Recently several people asked me about what native plants were used as traditional medicines by the Indians who once lived here. I wrote a column on those traditional medicines about seven years ago and have updated it to answer the question.

What first caught my attention about Indians’ use of native plants as medicine was the autobiography of Gideon Lincecum. Lincecum moved to Columbus in 1818 and his letters and autobiographical accounts were published as “Adventures of a Frontier Naturalist” by Jerry Lincecum, a descendant. In the mid-1820s, Gideon spent six weeks studying herbal medicine with a Choctaw doctor. He found the herbal medicine practiced by the Indians to be far more effective than the treatment provided by Anglo-American doctors in Columbus.

The Chickasaw Nation has been returning to their homeland in northeast Mississippi for the last seven or eight years, searching for and investigating ancestral historic sites. The Chickasaws, with assistance including Mississippi State University, the University of Florida and several other area and Southern universities, have performed extensive archaeological excavations including European contact Chickasaw sites near Starkville and an 1820s Chickasaw school site located between Aberdeen and Amory. In addition to archaeological research, the ecological history of the Blackland Prairie has been examined.

In visiting the sites and talking with archaeologists working there, I have encountered experts in fields ranging from native American ceramics to uses of plants in traditional herbal medicine. About seven years ago I met Vickie DeMarrais and Virgil Franks, both of Oklahoma who had taken off two weeks to join the Chickasaw archaeology team, and both were familiar with Chickasaw and Seminole traditional medicine. They spotted plants at a 16th century proto-Chickasaw village site in Oktibbeha County that were mentioned in traditional herbal medicine lore. Some plants have been found which were not native to northeast Mississippi. Apparently, they are relic descendants of plants from when a large indigenous American Indian community was here three or four hundred years ago.

When asking Vickie DeMarrais about traditional medical uses of local plants she told me that she had been related by marriage to a noted old time “Seminole African-Indian doctor,” Sam Osborne, who had lived in Oklahoma. She called a relative to get me information on local plants that he had often used in the preparation of traditional medicine. Virgil Franks told me of his cousin, Willie Lena, another traditional herbal doctor, who was the subject of a book, Oklahoma Seminoles Medicines, Magic and religion. The following list includes plants described by Osborne and Lena as native plants used in the preparation of traditional medicine.

They include the following familiar plants but as some of these plants are highly toxic and their exact preparation and application is not known they should not be consumed, taken or applied in any way.

Southern Dogwood – root bark could treat worms and trunk bark for malaria

Dandelion – tea was good for heartburn

Chinkapin – chills and headache

Hydrangea – root as diuretic and to treat strange dreams

Black Hawk – good for a lot of things (including) liver, heart

Black Jack – kidneys

Slick Elm – bleeding bowels

Sassafras – a tea for chest pains

Single John – prostate

Cottonwood – wrap sprained ankle with inner bark

Ragweed – bleeding nose

Burnt egg shells – prostate, kidney

Primrose – asthma

Black Jack Oak – specially treated leaves could be used for “love magic”

Milkweed – expectorant

Verbena – boil and soak foot in to cure “spring itch” or athlete’s foot

“White Shumate (sumac) – swimming in head (or) dizziness

Red Shumate (sumac) – blood purifier (and) strength

Red Oak – blood

Rap Jack – heartburn

Cocklebur – general tonic

Cat-foot – counter to bad medicine or witchcraft

Some of these natural remedies had a very real basis. We only need to think of aspirin. Aspirin has its origin in willow bark whose use as a treatment for pain or fever in Indian communities can be traced back more than 1,400 years. The Indians of America were far more sophisticated in their use of herbal medicine than most people realize. As Gideon Lincecum found out, their medical practices were often superior in the early 1800s to those of “college-trained” Anglo-American doctors.

As some of the listed plants are highly toxic they should not be consumed, taken or applied in any way except by an individual trained in their proper preparation and application.

The first plant that came to my mind when writing this column was yaupon holly, which is not native to northeast Mississippi. However, it is sometimes found at old Indian village sites and appears to be a relic descendant of plants from when a large indigenous American Indian community resided here hundreds of years ago. It is the same ornamental shrub often used in our region for landscaping, but it is much more than just another ornamental. The yaupon holly’s technical name is Ilex vomitoria and for a reason. While most people are familiar with yaupon, they don’t realize that since prehistoric times it has provided an important beverage, the “black drink,” for Native American ceremonies.

Yaupon is one of the few plants native to North America that contains a significant amount of caffeine. The Indians of the Southeast were very concerned with the state of their bodies, both physically and mentally, before and during important ceremonies. The black drink was considered a ritual beverage to be consumed both before and during councils. Its consumption was restricted to only mature men. The drink was a concentrated caffeine beverage, which when boiled into a thick black liquid had the effects of a stimulant, diuretic, and emetic. Those effects, ranging from a caffeine high to the purging of the stomach’s contents, were considered a ritual purification of the body and spirit.

In a far less concentrated form, it makes a pretty good tea which is sold commercially. I have made my own Yaupon tea and liked it but was told by a friend that the commercial tea was easier to make and very good. She purchased hers from Yazoo Yaupon Tea which is a Delta business.

Rufus Ward is a local historian.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

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