Although in many tribes the shaman, or medicine man, acted as ceremonial priest or seer, in others his major duty was to be on call to treat any Indian who got sick. In his role as healer, the medicine man carried a bag of secret conjures and talismans to drive away the evil spirits and rid the patient's body of bad medicine. Among the tools of his medical trade, used to the accompaniment of chants, were dried fingers, deer tails, drums, rattles and a tiny sack of curative herbs (below).
There was often a genuine physical cure in the herbs. The Dakotas actually relieved asthma with the powdered roots of skunk cabbage, and the Kiowas stopped dandruff with a plant called soaproot. When nauseated, Cheyennes drank a tonic of boiled wild mint, while the Crees chewed the tiny cones of spruce trees to soothe a sore throat.
Some of the Indians' herbal cures were of dubious value; the Hopis, for example, believed that the milky juice of the bedstraw milkweed promoted the secretion of milk in nursing mothers. Yet many a white frontiersman, like the Indians themselves, owed his life to a medicine man's cure. A Cheyenne saved William Bent from choking to death of a throat inflammation by snagging and removing the infected membrane with a hunk of sinew strung with sandburs and buffalo tallow. And in 1834 Prince Maximilian, who was dying of scurvy at Fort Clark, was cured by the Indian remedy―eating the raw bulbs of wild garlic. In recognition of such effective medicine, eventually the authoritative U.S. Pharmacopeia and the National Formulary officially accepted 170 Indian drugs (including skunk cabbage, mint, yarrow and Indian turnip) for their intrinsic medicinal value.
Black Nightshade Indian Turnip Yarrow
Comanches used the Black Nightshade for a TB remedy; Pawnees used the Indian Turnip for a headache powder; Utes used the Yarrow as a salve for cuts and bruises.