20 Native American Inventions That The Modern World Probably Couldn’t Live Without
Human beings have inhabited the Americas for tens of thousands of years. And long before Europeans colonized the region, it was home to indigenous people who had developed their own practices and technologies there. In fact, the Native Americans were responsible for many innovations that have left an impact on modern life today. So here’s a look at just some of them.
20. Pain relief
If we were to feel a headache coming on, nowadays we’d likely just run to the drugstore for some aspirin. However, things weren’t always quite so convenient. People once had to get a lot more creative in their efforts to relieve pain. And the Native Americans were masters in this field.
Among the many concoctions that indigenous Americans used for medicinal purposes was a tea made from the bark of a black willow tree. It contains a chemical called salicin, and when this gets inside a person’s system it generates salicylic acid – a key component found in contemporary aspirin pills.
19. Oral birth control
Oral contraceptives can be an extremely effective means of preventing an unplanned pregnancy. In fact, if such drugs are utilized correctly, the odds of falling pregnant slip to just 0.1 percent. The pill was officially introduced to the United States at the start of the 1960s, but Native Americans had been taking something similar for a long time before that.
As far back as the 18th century, certain Native American tribes were ingesting a plant-based medicine for contraceptive purposes. The Shoshone used a herb known as stone seed, and the Potawatomi tended to use a plant called dogbane. And this went on some two centuries before western medical practitioners had developed their own oral contraception.
