Called the Mvskoke in their language, the Creek Indians of Oklahoma continue to practice traditional medicine. In Creek Indian Medicine Ways, David Lewis, a full-blood Mvskoke and practicing medicine man, tells about the medicine tradition that has shaped his life. Born into a family of medicine people, he was chosen at birth to carry on the tradition. He shares his memories here about his childhood training and initiation as a medicine man as well as his remembrances about his father and grandmother, who trained him. Lewis reveals part of the sacred story of the origin of plants, and he identifies some of the plants he uses in his cures. He also describes several of the ceremonies his teachers taught him, stressing throughout the sacredness and importance of Mvskoke medicine.
Ann Jordan, a Euroamerican anthropologist, documents the place of Lewis's medicine family in the written record. Lewis is the great-grandson of Jackson Lewis, who was interviewed in 1910 by anthropologist John Swanton. Jackson Lewis is mentioned numerous times in Swanton's classic works on Mvskoke medicine and culture, published by the Bureau of American Ethnology in the 1920s, and David Lewis is the direct inheritor of his great-grandfather's medicine knowledge.
In Creek Indian Medicine Ways, Jordan traces the written accounts of Mvskoke religion from the eighteenth century to the present in order to historically contextualize Lewis' story and knowledge. This book is a collaboration between anthropologist and medicine man that provides a rare glimpse of a living religious tradition and its origins.
The Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake
This volume of Native myths and legends is an indispensable document in the history of North American anthropology.
... them from their lands toward the Rocky mountains ; that Tecumseh was a great general , and that nothing but his premature death defeated his grand plan ( J. Mooney The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 : p .
A Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren Among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians, from Its Commencement, in the...
The Navajo Indians
American Indian and Alaska Native Newspapers and Periodicals, 1925-1970: 1925-1970
1971-1985. - 1986
A very similar tale was told to Hewitt only a little over a hundred years ago by Iroquois informants. Fenton emphasizes the long oral tradition of this myth, which most likely is much older than we can guess.
KAREN CLARK Seneca ( 1948 – Steamburg , New York Beadworker , also creates rattles DORIAL CLARK Tuscarora / Cayuga ( 1940– ) Beadworker , wireworker , headdress worker EDUCATION : Murial Hewitt , Clark's cousin , taught her .
... ambassadors , politicians , genwith clay - caked boots , men in buckskins , moccasins , skin- erals , and senators . ning knives in their belts , weather - beaten women in calico When Timberlake , her husband , committed suicide ...