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Post by elhiggins on May 4, 2018 12:42:58 GMT -6
I know medicine was already primitive at the time when the battle took place, but were the natives able to treat their wounded? Lets say if a warrior was very seriously injured, would he have a chance at living? Or would he basically be a dead man living?
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Post by benteen on May 4, 2018 14:04:36 GMT -6
I know medicine was already primitive at the time when the battle took place, but were the natives able to treat their wounded? Lets say if a warrior was very seriously injured, would he have a chance at living? Or would he basically be a dead man living? Higgins, Heres another question which may be just as important. In the American military it is taught that you never leave anyone behind (whenever possible) did the Indians do it. Did they take their wounded with them. Be Well Dan
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Post by elhiggins on May 4, 2018 20:44:48 GMT -6
I think they did.
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Post by fuchs on May 5, 2018 0:30:13 GMT -6
I know medicine was already primitive at the time when the battle took place, but were the natives able to treat their wounded? Lets say if a warrior was very seriously injured, would he have a chance at living? Or would he basically be a dead man living? Higgins, Heres another question which may be just as important. In the American military it is taught that you never leave anyone behind (whenever possible) did the Indians do it. Did they take their wounded with them. Be Well Dan Some bits and pieces on those topics: I have read a least one comment from that time that would indicate a pretty marvellous capability of recovery from serious wounds. Marvellous by the standards of the time probably, but still ... This might be as well attributed to the high physical fitness of the average warrior, as well as a relatively effective care for the wounded. If you read up about Crooks handling of his wounded after Rosebud, it seems that the Indian style travois transport for wounded was considered superior to the Army system (Mule team if I remember correctly). In general it seems that there was a small ratio of wounded to dead for Indian casualties in the first place, roughly 1:1 (due to mainly fighting from cover?), and the number of people available for care would be generous, i.e. their extended families. Western medical treatment in the 19th century was just about transitioning to a really science based approach, so it probably wasn’t that much superior to what was available to an Indian. Indians removed their casualties, dead or wounded, from the battlefield, if at all possible, too. There are lots of accounts that comment on how few Indian casualties were left after a fight, if at all.
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Post by noggy on May 7, 2018 0:51:40 GMT -6
Most cultures value the act of saving one owns wounded. NAs were no exception and many American accounts tell of warriors riding through heavy fire to pick up friends wounded or who had their horses shot. Rosebud is mentioned, and is called something like "The battle where the girl saved her brother" or something by the Cheyenne due to...well, just that happening.
I know nothing about their medicine itself, but I remember one of Crooks officers mentioning how warriors seemed to survive most wounds not straight away mortal.
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Post by Moltke on Jul 9, 2018 21:11:46 GMT -6
As far as treating the more serverely wounded (or possible dead) warriors, in Gordan Harper's book "The Fights on the Little Horn", one of the accounts talked about how the burial detail noticed all kinds of ground tore up around where they assumed the Indians retrieved their dead or possibly severely wounded. Perhaps some slight evidence efforts to move them were possible. I suppose it could have been the women hauling off the clothing or materials from Custer's dead as well. Most accounts mentioning the woman from the village always seem to just reference them likely killing off (or worse things) the 7th wounded on the field, but I don't know how much truth is in that versus assumptions from whites at the time.
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Post by battledetective on Jul 11, 2018 9:42:10 GMT -6
Apart from surgical procedures, I don't think there were big differences among Natives and European-Am in their ability to treat the wounded. Despite the great progress of science in the XIX century, the state of medicine was still quite dismal in the 1870s. In particularly the role of microorganisms in infections was still largely unknown, so anti-septing conditions, or even sometimes basic hygiene, were largely ignored when treating the wounded. After president Garfield was shot in 1881, physicians probed his wound with unsterilized fingers (one even punctured his liver while doing so) causing the enlargement of the wound and likely contributing to the onset of blood poisoning. I think the Indians would most likely have treated the wounded with herbal concoctions and poultices. Since in nature various substances may be colonized by penicillium and other molds with antibiotic properties, I would not be surprised if Natives were marginally more effective than whites in preventing infection and gangrene. Apart from that, they would have provided psychological support in the form of shamanistic rituals and chants, which may have had a bigger effect than many ppl assume.
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Post by alquedahunter on Oct 10, 2018 8:25:19 GMT -6
From what I gather the Kiowas relied greatly to the point of dying for the TEN GRANDMOTHERS.A bag of high meds guess you could say.Only certain Kiowas could even keep it safe. Possible that the Sioux had such a thing also, and the use or presence of it during healing is documented( the GRANDMOTHERS) on Kiowa pics and is known, at least mentally, to be really really helpful. So BDetective is on to something I suspect. If I was going and all I could get was a Bible or dope, prolly go with a Bible. Maybe.
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