They Knew Both Sides of Medicine: Cree Tales of Curing and Cursing

John Steckley teaches in the Human Studies Program at Humber College in
Toronto. He is the author of Beyond Their Years: Five Native Women's
Stories.

They Knew Both Sides of Medicine is yet another successful Plains Cree
language/oral tradition collaboration between H.C. Wolfart and Freda
Ahenakew. This time elder Alice Ahenakew reminisces about her eventful
life in 12 texts (with Cree on one page and English on the facing page).
The book also includes an introduction, concluding comments and notes,
and an extensive Cree–English and English–Cree glossary that can
teach the observant reader much about the structure of the Cree
language.

The texts shed much light on important aspects of traditional Cree
religious culture: curses, medicines visions, windigo, the tracking
ceremony, and a rare Cree reference to the Midewewin. The reader also
learns how Andrew Ahenakew, Alice’s husband, when he was an Anglican
lay reader and priest, handled having a vision of bear medicine that he
would later use to make remedies to cure people. Finally, the book is of
value in giving us another chapter in the story of the prominent Plains
Cree family that includes Poundmaker (the Cree chief who was adopted
into the Blackfoot and whose followers took part in the North-West
Rebellion, after which he was imprisoned), the prolific
writer/storyteller Edward Ahenakew, and author Alice Ahenakew.

The weakest parts of the book are Wolfart’s introductory “Case
Histories of Living Practice” and his concluding “Comments and
Notes.” Both sections (especially the latter) are awkwardly written,
and the use of unexplained, esoteric terminology will discourage all but
the specialist. Still, these are relatively minor flaws in an important
work.