The 4/5 students continue their unit on the Iroquois, learning about Native American Medicine Bags.

You might think that a medicine bag should only be carried by a Native American Medicine Man or Healer. That was one type of medicine bag - quite large as it would contain many herbs and articles, sometimes as many as fifty items.

But there is a personal type of Medicine Bag carried by many Native Americans, including the Iroquois.  It can range in size from a small pouch to a long bag. A personal Medicine Bag was not for healing others but to maintain personal harmony - with the physical, spiritual, and supernatural. A youth might have a small Medicine Bag.  As they added experiences, they also added things to their bag, so over the years, they often needed to replace the smaller bag with one larger in size.

These bags were used to carry plants for medicine and also to hold personal items and good luck charms.

 

The 4/5 students created their own Native Americans Medicine Bags and filled them with items of importance.