Goldenseal

Cherokee and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) · Forests of eastern North America (present-day United States); uses recorded from the 18th to the 20th century

Among the Cherokee, the bright yellow rhizome of goldenseal served both as a dye, a yellow used for fabrics, and according to some sources for basketry and body paint, and as a remedy: a digestive tonic and a wash for inflamed eyes. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) ascribed to it distinct medicinal uses, recorded notably against whooping cough, diarrhoea, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. The dual dye-medicine use is solidly attested by the ethnobotanical literature; the finer details vary from one compilation to another, and the mentions of basketry and body paint rest on less certain sources. It is from these peoples that the colonists learned these uses, well before the commercial exploitation of the plant in the 19th century.

Daniel E. Moerman, Native American Ethnobotany (1998) ; Hamel, P.B. & Chiltoskey, M.U. (1975). Cherokee Plants and Their Uses. Herald Publishing Co. (usage cherokee).

The attested fact (yellow dye, Cherokee tonic and eye wash; Iroquois medicinal uses recorded in the compilations) is distinct from the less documented details (basketry, body paint), given here with caution. None of these uses is a therapeutic recommendation: the historical mention does not amount to an indication of care. The precise nations are named, without essentialising an undifferentiated 'Native American medicine'; these knowledges, learned by the colonists, were then commercially exploited without recognition of their origin.