Spirit Medicine: Native American Uses of Common Everlasting (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium) in Eastern North America

Abstract

Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium (L.) (= Gnaphalium obtusifolium L.) is an important plant used in the practice of traditional medicine among many Native American groups in eastern North America. This essay documents use of this plant among the Yuchi, an American Indian people from the Southeast now residing in eastern Oklahoma. This use is contextualized within a survey of published and unpublished sources on the plant as utilized by other peoples in the Eastern Woodlands. This survey finds several clusters of practices and beliefs that are widely held across the region. Viewed more broadly, these findings suggest the value of a comparative study of American Indian ethnobotany and the place such study might have for reassessing anthropological understandings of American Indian life throughout the region and general models of regional social patterning. As a preliminary test case in the comparative ethnobotany of eastern North America, the study of P. obtusifolium contradicts previous findings that have suggested that the pharmacopoeia of individual groups tended to be unique.