Folk Medicine of the Delaware & Related Algonkian Indians

Folk Medicine of the Delaware and Related Algonkian Indians by Gladys Tantaquidgeon is a remarkable and deeply respectful study of Indigenous healing traditions - a bridge between scientific ethnography and living spiritual practice. First published in 1942 by the Bureau of American Ethnology, this landmark work records the herbal knowledge, healing rituals, and cosmological principles of the Delaware (Lenape) and kindred Algonkian-speaking peoples of the Eastern Woodlands.A Mohegan medicine woman and anthropologist, Tantaquidgeon approached her work not as an outsider but as a cultural insider - preserving traditions through direct transmission from tribal elders, healers, and herbalists. She details the use of plants for ailments ranging from wounds and fevers to spiritual imbalances, showing how health among the Delaware was seen as harmony between body, mind, and spirit. Beyond pharmacology, the book reveals a world where healing was inseparable from story, ceremony, and the moral order of the natural world.Written with scientific precision yet profound cultural sensitivity, Folk Medicine of the Delaware and Related Algonkian Indians stands as one of the earliest ethnobotanical works authored by a Native scholar. Tantaquidgeon's voice is both scholarly and spiritual, preserving a legacy that has continued to inform both Indigenous revitalization and modern holistic medicine.For readers of anthropology, herbal medicine, and Native studies, this book remains a vital classic - a testament to Indigenous knowledge systems grounded in balance, reverence, and the deep wisdom of the earth.