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HARDWOOD FOREST The Power of Herbs Herbs have secret powers that can not be revealed only through experiments. In some cases, knowledge of their properties was derived from stories, dreams and revelations. In Huron-Wendat tradition, remedies were handed down by a mythical bear. An Iroquoian variant of the story credits the Bear clan as the source of herbal knowledge. The fact that medicinal plants are often referred to as grandfathers by some Iroquoian tribes is not really surprising, because the Aboriginal people often refer to the bear in this way. The First Nations pharmacopoeia is sometimes complex, as is the task of gathering herbs. The Malecite and Micmac gather plants, beginning with the exposed part, at dawn, when the power conferred by the sun is judged to be at its height. The Micmac make a remedy composed of seven mixtures each containing seven different plants, since the number seven is a key symbol in their cosmology. Wild ginger, witch-hazel, maidenhair fern, toothwort, bloodroot and Indian hemp are just some of the plants with beneficial properties used in medicine for their healing effects, in dye-work for their various colors, and in weaving, such as Indian hemp that used to be collected and spun by Huron-Wendat women.

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