I have to write a paper, creating a character around these two facts: She was a Natve American medicine woman and she lived during the 1740's. we drew from a hat. We have to write 3 peices: a biography, a short story and a journal/narrative. i think its a really cool occupation to get, but now that i think about it, i dont know what to do with it. I was thinking of doin a Zora Neale Hurston kind of thing where i don't include any white people. BUT Because there were no white people and most American Indians had no written language, there are no historical records. Thoughts, ideas, sources? Thanks.
Pick a tribe. Many of them have quite solid oral histories. You can read a lot about medicine women without relating them to Indians. (Which is what most Indians prefer to be called as far as I can tell.) It was common, if not universal, for Neolithic societies to have female healers. Women were the ones who stayed around the camp while the men hunted. They had to solve the problems and treat the sick children. They had the pregnancies and the babies to care for. They were the gatherers so they learned about the properties of various herbs. When animal husbandry was developed, they had to treat the sick animals. So naturally women became the keepers of medical lore. For this reason women became highly respected. We'll never know but it's reasonable to think that they had more respect then than they do in some "modern" societies. When the patriarchal monotheistic Abrahamic religions began metastasizing out of the Middle East like cancer epidemics, telling people with penises that they had a god-given right to rule, one of their major concerns was destroying the respectability of women. In England that was done by calling them witches and suggesting that their wisdom was gained through consorting with evil spirits rather than the more prosaic explanation of simply being handed down through hundreds of generations of women who learned it the hard way. One of the best stories featuring a Neolithic medicine women is the first "Clan of the Cave Bear" novel by Jean Auel. Auel went out and lived by her wits in the wilderness for months as research for the story. It's set about 25,000 years too early for you, but the truths are timeless. And it's one of my top ten favorite books. There's so much more to this theme than simply the healer angle. You can do a lot with it. If your tetacher says "Native American," then by definition that includes all the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The Maya and Aztec people developed civilization including written language. Much is known about them. By the 1740s the European occupation was in full swing so anything set in Mexico or Central America would be a pretty sad story, but you could write it. Don't forget the Eskimo-Aleuts. Their territory was the last to be conquered by Europeans. In 1740 they still lived like their ancestors. Since that life persisted well into the 20th century, it is well documented including films and books written by the members of the culture themselves. You won't have much trouble finding good source material. However, I don't know much about their "medicine women" traditions. Good luck. You've got feminism, religion and culture clash to deal with here. Should be a pretty interesting endeavor.
You should also try The South American Shamsim and medicine women down there, they have a very strong foundation into religious medicines. Much like Eastern Aisa too !
