Who’s more advanced?
Don Coldsmith
Originally published 01:03 p.m., February 11, 2008
Updated 01:03 p.m., February 11, 2008
We've all heard the story of the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving and how the natives taught them to plant corn and a few other customs to help them to survive.
Unfortunately, nearly every story of early Indian contact after that became a story of conflict. The same culture involved in the highly scientific cultivation of corn, for instance, is made to seem ignorant and uncivilized and dangerous. Somehow, to steal from and belittle an “uncivilized” culture is more acceptable.
I’ve written before about that part and that the native agriculture was centuries more advanced than that of the “civilized” sciences. In medicine, too — European physicians could “bleed” or “purge” a patient, and were skilled in the use of poisons and beheading political rivals, but had very meager knowledge of “helpful” medicine of any sort.
American Indian civilizations, on the contrary, were treating such things as congestive heart failure, pneumonia and a host of other ailments.
Even in language, there were some native tongues far more useful in communication than any of the European languages. Hand signs enabled communication between dozens of cultures which remained a mystery to Europeans.
The term “Medicine Man” is very significant, revealing the true function of the holy man. He (or she) served the purpose of several professionals in one. Such a person was an advisor, religious educator, psychologist, physician and politician. They used many plant and mineral sources for treatment. A great many frontier physicians depended on Indian medicine, at least partly.
One licensed physician, practicing in an area near the Kansas-Missouri line, was threatened with the loss of his license if he continued to feed his patients “garbage” in the treatment of pneumonia: A loaf of moldy bread two or three times a day. The licensed-properly physicians seemed to overlook the fact that his patients recovered, while theirs were dying.
It was another century before a mold called “pennicillium” was found to kill the organisms that were involved in pneumonia and other infections.
In more recent times, there was a serious problem in the desert southwest a few years ago. The “hanta virus” was often fatal and they could not determine how it was transmitted. After years of study, it was found to be carried by a flea which lives and breeds on a native desert rat found in and under the houses on the reservation.
As a matter of custom as well as practicality the government physicians notified the native medicine men that they had found the cause. The answer was totally unexpected: “Yes, that’s a bad one, isn’t it? It’s carried by rats, you know. That’s why our people burn the house when there’s been a death from that one — “ It had been a common custom for centuries.
I understand that now, on the medical staff at the government hospitals in the area, there are native medicine men as consultants.
We have to wonder — How is it that with such advanced sciences (and possibly, theology, too), it was relatively easy to virtually destroy such a broad and complicated culture in a few generations?
One thing the native people did not have: The horse. Their beast of burden was the dog and dogs are not big enough to carry a warrior into battle. All other continents had larger animals and made good use of them.
When the American natives acquired the horse, it was a complete change in their cultures, which numbered several hundred different tribal cultures.
I can’t help but wonder — if they had had such a beast as the horse a few centuries earlier, what might our world have been like now?
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.
create (anonymous) says...
I remember reading in the journal of one of the Spanish conquistadores about another medical "miracle" taught to them by the natives. Heating a stick in a campfire and applying it to an infected wound, or cauterization, is something the Spanish had never heard of.
As usual, Don, an interesting column.
February 11, 2008 at 3:50 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
kansasgirl (anonymous) says...
Yes, I enjoyed your column today as well. Just another example of what we don't understand we are scared of and try to destroy. Thanks for the information.
February 11, 2008 at 5:38 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )