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155 Q Appendix Effective Herbal Therapies of Aboriginal Women Q Careful people, who noted what had best helped the sick, then began to prescribe them. In this way medicine had its rise.... —Aulus Celsus, De Medicina (c. 50 BC).1 Peter Edmund Jones’s graduating thesis, entitled “The Indian MedicineMan ,” is, unfortunately, lost to posterity.2 It would have offered a fascinating glimpse into the lifestyle of Aboriginal peoples. No doubt his professors would have insisted that he ridicule non-Christian medical practices. North American physicians abruptly abandoned Aboriginal remedies in the mid-eighteenth century even though they knew many were effective. Licensed physicians feared being confused with quacks and salesmen who sold worthless cures, actually alcohol and colouring, at so-called Indian medicine shows. If Peter Edmund were to write his thesis today, he would realize that Aboriginal herbal therapy, acquired over the millennia by means of chance observations and trial and error, was in many ways more scientific than the bleeding, blistering, and purging advocated by his professors. A century after his death, he would be proud of the resurgence of traditional Aboriginal medicine. It is appropriate to honour Dr. Jones by reviewing literature that demonstrates the efficacy of traditional Canadian Aboriginal herbal therapy.3 Peter Edmund would have acquired knowledge of Aboriginal herbal therapy from his father. Reverend Jones had been one of the last Mississaugas to take part in the seasonal migrations of the hunter-gatherers. While travelling through the once dense forests of southern Ontario, his childhood illnesses would be managed by his mother and grandmother. In the spring and fall he would have attended the elaborate ceremonies of the professional healers, members of the Ojibwe Grand Medicine Society, or Medewiwin who combined traditional spirituality with secret herbal therapies. At fourteen years of age and educated to be a warrior, 156 Appendix Reverend Jones went to live with his American father and his Mohawk second wife near Brantford. There he was exposed to the sophisticated herbal therapies of the Six Nations. Then as a missionary, Jones had a second exposure to Aboriginal herbal medicine. The energetic preacher visited most of the Ojibwe bands in Upper Canada, including some that had yet to be placed on a reserve. Unlike his British confreres, who insisted that their new converts discard traditional therapies, Jones respected Aboriginal herbal medicine and was knowledgeable enough to prescribe them. A box containing his herbs, along with a knife and pharmacy scale dating from 1838, survived the shipwreck of the Colborne on a reef near Port Daniel, Quebec, in 1838.4 As a teenager, Dr. Jones helped his mother edit his late father’s missionary diaries and complete the manuscript of his seminal work, The History of the Ojebway Indians, which includes a table listing their principal medicinal plants (see Table 1, pp. 35–36).5 They were aided by an article he had published in a Toronto magazine fifteen years before his death, entitled “The Indian Nations.”6 In describing the medicines used by the North American Aboriginal peoples, he proudly stated that “they had an abundant variety of remedies, every way suitable for the diseases common to their country and climate.” The book was published in England the year before Peter Edmund went off to medical school. Reprinted many times, it is still readily available. Women had always played an especially significant role in meeting the health needs of their families. As ethnobotanist Judith Sumner observed, they frequently possessed more accurate information about reproductive complaints and pediatric problems than their male counterparts.7 According to Christina Clavelle, most plant-gathering and processing activities among the northern Saskatchewan Cree were the domain of women. Those few plant-related activities that men engaged in would have involved collection and preparation of species for medicinal-spiritual uses.8 Following the First World War, when botanist Jacques Rousseau surveyed the medicinal plants employed by the Mohawks living on the Kahnawake Territory near Montreal, he was struck by how effectively the missionaries, supported by the Indian agents, had stigmatized the professional Shaman. According to Rousseau, “Once the medicinemen had been banished, the women healers took the stage. In reality, these women were not newcomers to the scene, but the descendents [sic] of midwives who had plied their profession for as long as women had given birth.”9 Men had quietly respected women’s role in healing as they treated sickness by means of warmth, fluids, nutrition, and simple [18.217.220.114] Project MUSE (2024-04...

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