IROQUIOS HERBALISM — FENTON 509 



to me, and say that I have no pity on them, and after that they cannot be 

 approached." 



And the following year some ointment that had been sent him proved 

 a sovereign remedy for ulcers; but just at the point where he had 

 gained prestige with his first cure, the supply gave out and his case 

 was lost.^^ On the other hand, to offset the successes which the 

 Jesuits claimed we have Baron Lahontan's statement that the Indians 

 in his day were opposed to making use of French medicines and 

 surgeons.^* 



The picture that we have developed of Indian medicines during 

 the period of its failure to cope with introduced European diseases 

 leads us to inquire how successfully native herbalists treated indig- 

 enous ailments. Early travelers remark that certain diseases then 

 common among Europeans were unobserved among the northeastern 

 American tribes. Among these, gout, gravel, and dropsy were men- 

 tioned by Lahontan." On the other hand, ailments growing out 

 of their way of life were more frequent: prolonged fasts followed 

 by feasts and periods of famine induced digestive disturbances; 

 rheumatism , neuralgia, pleurisy, and pneumonia were not uncommon 

 among the Iroquois; and long years of group living in smoke-filled 

 longhouses brought on conjunctivitis with advancing years; while 

 wounds, dislocations, and fractures were risks in a life on the warpath 

 and the hunt. Possibly asthma and dropsy accompanied advanced 

 age ; " and the great number of prescriptions for deficiencies of the 

 blood and uterine disorders suggest anemia and complications fol- 

 lowing childbirth. Zeisberger's description of hardships and disease 

 among the Delaware and Iroquois in the middle eighteenth century 

 is probably typical of earlier times. 



Indians are not less, rather more, subject to disease than Europeans, their 

 rough manner of life and the hardships of travel being contributing causes. 

 On journeys they mind neither water nor snow nor ice, even though creeks and 

 rivers be ever so full of running ice they go through and nothing holds them 

 up. On the chase they not only steal through the woods to get, unnoticed, near 

 the game, but also pursue it * * * until they get within range, thus * * * 

 they may have chased from mom til eve * * * sometimes 8 or 10 miles 

 away from their hunting lodge, no food having been tasted the entire day. 

 So long as they are young and strong, they suffer no ill effects, but with ad- 

 vancing years * * * Rheumatism is common among them, often leading 

 to lameness, deafness or blindness. The women who carry everything by means 

 of a carrying girth fixed to the forehead, whence the whole burden — and a 

 hundred weight is not considered heavy — is suspended down the back, suffer 



" Relation of 1672-73, Jesuit Relations, vol. 57, p. 173. 



" Ibid., vol. 58. pp. 211-213. 



"■ Lahontan, Baron de. New voyages to North America, vol. 2, p. 50, London, 1703. 



" Idem, pp. 45-46. 



"Stone, Eric (M. D.), Medicine among the American Indians, pp. 23-26, Clio Medica, 

 New York, 1932; Corlett, Wm. Thos. (M. D.), The medicine-man of the American Indian, 

 pp. 55-56, Chas. C. Thomas, Springfield, 111., and Baltimore, 1935. 



