152 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 195 I 



i 



Combplant was used as an antidote for snakebite and for other j 

 bites and stings. It was also used in smoke curing. As a remedy | 

 for toothache a piece was kept on the painful tooth. Burns were 

 bathed in the juice of this plant, and it was said that shamans bathed i 

 their arms and hands in the juice so that they could take a piece of ' 

 meat from a boiling kettle without suffering pain (p. 131). 



Angle stem root was commonly burned in the smoke treatment for , 

 a cold in the head, neuralgia, and rheumatism (p. 132). I 



A tonic for horses was made of pilotweed (p. 132). 



Ragweed was used to cause nosebleed, being snu£Fed up the nostrils. 

 This was done to relieve headaches (pp. 132-135). 



Sticky head was used by the Ponca for consumption (p. 135). 



Beaverroot was boiled and the decoction was taken for intestinal 

 pains and as a physic (p. 107). 



Skeletonweed stems were made into an infusion for sore eyes. 

 Mothers having a scanty supply of milk also drank this infusion in 

 order to increase the flow (p. 136). 



Present-day Ponca still use many herb remedies, but the services of 

 White docters are employed in cases of serious illness. A few plants of 

 medicinal use were collected from PLC, who also described their uses. i 



Artemesia glauca, or green sage, is made into an emulsion which is 

 taken both internally and externally for burns. PLC described a case 

 in which a woman had been badly burned with lye and had been 

 "given up" by White physicians. PLC's brother Henry, aided by 

 PLC, cured the woman with decoctions of this plant, forcing her to 

 drink large quantities of it and covering all but a small part of the 

 burned area with cloths soaked in the fluid. The small area was left 

 exposed to "let the poisons out." 



Prairie cone flower is made into a tea which is taken for kidney 

 trouble, sore back, gallstones, and general aches and pains. PLC was 

 using this when visited in 1951, having recently hurt his back. 



Lygodesmia juncea, or skeletonweed, mentioned previously as hav- 

 ing been used in an infusion applied to sore eyes and to increase the 

 flow of milk in a mother's breasts, was given as a diarrhea remedy by 

 PLC. The stems are cut into 1-inch lengths and soaked in a quart of 

 water until they have imparted a definite greenish hue to the liquid. 

 Doses of this infusion are taken by the patient every half an hour ! 

 until he is cured. 



Members of the Peyote religion in the Southern band tend to regard 

 their ritual plant as a catholicon, or cure-all, and tell marvelous tales 

 of patients cured by it, including persons suffering from tuberculosis. 



PLC described the proper way to dig a medicinal plant: 



Before you dig the plant, stand over it and pray. This plant belongs to Mother 

 Earth, and we must thank her for it. After you have prayed, dig the plant very 

 carefully. Cut the stem off over the hole, and throw the top part of the stem, the 



