historias de chile

hardluck;

Its called Beaver fever because it SEEMS to be associated with ponds and streams that have beaver (Canada's national animal) and the symptoms persist until it suddenly gets worse and one winds up in the hospital, really sick. I can look it up, it has another tech name and it is something like Giardia, a small mono cell critter. At one time there was NO Beaver Fever.

Yes, local native groups have herbal knowledge that can be a little different from knowledge a couple hundred miles away. For instance, as a kid, I started learning stuff from my grandmother that was mostly Cherokee lore from the Missouri Ozark mountains, also some from and old fellow who was 1/4 Cherokee; since then, I have learned some Cree 'medicine,' and even some European lore. Some of the Dene medicine includes treatment for some types of cancer... but the information has been lost, in the last 85 years, or so. We can only guess.

As one goes north, deep into Dene country, you run into clan secrets, 'oh, I can't tell you, you are from a different clan.'

I know of lots of wild food stuff, some of it takes a lot of preparing, to taste OK, or be safe to eat. We have 'cattails/bull rushes/ tulies' in open water swamps that wars were fought over, because the roots are edible. They have to be pulled, split, dried and pounded to get the starchy stuff out of the fiber...  then cakes were made and toasted on a rock. I think the starch is inulin because there is not much response to iodine, which turns purple for potato starch.

I guess, if I belonged to one of the local groups, I would be an ELDER, but not quite a medicine man. They would not like me, nor trust me, because I am not dark enough, I would have to be as dark as my mother or her father, my grandpa.

Tough world, I guess. There is the bark of a big bush, here that is good for diabetes, I took it for years until it was not strong enough. Its called Devil's Club and its nasty.

I have read some about Aboriginal things, taboos, sacred lands and stuff, it sounds familiar.

goldigger

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hardluck;

My broth-in-law's uncle told us a story from around 1900 (his uncle was known as NOSY, as a child) about this guy who was  traveling on the river by canoe. The trading post manager, who was the father of Nosy, asked him why or something like that and he showed him a huge thing on one arm. He said his doctor told him it was cancer, go out and enjoy yourself, you will be dead in a year.

So this guy was traveling because he had always wanted to. There were no roads, here, then so he was traveling the river "road."

There was a native lady, at the post, probably Dene; as this was traditional Dene territory, she said: "I can cure that," (probably said it in Dene Zha,) went out in the bush and came back, in a little while, with several kinds of herb (I think I know some of them.) She crushed these and made a poultice, put it on his arm and gave him the rest, with instructions on how to do it, for a week.

After a week, she came back, took the wrapping off his arm, and Nosy said it was a black jelly mass. The woman peeled it off, like a piece of rubber, and it left little holes in his arm, like it had roots, but it was all gone. She told him he was cured.

The herbs were simple common herbs, from here, because she did not have to look very long, that means they were plentiful.

That leads me to another story, which happened about 20 miles up river from the Post. I want to put it on this site, its about gold prospectors returning from the Yukon, murder and some robbery, and one person looking for the place it happened, MANY years later.

Sound interesting?

goldigger

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Just reading your interesting string of posts Golddigger & hardluck. I've read where nature provides a cure for everything - it's a matter of finding someone who can/will help you. I'd like to hear the Yukon tale, too. Shad

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