Native American Blogger

Little Running Deer writes The Ojibwa Indian “midewiwan” befriended an English couple who settled in Northern Ontario, Canada, at the turn of the century. The couple and other prospectors had come to the region hoping to get rich in the forested wilderness where the Ojibwa still lived according to traditional Native American ways. The prospector’s wife developed a hard mass in her breast. When the Ojibwa healer heard of the woman’s condition, he offered a remedy that had been passed down by “the grandfathers.” He told the woman and her husband that the remedy was “a holy drink that would purify her body and place it back in balance with the great spirit.” Skeptical, the couple traveled to Toronto where the mass was diagnosed as breast cancer. The doctors urged immediate removal of the breast. The two were afraid and had no money for the operation, so they returned to the frontier, where the Ojibwa midewiwan prepared a brew. It is the Ojibwa expression for healer or medici...