The second he walked in the door, Mad Bear proposed a bout of chess, a game he was always mad to play. He wouldn’t listen to a word Michael said. They got through a diffident game or two, with Mike, in agony, barely moving the pieces. “Boy, you’re not yourself today,” said Mad Bear. “You’re lucky we don’t have money on this.”
Mike stormed for the door, bent on heading to the emergency room. “Oh, about that hand of yours. . . .” Mad Bear said. He gave careful directions about finding the right cattail, tracking its root under the muck, pulling it up just right, and peeling and cutting a few small pieces. Only an inch or so was needed. He told Michael how to prepare the root as a poultice and apply it to the injured digit.
Not more than a day or so later, the thumb was supple, painless, and infection-free. Mike was sure that conventional medicine would have had him splinted and stitched for weeks, with no certainty the wound would heal better.
The Okra Potion
Simple readings taught Mad Bear quite a bit about other people. Sitting by someone and looking into his cup with its tobacco gave him a window into private moments. Western New York has many long-settled ethnic communities, and through his readings Mad Bear came to know and appreciate their rich and varied folk cultures.
A German-American woman in her nineties came to see Mad Bear for a consultation that turned into a quick friendship. Mike Bastine was working around the house at the time and could hear the two of them laughing. At one point, Mad Bear looked up from his cup and confided to the woman a little secret about herself.
“When you make meatloaf, you always grab a bit of raw meat and eat a little before you bake it, don’t you?” Their eyes met. She nodded.
“You do that with everything else you bake, too, don’t you? Whether it’s batter, cookie dough. . . . It’s a little custom with you. No one sees you, you’ve done it all your life, but it’s your little private ritual between you and the things you make for the people you love. You really like that, too, don’t you—getting in a little bite before everyone else?” The two of them shared another laugh.
The woman had come for a simple reading with Mad Bear, but he spotted something else. She admitted that she had a bowel obstruction and was scheduled for surgery in two weeks.
Mad Bear gave her a recipe for something that might make her feel better. It was a spicy vegetarian stew whose main ingredients were okra and tomatoes. He told her to have a bit of it three times a day and to be sure to finish the pot. “Mike, you know the recipe,” he called to his student in the doorway. “Write it down for her on the way out.”
In a week or so, she felt completely better. At the insistence of her family, she went in for the operation, but the doctors scanned her beforehand and couldn’t find the obstruction. They sent her home without opening her up.
A Gift with a Return
Things have a way of “happening” for medicine people. In the 1990s, the Tuscarora healer Ted Williams spoke at a conference in Australia. Some VIPs—conspicuouslatecomers to the event—were on hand, seemingly just to make the scene. After a couple of days, the social climate was getting to Ted. “I was afraid I might have to meet a bigwig,” he said.
He was also starting to worry that he would spend all his time in a city building and be back on the plane before he had gifts for his kids. He snuck outside the venue and visited with some Native Australians selling their wares. One of them displayed an expensive, beautiful boomerang to which Ted came back again and again, debating whether or not to buy it. A little while after he bought it, he saw Red Earth Woman, a fellow conference speaker, look at it so admiringly that he knew he had to give it to her. This was the Iroquois custom. The spirits told him to, anyway.
A few days later, Ted made a break and traveled to the countryside, where he got to know a family of Native Australians. They fell to comparing ancient songs and rituals, and one night after dinner, they showed each other a couple of dances by a big fire in the open bush. Ted’s hosts were fascinated by his Tuscarora moves, and they kept him at it a long time. When he left, they gave him a gift: a box with ten lovely boomerangs, each as wondrous as the one he’d given away. Surely, Spirit had a hand in this.
Tricks . . .
Joe Anderson—the tobacco tycoon—may not think of himself as a medicine person, but enough of them run in his family. He may have a natural aptitude for the work.
When Joe was a boy, he used to talk about wanting power and success. He dreamed of no less than the financial empire he has achieved. No one encouraged him, and there was no reason to think it was more than a kid mouthing off.
When Joe and his friends were long-haired
