Healing, Spirituality and Ceremony

• 1). American Indians who lived in adobe villages and homes used herbs primarily for their healing powers. They employed the antiseptic and disinfecting properties of herbs, like sagebrush, commonly found on desert hillsides, to clean wounds and skin rashes. Additionally, they utilized the herb to make teas that alleviated stomach aches, colds and headaches. They made herb baths in which ailing people could rest. Many of the healers from Southwestern tribes traditionally excelled at setting bones and relied heavily upon the pain relieving properties of local herbs to sooth their patients.
  
  
• 2). By extension, these American Indians not only used herbs just to heal the body, but also to heal the spirit. Herbs always played a major role in the preparation of sweat lodges and other purification rituals. Members of many tribes that resided in adobe villages often went on spiritual pilgrimages, part of which includes returning to their homes with herbs from different regions, a gesture that symbolized the introduction of life energy from different parts of the world. They often used herbs in prayer as offerings, incense and prayer sticks.
  
  
• 3). The colorful nature of many herbs made them excellent decorative pieces in Pueblo, Hopi and Navajo ceremonies and celebrations. Dancers and speakers in ornate rituals decorated themselves using herbs and flowers. For example, the Pueblo Indians mixed ocher earth with mouse-leaf blossoms to paint themselves yellow. They combined crushed herbs and barberries to create a purple body paint. They found endless uses for herbs like sagebrush, sand grass and wild buckwheat to adorn themselves for traditional dances and practices aimed at pleasing their gods.