Native American Herbal, Plant Knowledge

Two books by Dr. Rosita Arvigio, who founded Ix Chel, are available from the ABC

Book catalog: Sastun, the story of her apprenticeship with Mayan healer-elder Don

Eligio Panti and the founding of Ix Chel, 90 pp, $12. Rainforest Remedies covers 100

healing herbs found in Belize, together with usages and practice by local native

healers who now work with Ix Chel. 215 pp, $9.95

These books are available from The Mail Order Catalog PO Box 180, Summertown, TN

38483; 800/695-2241 for orders or catalog; email: [email protected]. (NOTE: Surely they

must have a web page by now. Try to find.) Prices are as given in their Spring, 1995

catalog:

How Indians Use Wild Plants for Food, Medicine and Crafts, $4.95. By Frances

Densmore, Dover reprint of report compiled between 1908-20. Despite its general

title the Natives are Ojibwe, from White Earth, Cass Lake, Mille Lacs and Grand

Portage, Minnesota; Lac Courte Oreilles, Wisconsin; and Manitou Rapids, Ontario,

Canada. Densmore, unlike most male anthros, was a musicologist, who was also

very interested in foods, medicines and crafts. Her plant compilations are a model

that (unfortunately) often wasn't followed by later men collecting plant info. Of

course most ethnographers didn't have the collaboration of a Native woman like

Mary Warren English of White Earth. Whatever tribe you are, this book is a model, a

pace-setter, and a price-bargain. 396 pages, many cross-rerencing tables, the best

that could be done with that before computers.

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Indian Givers, Jack Weatherford (Powhattan), 272 pages, $10. Classic study of

Native achievements in food, medicine, agriculture, architecture which were taken

over by Western Civilization. Also includes philosophical influences such as

democratic government, league of nations, ecology.

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Earth Medicine, Earth Food, Michael A. Weiner, 214 pages, $14. Emphasis (like most

of these books) is on medicines rathr than foods. Book is organized by condition or

problem, listing herbal remedies of various tribes for each.How they were prepared

(very sparse) and methods of identification (sketches, not always clear). An

intertribal overview.

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American Indian Medicine, Virgil J. Vogel, 578 pages, $21.95. Classic compendium

by well-known Native scholar. Vogel uses medical practices as a lens to focus on

changin relationships between invading whites and natives, as well as discussing

practical and pharmacological bases of plant-based healing and remedies.

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Handbook of Native American Herbs, Alma R. Hutchens, 256 pages, $10. Portable

field companion with plant ID's. 125 North American herbs covered, kichen as well

as medical. Indian Herbology of North America (382 pages, $17) by Hutchens

covers more than 200 plants, the emphasis there is entirely medical.

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Kids Can Cook, Dorothy R. Bates, 120 pages, $9.95. Favorite recipes for ages

10-teen, recommended by New York Times.

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New Resource Wars, Al Gedicks, 270 pages, $10. Native environmental and land

struggles against corporate greed, governmental racism from Wisconsin to the

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Native Foods/Plants: Recommended Books

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