Navajo Medicinal Herbs (Osha, Sagebrush, Juniper and More)

The Diné (Navajo) have one of the largest plant medicine traditions in North America. Navajo medicinal herbs number roughly 450 species in the written record, more than any other tribe on the list, and the best of that record comes from Diné people who sat with researchers and named what each plant was for. One of those plants is osha, the root the Diné say they learned about from the bear.

Where the record of Navajo medicinal herbs comes from

Three books carry most of it. Francis Elmore's Ethnobotany of the Navajo came out in 1944. Leland Wyman and Stuart Harris published The Ethnobotany of the Kayenta Navaho in 1951. A year later Paul Vestal, working out of Harvard's Peabody Museum, published Ethnobotany of the Ramah Navaho, built from about 3,500 interviews with 56 people in the Ramah community of western New Mexico. Daniel Moerman later folded these sources into his Native American Ethnobotany database, which is where most modern lists start.

In Diné practice, plants sit inside a bigger idea of health called hózhǫ́, usually translated as harmony or balance. A hataałii (a singer, or medicine person) gathers plants for ceremonies such as the Blessingway and the nine-day Night Way. For small complaints, families gathered plants themselves.

Navajo herbs and plants with recorded uses

Big sagebrush

Artemisia tridentata covers huge stretches of the Navajo Nation. Margarita Kay's Healing with Plants (1996) records Navajo use of it for colds and fever and in ceremonies. Ramah families, per the Moerman records, used it for what they called "big cough", and Gregory Tilford records it vaporized for headaches.

Juniper and juniper ash

Juniper turns up in Diné kitchens as much as in medicine. Branches are burned and the ash is stirred into blue corn mush. NPR reported in 2017 that Daniel Begay, a Navajo graduate student at Northern Arizona University, had tested 27 juniper samples from across the reservation and measured 280 to 300 mg of calcium per gram of ash, about what a glass of milk holds.

Navajo tea (Thelesperma megapotamicum)

Also called greenthread or Hopi tea. The Navajo brew the dried stems as a tea and use the plant for a yellow dye, according to the BRIT Native American Ethnobotany Database. Wyman and Harris (1951) record Kayenta families boiling it with juniper berries, piñon buds and cornmeal for ceremonial use. It grows from the plains up to about 9,000 feet.

Yucca

Yucca root makes a soapy lather. At a Kinaaldá, the Diné coming-of-age ceremony for girls, the women wash the young woman's hair and skin with yucca root. Arizona Highways described one such ceremony in its March 1995 issue, down to the woman chopping chunks of root from the base of the plant "for the bath."

Yarrow

Vestal (1952) records the Ramah Navajo taking western yarrow (Achillea millefolium) as a ceremonial emetic.

Osha, the medicine the Diné credit to the bear

Osha (Ligusticum porteri) is a tall member of the carrot and parsley family that grows between about 1,500 and 3,500 metres. The Diné story, recorded by Newton and Wolfe in 1992, is that their knowledge of the root came from watching bears. After hibernation, bears dig the root, chew it and rub the chewed mash into their fur. The ethnobotanist Shawn Sigstedt of Colorado Mountain College later put osha roots in with captive bears and watched them do the same thing.

Diné botanist Arnold Clifford described several uses to researcher Natasha Myhal, whose 2017 University of Kansas thesis sets them out. People sucked on the root for a gravelly voice (singers at powwows in particular) and for colds. It was used for toothaches. The root was also powdered, mixed with water and put around hogans, shade houses and sheep corrals to keep snakes away from the places people lived.

Clifford also described a habit that says a lot about how carefully the root was gathered. Diné collectors left bear root growing along waterways alone, because poison hemlock grew near the water and the two look alike.

Osha was known across the region. The Zuni used it for sore throats and body aches, the Lakota call it mato tapejuta (bear medicine), and the Rarámuri of Northern Mexico brewed it as a tea. For the full plant profile, our guide to osha root covers chemistry, range and history in one place.

How people take osha now

Today osha is mostly sold as a tincture, which is an alcohol extract of the root. The reasons to choose the extract over a bag of dried root are practical ones.

• Osha looks like poison hemlock, and the Diné themselves steered clear of stands where the two might mix. A finished extract takes that guesswork away.
• United Plant Savers lists osha as "At-Risk". Almost all of it is wild-harvested, and plants are often more than 10 years old when dug.
• A dropper is the same dose every time. Pieces of root vary in size and strength.
• It's ready in seconds. Nothing to grind or steep.

Bear Root is our osha root tincture, made from Ligusticum porteri, a mountain plant of Northern Mexico. Most people take 1 to 2 droppers a day. Hold it under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds and swallow, or stir it into a morning or evening tea. Some keep the bottle in a pack and add a dropper to a water bottle after a hike. The taste is earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite from the root. A bottle lasts 30 to 50 days.

Glass matters for any extract stored on a shelf for weeks. Dark amber glass is a step in the right direction. The gold standard is dark Miron glass, which keeps light off the liquid, and it's what Bear Root comes in. If the names confuse you, bear root and osha root are the same plant.

These plants belong to Diné knowledge first

Navajo traditional herbs are part of a living practice, with singers and herbalists still working on the Navajo Nation. Clifford's view, quoted in the Myhal thesis, is that Native people should have first right to these plants. The same thesis, citing Kelly Kindscher (2016), records people caught on Forest Service land with a truckload of wild osha dug to sell, which is the kind of harvest that put the plant on the At-Risk list.

Bear Root considerations

Contains alcohol. Not recommended during pregnancy. If you're nursing or taking medication, ask your doctor before using it.

Questions people ask

What herbs did the Navajo use for medicine?

The written record lists about 450 species. Well-documented ones include big sagebrush, juniper, Navajo tea, yucca, yarrow and osha, recorded by Elmore (1944), Wyman and Harris (1951) and Vestal (1952).

Did the Navajo use osha root?

Yes. Diné botanist Arnold Clifford, quoted in Natasha Myhal's 2017 thesis, describes the root used for a gravelly voice, colds and toothaches, and powdered around homes to keep snakes away.

What is Navajo tea made from?

Navajo tea is the dried stems of Thelesperma megapotamicum, also called greenthread or Hopi tea. The Navajo also use it for a yellow dye.

Can you pick osha in the wild?

Only experts should try, because osha looks like poison hemlock and United Plant Savers lists it as At-Risk. A finished extract such as Bear Root skips both problems.