Cherokee Plants: Their Uses - A 400 Year History

U.S.A.: Paul B. Hamel & Mary U. Chiltoskey, 1975. 1st Edition 1st Printing. Soft cover. Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. Minor edge and corner wear; lightly scuffed and scratched; spine is gently creased; some light shelf wear; overall a very crisp and clean used copy! Red and brown illustrated wrapper with red and brown lettering. 72 very clean unmarked and uncreased informative and educational pages nicely enhanced by black and white photographs and illustrations! "This book is an attempt to help complete the story of the Cherokee people, their relationship with each other and with their environment. To accomplish this we are dealing with the plants and some of the uses made of them by the Cherokee people during the past 400 years. Some of the uses have gradually passed; many of the rituals related to medicine plants and their healing have already been lost for lack of the right people to carry them forward. Indeed, some of the knowledge of one of the authors, Mary Chiltoskey, could not be shared even with the other author. Sh explains: 'As I ponder, even bemoan, the passing of the knowledge once a part of the older Cherokees' use and ritual connected with the plants about them. I am reminded of something my brother-in-law told me about some of the things practiced by his parents. This knowledge that he tried to pass on to me will have to end with me. Why? Not because I am too selfish to share it, not because I disbelieve it, but because when I try to tell someone else, it is only a collection of words put together in sentences. The meaning of each word can be understood by another but the idea cannot be communicated by me to anyone else. I know what my brother-in-law meant, but when I use the same words in the same sentences they lack some inner meaning that he gave them. So I say that this bit of knowledge must go when I go.'......" ---- from the Introduction.