses of birch wood to cleanse them with disinfection and spiritual cleansing. Cooked birch bark put them on swelling and thus treated cuts.
They drank a tea from birch leaves to promote urine flow.
Willow bark played a role in the prairies and forests to reduce fever and relieve pain. The Cheyenne prepare tea with her. Today, aspirin is one of the most important drugs, and acetylsalicylic acid is contained in the bark.
Natives knew the laxative Mayapell, the Pinkroot for worm infestation, the Dogwood for fever, the Virginian snakewort to promote sweat, the Squaw root to relieve cramps, and menstruation.
The Kiowa used soapwort to wash out dandruff, the Lakota stink cabbage to relieve asthma, the Comanches used belladonna for tuberculosis, the Pawnee Indian beet for a headache, the Seneca a "rattlesnake root", which later achieved success in inflammation of the pleura.
coneflower
This flowering plant we know in three ways as Schmalblättrigen, crimson and pale coneflower. The American Natives of the Midwest from Illinois to Iowa and from Missouri to Texas put a porridge out of this herb on burns, cuts, swollen lymph glands and mumps. They chewed the roots and so relieved pain - especially sore throat. In addition, the sun hat served as a remedy for snake bites.
The medicinal plant Sonnenhut. Picture: M. Schuppich - fotolia The physician H.C.F. Meyer heard about Indian medicine. He himself lived in Nebraska, where the sun hat naturally grows and tried it for migraine, rheumatism, syphilis and hemorrhoids. Since the 1930s, the plants spread in Germany.
A slice of root tea absorbs pain and has an antiseptic effect.
The black cohosh
The grape silver candle is also called Rattlesnake, Schwindsuch root, weeds or snake root, which already refers to their healing properties.
It grows in the eastern United States from Ontario in Canada via New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, the Carolina and Tennessee to Illinois and Missouri.
The natives cut the roots and slices and dried them. They harvested the plant before sunrise. Then she should relieve birth pains as well as problems with menstruation.
They also used the silver candle for rheumatism, arthritis, asthma and snake bites. Then they harvested at noon. The juice of the fresh roots they mixed with maple syrup for cough and discomfort from the liver and kidney.
The European immigrants got to know the plant's powers from the indigenous people and also used them to facilitate menstruation and childbirth. In the 19th century, the plant also established itself among Anglo-American doctors. They now used them for inflammation and treated with silver candle rheumatism.
As American Native Alcohol intoxication increased, Native American healers treated the sick with powder from the root.
Grape-cherry is similar to the hormone estrogen. That's why it helps when the female genitalia are damaged. However, a study by the Cochrane Society of 2012 sees the positive effects on menstruation skeptical.
Why the natives use them in diseases of the liver, is a mystery. The side effects of drugs with the plant-derived substance Cimicifuga include severe liver damage that corresponds to endogenous hepatitis.
The Natives used American Ginseng, which promotes blood circulation, lowers blood sugar levels and delays vitamin C breakdown; they knew the diuretic effects of dandelions and brewed corn-leaf tea for constipation and diarrhea. The tea also lowers the blood pressure and helps against kidney problems.
yucca
Yucca grows in the dry southwestern US and in Mexico. The native Natives like Apaches, Navajos, Zuni, Hopi, Pueblo, or Yaqui put them on skin rashes, treated with the root wounds as well as inflamed joints. They also made a soap from the root, because the plant contains a lot of saponin, a soapy substance.
White sage
Salvia apiana, the white sage reaches a meter high and grows as a subshrub in California, Nevada, the Sonora and the Mojave Desert. He loves full sunshine and waterlogging harms him.
For the cultures of the Southwest the sage was a sacred plant. They ignited sage bundles at one end, extinguished the flame, and smoldered the embers. They also threw the leaves in open fire and inhaled the smoke.
Sage is an essential element of the sweat lodge ritual. He should drive away harmful spirits and cleanse them internally and spiritually.
The natives cleaned the house and the tent with sage, and when they moved in new, they first burned the plant, sometimes symbolically at the entrance.
Sage actually acts as a disinfectant, the smoke cleanses the skin deep into the pores and counteracts the sweat flow.
Goldenrod
American Natives used all sorts of North American goldenrod. The Ojibwa called her sun medicine and treated it with colds, snake bites and toothache. The essential oils of goldenrod drive the urine and dissolve convulsions; The plant also inhibits infections.
Goldenrod - medicinal plant of Indian natural medicine. Picture: M. Schuppich - fotolia Bergamot
The gold melissa is called in German Indian armchair. She loves sunshine like damp soil and grows one meter high. It tastes like lemon balm and bergamot; the natives cooked the leaves to a tea that released mucus and promoted digestion.
vanilla grass
This grass grows in North America, Asia and Europe, mostly in humid regions. It loves lean soil. The Indians cut and dried it, they burned it with sage to purify themselves internally and used it for the sweat lodge.
The strong smell of coumarin reminds of a mixture as woodruff and vanilla. It helps against colds.
Traditional Native American Medicine today
The "Indian medicine" did not go under, although the American colonial power forbade shamans for a long time to pursue their profession. In particular, the Navajos not only have a sophisticated traditional healing system, they have also developed it with modern methods and findings of "Western" science: At the Navajo University, shamanism can now be completed as a subject; modules in psychology and anthropology are just as much a part of this as the philosophy and mythology of the people.
Medicine men of the natives are no longer considered "superstitious" even in the established science business. On the contrary, the suggestive healing methods, trance and ecstasy make it possible to integrate the sensual experiences of the patients, their unconscious, their intuitive thinking and their feelings into the healing process and are therefore a meaningful psychotherapy. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
Literature:
Fools Crow: The Indian Knowledge of the Shaman Fools Crow. With a foreword by Russell Means. 2010.
Peter Schönfelder: The new handbook of medicinal plants. Stuttgart 2004
Joest Leopold: Indian worldview. Examined on the example of Navajo, Cheyenne, Chumash and Mandan. 1997.
Karl Hiller, Matthias F. Melzig: Encyclopedia of medicinal plants and drugs. Heidelberg 2010
Alvin M. Josephy Jr .: The World of the Indians. Munich 1994
Ernst Stürmer: Pharmacy of the Indians: Tips from Ethnomedicine 2014.
Rudolf Oeser: Epidemics - The Great Dying of the Indians. BoD 2008.
Paul G. Zolbrod: On the path of the rainbow. The book of the origin of the Navajo. Augsburg 1992