Natural and Alternative Medicines:
Reconnecting and Finding Healing Paths
Eliana Bailon
Santo Domingo Pueblo
Natural and Alternative Medicines:
Reconnecting and Finding Healing Paths
Eliana Bailon
Santo Domingo Pueblo
Eliana Bailon. Personal Photo 1. July 14, 2022.
Eliana Bailon. Personal Photo 2. November 13, 2022
Research
Eliana Bailon. Personal Photo 3 September 4, 2021.
Eliana Bailon. Personal Photo 4. September 4, 2021.
In the article, How place names impact the way we see landscape, the author talks about the effects of renaming scared cites. Many cites original names came from Indigenous people. These indigeneous names gives a significance and gives a better connection to the people because of the stories and history of those places. When colonizers came they renamed most of these cultural cites, in means to erase the true meaning of them. Many tried to change the names, but were unsuccessful. Most cites were renamed to male colonizer names, which when repeated caused trauma to Native Americans.
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Marvin Tenorio. Personal Photo 5. June 26, 2020.
In this story "sharing one skin" Armstrong talks about the Okanagan people and how they define themselves. The Okanagan people identify themselves as one person, one skin. But it also means “The ones who are dream and land together”. Armstrong explains that she doesnt mean literally, but is referring to the spiritual self. In the chapter, she talks about the four beings. The physical self is being present in your body, aware of your surrounding and the connection you have with the earth. The emotional self is being aware of your emotions, this helps to build a connection with others. The Spiritual self is being open-minded to the knowledge around you and the connections you can make. Last but not least is the Thinking-intellectual self meaning that we all have our ways of thinking and learning. These teachings have helped sustain the Okanagan ways of life. It has helped them not only care for their people economically, but they care about the mental health of their people.
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In The Wonderful World Of The Willow, the author talks about Native Americans being one of the first groups to use willow for medicinal purposes as well as for natural resources. She talks about them using every part of the plant. Incorporating them into teas, baskets, brushes, arrow shafts, and beds. Willow not only provided many uses, it was also sacred. Where willow branches were used ceremonially by the Blackfoot people’s Brave Society. The next earliest group to use willow were the Egyptians. Because of the Egyptian medical text, Embers papyrus, researchers have found that they used willow medicinally. Recorded that between 3000 BCE and 1500BCE Egyptians used willow to soothe head and skin pain. There then was that transition to the commercial pharmaceutical market. The professor of pharmacy, John Buchner, said that willow was made up of Salicin. Meadowsweet flour (Spiraea ulmaria), which had also been used by Native Americans, was found to carry medicinal properties and be made up of Salicin. A German chemist named Felix Hoffmann discovered the process of making Acetylsalicylic acid. This acid is used widely by many as an anti-inflammatory drug. In 1899 the acid was renamed Aspirin by Bayer. Aspirin was then the most widely used painkiller in 1950.
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In The Original Medicinal Plant Gathers & Conservationists, the author talks about Native Americans being the first recorded knowledgeable about medicinal plants. Some of them being goldenseal, echinacea, blue cohosh, yerba santa, and cascara sagrada. Because of the migration of Europeans, Native Americans offered their knowledge to European missionaries, settlers, pioneers. It was later found out that cures for constipation, lung problems, snakebites, burns, and rheumatism were developed by Native Americans and were used very early by Western doctors. The author then mentions the native medicinal plants that were used to treat soldiers in the civil war. Plants like sassafras, partridgeberry, dogwood, tulip trees, and white oaks were used to stop bleeding, reduce infection, det broken bones and reduce fevers.
Spencer Patricio. Personal Photo 6. September 14, 2022.
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In the youtube video “ Connecting Modern Medicine to Traditional Healing: Dr. Cheo Torres at TEDxABQ”, Dr.Cheo is a man who had witness traditional healing firsthand. Growing up in a mexian household, with mexican heritage, his mother was a curandera. Curandera comes from mexican-spanish history. A word to describe people who are spiritually tied to traditions, who were chosen to be given power to heal others. He shares his experience and tells about the rituals and ceremonies he witnessed. He talked about the ritual of the seven knots. A ritual where you tie a ribbon into a circle and tie seven knots within them. With this you will put it into an empty jar and bury it. This is could be a type of ritual to help release emotion and your feelings. He also mentioned his own experience with a Curandera for his sciatica. Where they when through a series of “alternative medicines.” First being a mexican sweatlodge, then having herbal tea, then being able to relax and lay down, then having a massage. Dr. Cheo is a hopeful man, that one day “...we can create new healthcare model that will bring both traditional medicine and modern medicine together.” Growing up around this tradition, he believes the first model can come from Mexican schooling and teachings.
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In Medication-related problems in the elderly: defining the issues and identifying solutions, the author states that the elderly are at a greater risk for medical problems due to the psychological problems, the presence of multiple chronic disease/ illness, and the amount of prescribed and non prescribed pharmaceuticals they are consuming. Many concerns are around medication as people started to notice the amount of medication-related problems there are. It is estimated that in the U.S. there are 200,000 who die from medication-related problems each year. In this article, they suggest a possible solution to try and solve this issue. They suggested that the pharmacist help the patient become aware of the negative effects of the medication they are taking.
Eliana Bailon. Personal Photo 7. April 11, 2023.
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In the article, Threatened Indigenous Plants, Tara, talks about the many contributions to the loss of many Native plants. Firstly, environmental changes. She talked about the earth getting warmer and the negative effects it has on plants. Because of the fast changes, the plants are not able to adapt to the changes. Another contribution would be when European colonizers game. When they came over, they brought plants. These plants were then invasive, killing off native plants. Also with European colonization, large acres of land were cut and cleaned out for fields or pastures. These large acres were also used for industrial development. There was also the contribution of building houses and using material to cover more plants and land, reducing the amount of native plants being able to reproduce.
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In the podcast, ¨Language loss and medicinal plant knowledge¨, we hear from Rodrigo Cámara-Leret about his experience of studying 12,495 different plant species that were all used by indigenous groups in North America, northwest Amazonia, and New Guinea. While looking at these Indigenous groups they found that these plants were closely connected to the native language of each region. Camara-Leret brings up the term ¨Linguistic Uniqueness¨, explaining it to be information that is only known in a single language. And from studies he conducted, compiling information in 236 languages about the medicinal uses of plant species, more than 75% of medicinal services distinguished a medicinal plant and what it would help cure. He then talks about a discovery that the plants in these regions were not the one endanger, but instead it was the languages. In the podcast, Camara-Leret explained that having low numbers of native speakers is what contributes to language and knowledge loss. As most knowledge is passed down orally, it is almost impossible to keep this knowledge alive. Camara-Leret shed light that the United Nations has declared the next decade native languages has shown to start declining and possible even be extinct. Urging that now is the time to make change and act on these problems. They then talk about possible solutions for language loss. First being that we need more education on the history of colonization as well as cultural heritage. Indigenous groups also need to be able to access land they once had, this is important to familiarize themselves with their culture again. He also mentions the option of documenting these languages.
Action Plan
Eliana Bailon. Personal Photo 8. November 10, 2022.
For my Action Plan,, I served Indian Tea (Thelesperma Megapotamicum) and gave an informative presentation to middle school students. I talked about diseases such as diabetes, highblood pressure and kidney failure within Indigenous communities and how they´re preventable. I also talked about alternative medicines, such as Holistic Medicine, Naturopathic Medicine, therapy, acupuncture, acupressure, acudetox, and aromatherapy.
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Eliana Bailon. Personal Photo 9. March 30, 2023.
Eliana Bailon. Personal Photo 10. April 23, 2023.
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Toastie, B. “How place names impact the way we see landscape.” High Country News: Know the West, 1 May 2022, https://www.hcn.org/issues/54.5/people-places-how-place-names-impact-the-way-we-see-landscape. Accessed 27 August 2022.
Armstrong, Jeanette. “Sharing One Skin: The Okanagan Community,” in Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith (eds), The Case Against the Global Economy. San Francisco, CA, Sierra Club Books, 1996. Pp 460-470.
Vavrek, Zoe. “The Wonderful World of the Willow.” Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, 1 Aug. 2019, https://www.parksconservancy.org/article/wonderful-world-willow.
Anderson , M. Kat. “The Original Medicinal Plant Gatherers & Conservationists.” United Plant Savers, 20 Jan. 2022, https://unitedplantsavers.org/the-original-medicinal-plant-gatherers-conservationists/.
TEDxTalks, director. Connecting Modern Medicine to Traditional Healing: Dr. Cheo Torres at TEDxABQ. YouTube, YouTube, 27 Sept. 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiqrtsN9xis&t=623s. Accessed 26 Jan. 2023.
JL;, Simonson W;Feinberg. “Medication-Related Problems in the Elderly : Defining the Issues and Identifying Solutions.” Drugs & Aging, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16038571/.
Prindle, Tara. “Threatened Indigenous Plants.” NativeTech, http://www.nativetech.org/plantgath/endanger.htm.
¨Language loss and medicinal plants¨ Science Sessions Podcast from PNAS, 1 November, 2021. https://www.pnas.org/post/podcast/language-loss-and-medicinal-plant-knowledge