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Iroquois Ethnobotany

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Tall Thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana) Roots used to make love medicines. Worked as an emetic ... All anemones poisonous member of buttercup family. Wild ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Iroquois Ethnobotany


1
Iroquois Ethnobotany
Presented By Jay Hanthorn
  • Jay Hanthorn

2
Outline
  • Introduction to Iroquois People
  • Medicinal Plant lore
  • Iroquois formula preparation
  • Linking Iroquois herbalism and Colonial Medicine
  • Some specific plant uses

3
The Iroquois People
  • Iroquois confederacy (Haudenosuanee) also known
    as League of Peace and Power, Five-Nations and
    Six-Nations
  • Occupied New York state and parts of
    Pennsylvania, Ontario and Quebec
  • Composed of Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and
    Mohawk tribes
  • One of strongest forces in northeast America in
    17th and 18th centuries

Iroquois in Buffalo, New York, 1914
4
The Iroquois People
  • After American revolutionary war, Iroquois
    migrated out of New York to Canada
  • Close contact with Europeans makes investigation
    of original mythology and religion difficult
  • Creator created all things on Earth
  • Spirits brought sickness and luck
  • Used masks carved from basswood trees to scare
    evil spirits away
  • Europeans turned most Iroquois to Christianity

5
Identification of Plants
  • Nearly 800 species listed in New York state
    museum handbook
  • Chauncey Johnny John knew about 300
  • Plant names often refer to some characteristic
    feature or property
  • Stem or root
  • Name suggests habitat
  • Preference of some animal for it
  • Skunk cabbage smells like skunk
  • Purple-fringed orchis Rattlesnake arrow

6
Extraction Rituals
  • Regard plants as part of Earths population
  • Search for double-nose (polymnia uvedilia)
  • Fumigant for ghosts, against returning souls and
    on having nightmares
  • Places tobacco on soil next to root
  • First plant stands for the whole species
  • Prayer recited God gives strength to plants
    which is in turn passed to humans

7
Formula Preparation
  • Sympathetic magic enters into preparation of
    formulas
  • Barks scraped upward for emetic, downward for
    purgative
  • Doctrine of signatures correspondence between
    external shape of plant and symptoms of disease
  • E.g. Yellow-flowered or yellow-rooted plants for
    bile and jaundice, bloodroot for wounds
  • Magic of good numbers (4, 10, 20)

Bloodroot
8
Iroquois Herbalism and Colonial Medicine
  • Europeans had contact all through St. Lawrence to
    great lakes
  • Iroquois shared plant names with many tribes
    (e.g. Algonquins) cant be sure which direction
    such ideas traveled
  • Met in early sixteenth century European
    medicine centuries behind Indian shamans
  • Over 2 centuries many of new world plants used by
    Indians became part of our pharmacopoeia
  • Laurentian Iroquois taught Cartier to cure scurvy
    using bark and needles of hemlock or white pine

9
Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea (L.))
  • Common in northeastern USA
  • Used as cold remedy, cough medicine, Cancer
    treatment, dermatological aid, urinary aid
  • Iroquois legend that an evergreen tree arose from
    the Earth when warring tribes came together in
    lasting peace
  • We use them now as Christmas trees

10
Tall Thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana)
  • Roots used to make love medicines
  • Worked as an emetic
  • Witchcraft medicine
  • Emetic to remove bewitchment
  • Placed under pillow to dream truth about wifes
    crookedness
  • Revenge to kill man who played a trick on mans
    son
  • All anemones poisonous member of buttercup
    family

11
Wild Sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis)
  • Used as a cancer treatment
  • Blood medicine purifier
  • Cough medicine
  • Dermatology
  • Cuts, sores and ulcers on legs
  • Roots applied as salve on venereal disease skin
    cracks
  • Eye medicine

12
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