American Indian Healing Arts: Herbs, Rituals, and Remedies for Every Season of Life

by E. Barrie Kavasch

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Author: E. Barrie Kavasch

Publisher: Bantam

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 0553378813
ISBN 13: 978-0553378818

American Indian Healing Arts is a magical blend of plant lore, history, and living tradition that draws on a lifetime of study with native healers by herbalist and ethnobotanist E. Barrie Kavasch.

Here are the time-honored tribal rituals performed to promote good health, heal illness, and bring mind and spirit into harmony with nature. Here also are dozens of safe, effective earth remedies--many of which are now being confirmed by modern research.

Each chapter introduces a new stage in the life cycle, from the delightful Navajo First Smile Ceremony (welcoming a new baby) to the Apache Sunrise Ceremony (celebrating puberty) to the Seminole Old People's Dance.

At the heart of the book are more than sixty easy-to-use herbal remedies--including soothing rubs for baby, a yucca face mask for troubled skin, relaxing teas, massage oils, natural insect repellents, and fragrant smudge sticks. There are also guidelines for assembling a basic American Indian medicine chest.

Amazon.com Review

Throughout their history, the American Indians have healed with rituals using herbs, fungi, and other natural materials. They have valued as sacred the spiritual side of life and their connection to the earth. Their medicine has always been holistic, treating the body and spirit as one and illness as a sign of imbalance. Now we can benefit from American Indian wisdom with American Indian Healing Arts: Herbs, Rituals, and Remedies for Every Season of Life. This book is organized by the stages of life, presenting different tribal perspectives on the significance of each, with ceremonies and healing rituals (songs, prayers, botanicals). The book includes more than 60 recipes for treating health problems and other needs, from "cramp bark tea" to "marigold-calendula deodorant cream." There are also directions for making tonics, ointments, tooth powders, and digestive remedies, and illustrations consisting of leaf-rubbings of 80 plants. Besides learning to use American Indian remedies, you learn fascinating facts about their ceremonies. The Navajo celebrate not only birth, but the infant's first smile and first laugh, for example. An Apache girl celebrates first menstruation by running and dancing for four days (guided and massaged by an elder woman). If you're interested in alternative healing, or intrigued by American Indian culture, this book will add to your knowledge. --Joan Price

From

Increased interest in complementary healing methods has provoked a flurry of books on Asian traditions, especially those of China and India. America has its own healing traditions, though--the herbal medicines and rituals of the Indian nations. This comprehensive volume includes the traditions of many peoples, such as the spidery dream catcher of the Algonquin and the Cree, the Cheyenne's sacred arrow blessing, and the Iroquois' winter solstice dances. That in itself would make this accessible, engaging book a good choice for libraries where interest in the healing arts is high, and its impressive collection of herbal remedies, all employing American wild plants, only increases its appeal. Digestive tea made from bergamot (bee balm), insect repellent from sassafras, hair conditioner from the soap plant, deodorant from calendula and marigold--recipes for these and many more useful substances distinguish this well-conceived and executed book. Patricia Monaghan

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American Indian Healing Arts: Herbs, Rituals, and Remedies for Every Season of Life