Review of Creek Indian Medicine Ways: The Enduring Power of Mvskoke Religion By David Lewis, Jr. and Ann T. Jordan

Authors

Susan A. Miller, Arizona State University

Date of this Version

Fall 2004

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Research Vol. 14, No. 2, 2004. Copyright © 2004 The Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Used by permission.

Abstract

This collaborative work by Mvskoke (Creek) medicine man David Lewis Jr. and Euro-American anthropologist Ann T. Jordan focuses on the heles-hayv tradition of medicine that Lewis's family has kept for generations through the forced relocation from the Southeast to the eastern margins of the southern Great Plains. Lewis's first-person narrative occupies the heart of the book: chapters titled "Kinds of Medicine People," "Selection of Medicine People," and "Memories of Childhood in a Medicine Family"; a chapter on the sacred story encoding much of the tradition's essential knowledge; chapters on vegetal pharmacopoeia, medical practices, and ceremonies; and a chapter titled "The Unseen Powers of Traditional Medicine." Preceding the narrative are a prologue by Lewis and a meaty preface, a tribal history, and a Lewis Family history, all coauthored. Following Lewis's narrative are three appendixes by Jordan: one tracing the ethnography and historiography of Mvskoke medicine, one comparing Lewis's narrative to written sources, and a diagram of Lewis's genealogy.