North American Indians

Another tier in Warner s ideological edifice consists of a web of exegesis by which the human spectacle of Africa and the Levant seems to exist solely for the comment it offers upon the United States—upon its innate superiority as a civilization, and upon the troubling inferiority of some of its inhabitants. Observing a group of Bedouin dancers, for instance, Warner remarks that their eyes shine with animal wildness, It seems to be precisely the dance of North American Indians, he concludes. On... 

Storey, R., and R. G. Wyn Jones. Quaternary ammonium compounds in plants in relation to salt resistance. Phytochemistry 1977 16 447-453. Krag, K. J. Plants used as contraceptives by the North American Indians. An ethnobotanic study. Thesis-by-Harvard University 1976 117 pp. Duehrssen, E., and K. H. Neumann. Characterization of satellite DNA of Daucus carota L. Z Pflanzenphysiol... 

Prakash, A. O., R. B. Gupta, and R. Mathur. Effect of oral administration of forty-two indigenous plant extracts on early and late pregnancy in albino rats. Probe 1978 17(4) 315-323. Krag, K. J. Plants used as contraceptives by the North American Indians, an ethnobotanical study. Thesis BS Harvard University 196 117 pp Razzack, H. M. A. The concept of birth control in Unani medical literature. Unpublished manuscript of the author 1980 64 pp. 

One part of the tobacco story illustrates, yet again, the role of NPs in human ceremonies and ritual. The ceremonial use might be at the state level (Amerindian), the tribe level (North American Indians), the home level (the after dinner cigar taken while the women withdraw) or the person level (the individual sitting down to take a cigarette, smoke a pipe or flourishing their snuffbox with their own litde quirks). 

Catlin, G. Letters and Notes on North American Indians, JG Press North Brighton, MA, 1995 [1832], Vol.1+2. 

Paul Radin, now deceased, was at one time affiliated with the Bureau of American Ethnology and wrote many articles and books on North American Indians, including An Autobiography of a Winnebago Indian. 

Lobelia or Indian tobacco consists of the dried leaves and tops of Lobelia inflata (Campanulaceae), an annual herb from the USA and Canada. Lobelia contains about 0.2-0.4% of alkaloids, of which the piperidine derivative lobeline (Figure 6.23) is the chief constituent. Minor alkaloids identified include closely related structures, e.g. lobelanine (Figure 6.23). The North American Indians employed lobelia as an alternative or substitute for tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum Solanaceae), and it is found that lobeline stimulates nicotinic receptor sites in a similar way to nicotine, but with a weaker effect. Lobeline has been employed in preparations intended as smoking deterrents. The crude plant drug has also long been used to relieve asthma and bronchitis, though in large doses it can be quite toxic. 

As stated previously, Echinacea angustifolia roots were originally used by North American Indians to treat a variety of infections and wounds. In the late 1800s, these echinacea preparations... 

Wilson, Eva. North American Indian Designs for Artists and Craftspeople. New York Dover Publishers, 1987. 

In view of the controversy surrounding its use, the history of Lobelia is interesting. North American Indians had apparently long been acquainted... 

Goedde and Agarwal (96) list test results from 29 different populations and a total of 3248 subjects. The data can be summarized by the statements that Central Asian, East Asian, and South-East Asian populations showed deficiencies in the order of 30%. The deficiency was absent in European, Near-East, and African populations. North American Indians showed deficiency rates of 2-5%, South American Indians of 40-45%. O Dowd et al. (101) have shown that the functional enzyme deficiency in South American Indians must be due to a different mutation than the deficiency in Asians. This observation raises interesting questions regarding the biological significance of the mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase. 

Calamus has also been used by many North American Indian tribes for the relief of fatigue. In larger quantities, the root causes one to "walk a foot above the ground. Even more of the root has been used and is still used in conjunction with puberty initiatory rites. In The Hallucinogens, Hoffer and Osmond recount the experiences of "an informant well acquainted with the habits of northern Canadian Indians. He used rat root collected in northern Alberta by the Cree ... 

Pinal stage 647 8.6 North American Indian cirrhosis 665... 

Fig. 32.16 Intrahepatic cholangiodysplasia - a proposed schematic classification. (NAIC = North American Indian cirrhosis in children) (506)...

Drouin, E., Russo, R, Tucnweber, B., Mitchell, G., Rasquln-Weber, A. North American Indian cirrhosis in children a review of 30 cases. J. Pediatr. Gastroenterol. Nutr. 2000 31 395-404... 

Fig. 14. Worldwide distribution of the genetic heterogeneity of the y chain of Hb-F in the newborn. Infants of the following racial and/or ethnic groups have been studied Caucasian, Negro, Eskimo, South and North American Indian, Egyptian, Jewish, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, and New Guinean aborigines. Figures indicate glycine value.

Among some groups of North American Indians (Wasson 1979), the Dogrib Athabascan (Schultes and Flofmann 1979) and the Ojibway of northern Michigan and Ontarip (Keewaydinoquay 1978, 1979, 1998 Wasson 1979), use oi Amanita species as a sacrament dates back over four hundred years. Several tribes (Ojibway, Chippewa, Iroquois,... 

Suggestions that North American Indians may have taken Acorus calamus in a ritual context, are frequently accompanied by statements that this plant has sedative properties due to its asarone fraction. Unfortunately, such statements are based on studies with samples from India. There is considerable evidence that a substantial asarone fraction cannot be expected in diploid plants of North America, but only in triploid and tetraploid specimens of the Old World. ... 

Peschken CA Esdaile JM (2000) Systemic lupus erythematosus in North American Indians a population based study. J Rheumatol, 27(8) 1884-1891. 

Emboden W. Plant hypnotics among the North American Indians. In Hand WD, ed. American Folk Medicine A Symposium. Berkeley, CA Berkeley Press, 1976. 

Stroncek, D. F., Strand, R. D., Noreen, H. J., Kline, W. E., McGlave, P. B., Bartsch, G. E., and McCullough, J. HLA class I and II antigen phenotypes of North American Indians from Minnesota Implications for manow transplants using unrelated donors. Transfusion (Phil-adelphiam, 521-527 (1990). 

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