Today, medicine is an exact science.  Without precision and caution the effects of pharmaceuticals can easily turn from positive to negative.  What could possibly soothe a sore throat or cure strep throat can cause pain if made with one wrong chemical, or even taken with the wrong liquid.  As medicine becomes more and more complex, there is one thing that will stay the same.  The reason we have medicine today is because, many generations before, man found a way to use plants as a healing agent.  For example, Indian sage was used to cure “break-bone fever”, which is now known as the flu, and can now be used to remedy the common cold and rheumatism.  They created a way to cooperate with nature in order to survive.

The Lenapes had a special relationship with nature.  They respected and tried to mimic the ways of nature in order to use plants for their own purposes.  In City at the Water’s Edge, they state that American Indians “experienced and evolved with the indigenous native flora.”  Because of the relationship they developed with their environment, they knew almost everything there was to know about the indigenous herbs.  Those who knew the special properties of every single native plant had what was known as “green medicine.”  Especially skillful men and women had dreams or visions from the spirit world and became “medicine people,” which were basically healers and meditators who used herbs and medicinal brews to redeem others’ health.  They made medicine from plants, toots, bark, and herbs that they found around in their surroundings.  However, the Lenapes did not just take away from nature, they found a way to give back.

In order to live in peace with nature, the Lenapes performed many rituals before gathering certain herbs and plants.  If these rituals were not done correctly, or at all, the remedies made from these plants would not be effective.  They would first stop at the first type of plant that they needed and drop a tobacco offering in a hole that was dug east of it.  Only after they have given the offering would they pick the next plant of the same kind.  When taking bark from a tree, they would only strip bark from healthy trees and from the side facing the sun.  Although this procedure was probably more for their benefit, they used what they knew about the health of the wildlife around them to help their own health.  When herbalists were preparing a medicinal brew, they stir it counterclockwise “to simulate the direction the sun travels.”  Using patterns of nature to enhance their quality of well-being shows that the Lenapes respected it enough to learn from it.