Indian culture that legitimizes the entire conquest.^62 In 1970 the Indian
Historian Press produced a critique of our histories, Textbooks and the
American Indian. One of the press’s yard-sticks for evaluating books was the
question, “Does the textbook describe the religions, philosophies, and
contributions to thought of the American Indian?”^63 Unfortunately, the answer
must still be no.
In the nineteenth century, Americans knew of Native American contributions to
medicine. Sixty percent of all medicines patented in the century were
distributed bearing Indian images, including Kickapoo Indian Cough Cure,
Kickapoo Indian Sagwa, and Kickapoo Indian Oil. In this century, America has
repressed the image of Indian as healer.
Consider how textbooks treat Native religions as a unitary whole. The
American Way describes Native American religion in these words: “These
Native Americans [in the Southeast] believed that nature was filled with