Uses of wood: Medicine:
Tamarack Trees as Medicine:
A tea made from tamarack bark is used as a laxative, tonic, a diuretic for jaundice, rheumatism, and skin ailments. It is gargled for sore throats. Poultices from the inner bark are used on sores, swellings and burns, as well as for headaches. For headaches, Ojibwe crush the leaves and bark and either applied as a poultice, or placed on hot stones and the fumes inhaled (Erichsen-Brown 1979). A tea from the needles is used as an astringent, and for piles diarrhea, dysentery, and dropsy. The gum from the tamarack sap is chewed for indigestion. The sawdust from tamarack may cause dermatitis (Foster & Duke 1977).
Alma Hutchins (1973) describes some of the uses for a tea made from 1 teaspoon of the inner bark of tamarack boiled and steeped for 30 minutes in a cup full of water:
Because of its astringent and gently stimulating qualities the inner bark is especially useful for melancholy, often caused by the enlarged, slugish, hardened, condition of the liver and spleen with inactivates various other functions of the metabolism. For domestic use in emergencies, or long-standing bleeding of any kind, in lungs, stomach, bowels, or too profuse menstruation. Also for diarrhoea, rheumatism, bronchitis, asthma and poisonous insect bites. J. Kloss in ‘Back to Eden’, recommends the weak tea as an eye wash and the warm tea dropped in the ear to relieve earache. A decoction of the bark, combined with Spearmint (Mentha veridis), Juniper (Juniperus communis), Horse radish (Cochlearia armoracia), and taken in wineglassful doses has proven valuable in dropsy. (Hutchins 1973)
The Chippewa (or Ojibway/Ojibwe) word for tamarack is ‘muckigwatig’ meaning ‘swamp tree’. The bark of the tree is used for burns. For burns, the inner bark of tamarack is finely chopped and applied to the burn in the morning and partially washed off at night, then reapplied the next morning. Tamarack used for internal medicine is said to be a laxitive, tonic, diuretic and alterative. The medical constituents of tamarack are a volatile oil which contains pinene, larixine, and the ester bornylacetate (Densmore 1974).
The Potawatomi and Menomini make a heat-generating poultice from fresh inner tamarack bark for inflamation and wounds, or steeped for a medicinal tea. They also use it as a medicine for their horses, either as a tea to help Menomini horses with distemper, or shreaded inner bark mixed with oats to keep the hides of the Potawatomi horses loose (Erichsen-Brown 1979).
Cedar Trees as Medicine
Fresh Cedar boughs are used in the same way as the sacred Eagle feather; to brush off a person and to purify and cleanse. Another method is to take a Cedar bough bath by immersing your whole body under water to purify your spiritual energy.
Red Cedar is powerful, simply by standing under a cedar tree or sitting with your back against a tree will cleanse your spirit and strengthen you physically. Every part of the cedar tree is used from the roots to the boughs and is highly respected among the coastal tribes.
Jeri Sparrow, Musqueam
Cedar is considered the Tree of Life for our People of the Lil’wat Nation. Every part of the sacred tree was used: to make cedar baskets from the roots, clothing and baskets from the bark, canoes, carvings, homes and tools from the wood. The leaf (k’ama7) was used as a medicine when boiled up, and was also ground up for use as smudge in all sacred ceremonies. The branches were used to brush people off who were being bothered by spirits or sickness, etc. The branches were also used for protection when used in homes or in ceremonies.
Seis^^lom Williams, Lil’wat
Use living parts of the cedar tree including when the tree is cut down - never use parts of the tree that has died by a storm, flood or fire as the protective resins are not activated.
N. Rose Point, Musqueam.
From https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:yeHgFKImcJwJ:www.culturalcompetency.ca/downloads/aboriginal-traditional-medicine.pdf+&hl=en&gl=ca&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgvumW0LOZOzZot8yc7w-If3pXhakh6Pb-eB8JMP488hDuYR9KFWdtPquqB_WuzZz9fVh5B9qylpI9xBBn4Zx7h2-2WBgLBb--xy4u9Ccp-ouED-_EqFRcrjS58_osvpfeWvJQ0&sig=AHIEtbTsDyTRgW1NWuRjchUCiHW_tpHwdQ
Willow Tree as Medicine
Willow bark contains the same ingredients as aspirin, which is a common medicine for headaches, gets rid of pain, and keeps the blood from clotting. Indigenous groups used to chew the bark of the tree and would feel the medicinal affects long before aspirin was invented and made into a drug form.