Medicinal plants

Traditional Indian healers use a wide range of medicinal plants, and many of the findings they made were used in Western medicine. For example, the remedy for squirrels made from oak bark or sauce contains salicin, an active ingredient of aspirin.

Doctors use Hamamelis virginiana, a plant known as the "witch plant", to treat muscle pain.

Since 1878, the best-selling laxative in the U.S. has been made from the bark of another bush called Phammus purshiana. Salvia was one of the aromatic plants used in ritual fumigations, in which participants were "bathed" in smoke or inhaled to purify themselves. Sage infusions are also used to treat numerous diseases. Salvia columbariae is a species of salvia that Numlakis in California use extensively.

Rituals involving plants

Plants were venerated as gifts from Mother Earth and provided more food than hunting for almost all Aboriginal peoples. Some Indian nations had special relationships with specific plants, such as corn, on which they depended for their livelihoods and whose survival depended on human cultivators.

The earliest domesticated plants, such as sunflower, peach and amarant, were grown in temperate areas, on the banks of rivers and in villages, where the removed soil rich in hydrogen was ideal for its production. Maize, the most important domesticated plant in Central America, was first grown in central America around 6000 B.C. and since 1000 it was produced in latitudes as northern as southern Canada, wherever the number of ice-free days and the level of precipitation allowed. In the prehistoric city of Cahokia, it fed thirty thousand people, and had a significant impact on the worldview and ceremonial life of almost every group for which it constituted the main harvest. For example, in the Arikara myths of the origins, the figure of Mother Maize was very important. Both the Mandanes and the Pawnees of the plains and the Choctaw of the southeast valued corn.

The washos' lifestyle, for example, was based on the collection of plants. They were forced to store seeds, roots, and dried fruit to survive the winter in one of the coldest regions of western North America. Families were constantly travelling to get the necessary quantity of abundant but scattered plants. Washos were very relevant at the time of harvest because the skills to find and process specific plants were transmitted from mother to daughter. Most of the seeds had to be peeled, broken and grated to turn them into flour, while some dried fruits, such as bellotas, needed to be licked to extract the toxic components. The need to collect food forced the washos to live in scattered groups for most of the year. They gathered in the autumn to collect pineapples, a term used to refer to all pines that produce edible fruit. Collecting the fruits of pineapples or gumsaba was a time of great rituals and social activities, as the pines produced a wealth that surpassed that of other plants.

Numerous wild plants were used in rituals and healing therapies by Native Americans. For ritual purification, they used salvia and bathed themselves with the smoke of this plant. They widely utilized the healing properties of a variety of plants. To alleviate indigestion, they prepared infusions with leaves of various plants and chewed certain roots to calm the throat and headache. Tobacco was widely used in ritual practices, whether cultivated or wild.

Medical wheels

In the plains and meadows of North America you can find large circles of stone known as "medical wheels". They were constructed using the small rolled corners that left the glaciers on the surface of the earth. Each wheel has its center formed by a pile or a large number of stones, and there are often others around the circumference. Sometimes, stone lines range from the central pile to the outer circle in the form of radii.

The medical wheel of Big Horn in Wyoming is the most famous of these structures. It measures approximately 30 meters in diameter, has 28 radii and has an outer circle with six small piles of stones. We don't know who the builders were, when it was built and why. According to the most widely accepted hypothesis, the "rays" of the medicinal wheel are related (or at least were at the beginning) to astronomical events.

According to another hypothesis, they can play a symbolic role and be visual representations of the cyclical sacred principles that unite the universe. They resemble the forms found in the dances and in the structure of some Aboriginal shelters. Many of them are found in high terrain and may represent the celestial vault.