Earth Medicine, Earth Food

by Michael A. Weiner

Book Overview

Long before there was pharmacology as we know it, the North American Indians cured illness and maintained health by natural means, using the healing plants of the forest, desert, and seashore. Their... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0449905896
• ISBN13: 9780449905890
• Release Date: December 1990
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.4" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

Don't Be an Idiot...

I think that you would be very stupid to pass up this book based solely on the writer's political affiliation. If I did this, I wouldn't read HALF of the books that I read.

Still useful survey by noted herbalist

Emphasis is on native North American uses of plants for medicines rather than foods, though a last section covers this briefly but interestingly. Book is organized by condition or problem, listing herbal remedies of various tribes for each. How they were prepared -- no info. Methods of identification (b & w sketches, not always clear). An The majority of plant medicines were women's, (not "shaman's"). Few remedies were comprised of only one plant. Most medicines were complex mixes of several parts of different plants, picked at different times, prepared in diffeernt ways, and mixed in strict proportions, given in careful dosages if taken internally. Last (Foods) section of the book is more interesting, and least dangerous (should the reader be tempted to experiment) . The plants shown and told about there are usable today. Plants are indexed by common and botanical names, and grouped as "remedies" for problem medical conditions which no one should try to use. No Indian names for any plant. Black and white drawings of many (but not all) plants are of varying quality, seem ot have been taken from old herbals. None are much good for field identifications. Plants are not shown in different growth stages or seasons, though many must be IDed at one time then picked or dug at another (usually late fall, when they have lost all leaves or perhaps withered entirely from a bulb). Weiner did all research for this book from old printed materials. There is no indication he had ever met or spoken with an Indian person, though he lived some years in Fiji doing research for another book. Most old ethnobotany writings were compiled by male anthros who were more interested in shamans performing than in women, who held and used and knew most of the pharmacopeia. Men couldn't really tell these guys much, and they didn't bother interviewing women, for the most part. Then too, few Native women in the 19th century would have spoken to visting anthros about anything. Thus most of our real knowledge beyond what oral tradition and practical use preserved comes from a handful of 19th and early 20th century women anthros who were interested in women's knowledge and were trusted: Frances Densmore, Mathilde Coxe Stephenson. Yankton scholar Vin