"Prescription sticks" begin to emerge as an Indigenous way to hold medicinal knowledge.
Date: 1850
As the U.S. policy of Indigenous disappearance continues to ramp up, Native communities in the Midwest, especially the Fox, Anishinaabe, and Potawatomi, create wooden sticks that outline the tribe's knowledge of different forms of plant medicine. Writing down this knowledge is newer for communities that have largely relied on oral traditions.
The sticks are not actually prescriptions, but this is what settlers come to call them. They are discussions outlining how plants can be used, alone or in combination with others. While many of these sticks remain in tribal communities today, quite a few are also held in museums after being seized by "collectors."