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Sanapia, born Mary Poafpybitty (ca. 20 May 1895–23 January 1984), was a Comanche medicine woman and spiritual healer. She is believed to be the last of
eagle Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, j ...
doctors, a Comanche title referring to a person with eagle medicine for healing the sick. She was influenced by traditional Comanche medicine, incorporating elements of
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
and Peyotism.


Early life

Sanapia was born Mary Poafpybitty in spring 1895 to David Poafpybitty and Chappy Poafpybitty, both Comanche, living near Fort Sill, Oklahoma Territory. Although it has been written that she was born on May 20, 1895, she was uncertain of her actual birthdate so this date was adopted later on. She was sixth of eleven children but the first girl to be born in her family. While she was young, her family struggled to make ends meet and lived in poverty, relying on rations from nearby Fort Sill. She was raised by her maternal grandmother.


Spiritual development

Although Sanapia did not begin a career as a
medicine woman A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Individual cultures have their own names, in their respective languages, for spiritual healers and ceremo ...
until her mid-teens, from a very young age she received training from her mother and her maternal uncle, an
Arapaho The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho ba ...
chief, both of whom were eagle doctors. Although her father, David, was a Christian and indifferent to Comanche spiritual practices, he did not interfere with the religious training of his daughter. She attended Cache Creek Mission School in southern Oklahoma from the age of 7 until 14 and during the summer holidays would develop a knowledge of herbal medicines. Between the ages of 14 and 17 she received full-time training from her mother, uncle, and paternal grandfather to attain the knowledge, ethics, skills and the supernatural powers (''paha'') to become a medicine woman. The latter, attaining supernatural powers, would be achieved by transferring power through the medium of the hands and mouth, using various methods such as hot coals into her hands, two eagle feathers inserted into her mouth and the egg of an eagle into her stomach. The visionary aspects of the training were achieved through prolonged periods of solitary meditation and spiritual nurturing and intensive reiterating by her mother that evil spirits such as ghosts and demons would harm her, which terrified her. Her uncle named her "Sanapia", which means "Memory Woman".


Marriages and breakdown

After her training was completed, a marriage was arranged for her. It was an unhappy one; however, the couple did have one son. She left her first husband and married a second time, a marriage which lasted until her husband's death in the 1930s. From her second marriage, Sanapia had a son and daughter. Her second husband died when Sanapia was 35. She was overcome with grief, and she drank heavily, gambled, and was promiscuous. Then one day, Sanapia healed the sick child of her sister. This event was a spiritual reawakening, and she took it as a sign to denounce her bad ways and became a serious medicine woman.


Career as a medicine woman

Sanapia remarried around 1945, and after menopause, she began her healing practice. She began to have frequent dreams related to the peyote ritual which she believed was a gift from the Christian God to the Native American people. She healed many people using a medical kit of both botanical and non-botanical medicines, such as
sneezeweed Sneezeweed is a common name for several plants in the family Asteraceae and may refer to: *'' Achillea ptarmica'', with white flowers *'' Hymenoxys hoopesii'', with long yellow petals, native to western North America *Various species of ''Helenium ...
to treat
heart palpitation Palpitations are perceived abnormalities of the heartbeat characterized by awareness of cardiac muscle contractions in the chest, which is further characterized by the hard, fast and/or irregular beatings of the heart. Symptoms include a rap ...
s,
low blood pressure Hypotension is low blood pressure. Blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the walls of the arteries as the heart pumps out blood. Blood pressure is indicated by two numbers, the systolic blood pressure (the top number) and the di ...
and congestion, mescal bean for ear problems,
rye grass ''Lolium'' is a genus of tufted grasses in the bluegrass subfamily (Pooideae). It is often called ryegrass, but this term is sometimes used to refer to grasses in other genera. They are characterized by bunch-like growth habits. ''Lolium'' i ...
for the treatment of
cataracts A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of the eye that leads to a decrease in vision. Cataracts often develop slowly and can affect one or both eyes. Symptoms may include faded colors, blurry or double vision, halos around light, trouble w ...
, red cedar to ward off ghosts, prickly ash to treat fever;
iris Iris most often refers to: *Iris (anatomy), part of the eye *Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess * ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants * Iris (color), an ambiguous color term Iris or IRIS may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional ent ...
for colds, broomweed for dermatological ailments etc. Her most important medicine was peyote. She was only prevalent in using the body parts of dead animals such as beef fat for mouth burns, white otter fur and porcupine quills for children, fossilized bone to treat wounds and infections and even a
Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
to pray for power. During her career she was particularly adept as healing facial paralysis, now known as Bell's palsy which she believed was inflicted upon the victim by an evil ghost. Sanapia believed that the ghost throws a feather into the body of the affected patient and unless it is removed the patient will die. However, she did not believe that the ghost physically placed a feather in a body, but rather placed the essence of it within the individual to inflict pain. She would heal the victim by asking them to bathe in a stream, followed by a prayer to the eagle to help heal her patient, and
smudging Smudging, or other rites involving the burning of sacred herbs (e.g., white sage) or resins, is a ceremony practiced by some Indigenous peoples of the Americas. While it bears some resemblance to other ceremonies and rituals involving smoke (e. ...
the patient with
cedar Cedar may refer to: Trees and plants *''Cedrus'', common English name cedar, an Old-World genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae *Cedar (plant), a list of trees and plants known as cedar Places United States * Cedar, Arizona * ...
smoke. She would then chew on milkweed and place in on the part of the body which was affected by the paralysis and would then suck on the affected part of the patient's face with a cow horn to draw out the sickness. During the healing she would often obtain four or so eagle or crow feathers and fan the patient to ward off evil spirits. If the treatment was ineffective, Sanapia would pray apply peyote tea to the patient's face, head, and hands and if the patient needed her deepest powers of healing she would sing a song until she attracted the spirits to help her.


Death and legacy

Sanapia was buried in the Comanche Indian cemetery near Chandler Creek, Oklahoma. Her activities were documented by David E. Jones in ''Sanapia, Comanche Medicine Woman'', from 1967, with Sanapia's permission. She adopted Jones as her son, otherwise it would be a wrongdoing to pass down information about the traditional healing to an outsider. Sanapia's purpose was for the book to serve as a form of autobiography, to pass the knowledge which she had acquired down to the next generation and to encourage others to follow in her footsteps in being a traditional medicine woman and healer. None of her children, however, were interested enough in spiritual healing to follow in her footsteps.


Notes


Further reading

* Jones, David E. ''Sanapia: Comanche Medicine Woman.'' New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974. . *Margolis, Simeon, ed., ''Johns Hopkins Symptoms and Remedies'', Rebus, 1995. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sanapia 1895 births 1984 deaths People from Fort Sill, Oklahoma Comanche people Indigenous American traditional healers Herbalists Religious figures of the indigenous peoples of North America