Research Catalog

Title

Medicine trails : a life in many worlds / Mavis McCovey and John F. Salter ; foreword by Freeman House.

Author

McCovey, Mavis, 1933-

Publication

Berkeley, Calif. : Heyday Books, c2009.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Salter, John Frederick

Description

xvi, 343 p., [8] p. of plates : ill., map; 22 cm.

Summary

"Sometime in 1933, in Northern California's lush Humboldt County, a Karuk medicine woman named Daisy Jones had a vision identifying the tribe's next medicine woman. Later that year, Mavis Smither (McCovey) was born, and in the first twelve years of her life she was groomed by a designated group of medicine women to become a spiritual healer." "Medicine Trails is Mavis McCovey's honest and lively account of the many worlds in which she moves: the Indian and white cultural worlds, and the day-to-day and visionary reality of the medicine woman's world, as well as trips to what she calls "the other side": one of the responsibilities of a medicine woman is to bring back a medicine man's soul if he gets lost on the trails of the world beyond - a task McCovey has been called upon to do." "One of very few first-person accounts of Native American healers, Medicine Trails is invaluable for its insights into the experiences of a modern-day medicine woman. And McCovey is a warm and engaging guide not only to her life, but also her family's history and the history of the Karuk, Yurok, and Hupa peoples of the region."--Jacket.

Subject

• California
• Indian women healers > California > Biography
• Indian women shamans > California > Biography
• Karok Indians > History
• Karok Indians > Religion
• Karok Indians > Social life and customs
• Karok women > California > Biography
• McCovey, Mavis, 1933-

Genre/Form

• Biographies
• Biography
• History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

ISBN

• 9781597141178 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 1597141178 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2009002888

OCLC

301705712

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library