Native American Herbs for Healing (7 Plants and the Nations That Used Them)

Native American herbs for healing were never one list. Each nation worked with the plants in its own country. The Kiowa chewed roots on the southern Plains, Cahuilla families gathered sage in the hills of Southern California, and the Zuni and Diné dug a celery-scented root high on the Colorado Plateau. Most of what we know comes from three kinds of record: tribal knowledge shared with ethnobotanists (collected in Daniel Moerman's Native American Ethnobotany database), USDA plant guides, and the field journals of travelers such as Lewis and Clark.

Every one of these Native American herbal remedies is told below as history, credited to the people who practiced it and the source that wrote it down.

White sage (Salvia apiana)

White sage grows in the coastal sage scrub of Southern California and Baja California. The USDA plant guide for the species records that Diegueño people drank white sage tea for colds and washed their hair with the leaves. Cahuilla women drank an infusion of the root after childbirth, and Cahuilla hunters rubbed crushed leaves on their bodies before a hunt to cover their scent.

Today the plant is best known for the smoke. Many nations burn bundles of dried leaves in purification ceremonies.

Yarrow, from the Pawnee to the Cherokee

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) grows across most of North America, which is why so many nations have a record for it. The USDA plant guide lists three. The Pawnee used the stalk for pain. The Chippewa put the leaves in a steam they breathed for headaches. The Cherokee drank yarrow tea for fever and for a restful night.

Echinacea, the root Lewis sent back east

Purple coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia) has one of the longest written records of any Plains plant. The USDA plant guide names ten nations that used it. The Kiowa chewed the root for coughs and sore throats. The Omaha, Ponca, Pawnee and Teton Sioux held it against a toothache. The Cheyenne used it for sore necks and backs, and Lakota people ate the root when they were thirsty or sweating hard.

Lewis and Clark met the plant at Fort Mandan in December 1804, when trader Hugh Heney gave it to them as a remedy for a "mad dog" bite. In March 1805 Lewis described it in a letter to Thomas Jefferson and shipped a few pounds of root to Philadelphia.

Sweetgrass

Sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata) smells of vanilla when it dries. The USDA plant guide lists at least ten nations, including the Omaha, Lakota, Blackfeet and Cheyenne, who braided the stems and burned them so the smoke would carry prayers. Blackfeet families kept braids among their clothes as a sachet and brewed the grass into a tea for coughs and sore throats. Chippewa, Mohawk and Penobscot weavers coiled it into baskets.

Is mullein a Native American plant?

Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) came to North America with Europeans in the mid-1700s, and Native nations soon put it to use. The Creek boiled the root for coughs. Catawba families made a sweet root syrup for children. The Potawatomi, Mohegan and Penobscot smoked the dried leaves, and Abnaki mothers hung root necklaces on teething babies.

Bearberry, smoked as kinnikinnick

Kinnikinnick is a Delaware (Algonquian) word for "mixture." It named the smoking blends built on bearberry leaves (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi). Blackfeet people made salves from the leaves and berries for skin sores, and the Cheyenne used it for sore backs. In December 1805 at Fort Clatsop, Clark sent two men to gather the leaves to stretch the expedition's tobacco. He wrote that it had "an agreeable flavour."

Why osha closes any list of Native American herbs for healing

Osha (Ligusticum porteri) is a member of the carrot and parsley family that grows between about 1,500 and 3,500 m, in the high mountains of the Rockies and south into northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Most of its stories start with a bear.

Bear medicine

The Lakota word for osha is mato tapejuta, "the bear's medicine," according to Natasha Myhal's 2017 University of Kansas thesis on osha ethnobotany. The Diné credit the bear with giving them the plant. Ethnobotanist Shawn Sigstedt, who lived and studied with the Diné, tested the story with captive bears. Kodiak bears chewed the root, spat it out and scratched the mash into their fur, and in Colorado Springs a brown bear named Ma spread chewed root across her shoulders and chest.

Zuni, Rarámuri and Comanche records

The Zuni call the root kwimi dechi, "smelly root." Camazine and Bye recorded in 1980 that they used it for sore throats and body aches and chewed it during curing ceremonies. Across the border in Chihuahua, the Rarámuri call the plant wasía and brew the root as a tea for stomach pain and fever. Sanapia, a Comanche medicine woman interviewed in 1972, described boiling the root into a broth for pneumonia. New Mexico's Hispanic ranchers know it as chuchupate.

A bundle 400 to 600 years old

In the 1980s, Margaret and Bryce Patterson found a leather-wrapped bundle under a rock ledge in southeastern Utah. Carbon dating put the leather at roughly 400 to 600 years old, before European contact. Inside, herbalist Merry Lycett Harrison identified an osha root crown alongside pleurisy root and balsam root (HerbalGram, issue 55, 2002). You can read more of the plant's background in our complete guide to osha root.

Bear Root, osha as a daily ritual

Bear Root is Mara's osha root tincture, made from Ligusticum porteri, a mountain plant of Northern Mexico. It comes in a 50 ml dark Miron glass dropper bottle. The taste is earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite from the root.

Most people take 1 to 2 droppers a day. Some hold it under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds and swallow. Others stir it into a morning tea, an evening tea, or the water bottle they carry on a hike or a run. A bottle lasts 30 to 50 days at that rate, so it fits into an ordinary week at any time of year.

Tincture or dried root?

The tincture is the practical way to keep osha in your day. United Plant Savers lists osha as At-Risk, and almost every root on the market is wild-dug, often from plants more than 10 years old, because the species is so hard to cultivate. In the wild it looks like poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), a toxic plant, so digging it is work for experienced harvesters only.

A tincture is ready to use the day it arrives, with nothing to grind, weigh or simmer, and dark Miron glass keeps light off the extract. Dark amber glass is a step in the right direction, and Miron is the gold standard. If you want to see how the names line up, read why bear root and osha root are the same plant.

Bear Root considerations

Bear Root's product page carries this recommendation. "Contains alcohol. Not recommended during pregnancy. If you're nursing or taking medication, ask your doctor before using it."

Questions people ask

Which Native American medicinal plants were used most?

Yarrow, echinacea, sweetgrass, white sage and osha appear in the records of many nations, each used differently by region.

What is the Native American name for osha?

There are several. The Lakota call it mato tapejuta (bear's medicine), the Zuni kwimi dechi (smelly root), and the Rarámuri wasía.

Where can I read about Native American medicinal remedies?

Daniel Moerman's Native American Ethnobotany is the largest collection, organized by plant and by nation. USDA plant guides summarize the records for individual species.

Is bear root the same as osha?

Yes. Bear root is a common name for osha, Ligusticum porteri, taken from the stories of bears digging and chewing the root.