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OMA Winter 2015 Magazine

MEDICAL HISTORY When Doctoring Turned to White Man’s Medicine A Brief History of Health Care Among Oregon’s Native Americans By David G. Lewis, PhD, Tribal Historian, Anthropologist, Archivist, Ethno-historian, Educator HEALTH CARE AMONG THE NATIVE PEOPLES OF OREGON has changed considerably in 160 years. Until 1856, before reservations, Native Americans had their own traditional medicine and “Indian doctors.” Indian medicine consisted largely of medicinal plants that grew in the region. Indian women and men knew which plants to use for various illnesses, when to gather them, and how to prepare them. In addition to herbal treatments, Indian doctors, or Shamans, were spiritually sensitive individuals who had gained special powers through religious ceremony. Healing rituals were thought to “suck” the bad spirits out of the afflicted person. Beginning in the 1780s, Euro-Americans introduced diseases unknown to the Indian population, with devastating results. Waves of epidemics, including malaria, influenza, and smallpox, killed many thousands in the region, seemingly overnight. By 1850, disease had claimed an estimated 90–95% of the native population. The best records that exist, from 1830 to 1850, are by David Douglas and other explorers who witnessed empty and abandoned villages of degraded tribal nations. Indian doctors and traditional medicines provided no defense from these introduced diseases. Tribes along the Columbia Grand Ronde Catholic Mission School students standing in front of Blockhouse circa 1890. Courtesy Oregon Historical Society Chemawa Hospital Ward, 1937 Courtesy Grand Ronde Tribe Indian doctors, or Shamans, were spiritually sensitive individuals who had gained special powers through religious ceremony. Healing rituals were thought to “suck” the bad spirits out of the afflicted person. Doctor’s headquarters on the Grand Ronde Reservation, circa 1936. Courtesy Grand Ronde Tribe 30 Medicine in Oregon www.theOMA.org


OMA Winter 2015 Magazine
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