American Indian Breastfeeding Folklore from the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes

Abstract

Over the years, much of the folklore of breastfeeding has been lost because women did not write history, they told stories. This article shares breastfeeding lore from stories told to the authors by American Indian women from the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes on the Wind River Reservation near Lander, Wyoming. These women related stories describing treatment for milk fever (mastitis), the white man’s influence on mother/baby separation and its outcome, elderly women inducing lactation, breastfeeding and birth control, and how women dressed for ease of breastfeeding in former times. It is with appreciation for other cultures that we add this information from American Indians to the archives of breastfeeding history.