Native American Medicine

Children's Literature

This volume is part of the "Native American Life" series, which seeks to dispel common misrepresentations of Native Americans. The senior consulting editor, Dr. Troy Johnson, describes the goals of the series in an introduction. Five chapters present information concerning: the role of medicine men, the Native American philosophy of medicine, types of healers, medicinal plants and other healing methods like sweat lodges and dance. The use of many inserts, sidebars, color photos and drawings mixed with a moderate amount of text help give the book an appealing, reader-friendly appearance. The conversational text is unusually lively, with second-person questions and dramatic anecdotes beginning and throughout each chapter. The tone of the writing is respectful, and the author carefully avoids portraying Native American practices as strange or negative. Ethno-botanist, Kevin Jernigan, finds the information presented as fairly accurate, although there is a probably unavoidable tendency toward over-generalization because of the wide scope of the book, which is all of North and South America. In spite of this flaw, the book should be useful for student research and browsing. A chronology, glossary, index, bibliography and Internet resources list are included. 2003, Mason Crest Publishers,
— Gisela Jernigan