Once again the NPS are the baddest bitches
Disclaimer: do not try this at home!
For anyone needing an abortion in a state where they are not allowed, there may be herbalists in your area who may be able to work with you, I don’t know. Just remember that all medication, even natural ones, can be dangerous and should be administered by someone properly trained in their field.
My kids and I had an opportunity to join a friend at their campsite at Yosemite this week. And there's so much to say about Yosemite of course but this is the thing I wanted to share with you all.
We visited the museum which I hadn't seen since I was a kid and which educates on the indigenous Miwok people who lived in the valley before colonizers came. The museum showed various buildings they made and talked about native plants and how the Miwok used them, including how they would use mistletoe medicinally, including how they used it for abortions.
Image text below.
Two things about this:
Abortions have always existed and always will. The indigenous people of Yosemite Valley had been working with mistletoe long enough to know how to use a poisonous plant as medicine (and yes, abortion is medicine) which indicates that this was viewed as a normal and necessary part of life and medicine.
The casual way the museum throws that information out in a museum designed to educate all ages is, frankly, subversive and I am fucking here for it.
We should all be following these examples. Remember that abortion is a necessary medicine that has always existed and it always will. We cannot outlaw abortions, we can only outlaw safe ones. And speak about it casually. Normalize it. It should not BE subversive to speak plainly and openly about something that has been an integral part of human existence since the beginning of human existence. Let's make it normal.
Image text:
MISTLETOE
Phoradendron
villosum tintikla (Southern Miwok)
tintila (Central Miwok)
High above you in the black oak are bunches of dark green growth- this is mistletoe. Miwok people cut the root ball (from which the mistletoe grows) from the tree and carved it into a ball. The ball was used to play a rough game similar to field hockey.
Mistletoe leaves and berries are poisonous, yet Miwok people picked mistletoe leaves, boiled them and drank the resulting tea as a treatment for rheumatism, epilepsy, hysteria and other nervous conditions, and to induce abortions.
Mistletoe has seldom, if ever, been used in recent times by local Native Americans for any of these purposes. Today, many local Indian people (like non-Indians) only use mistletoe to decorate their homes during the Christmas season.
