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Author: Linné, Family: dioscoreaceae
There are several species of yam, none of them a native of Europe. Dioscorea villosa, the wild
yam, grows in North America.
I didn't find any hint of a yam being used for contraception (an
information you aren't likely to find in herbals, anyway), but it is a remedy for nausea in pregnancy.
The cultivated varieties for food come from China, Indochina, West Africa and the Caribbean.
More about wild yam in MGMH
Text References: Healing
| CB 18, 302 |
Contraception
"I know of one other, but I've never used it. It's the secret magic
of another medicine woman; we traded knowledge. There is a certain yam
- it doesn't grow around here, but I'll show you how it is different from
the ones that do. Cut it into chunks and boil it down and mash it into
a thick paste, then let it dry and pound it into a powder. It takes a lot,
a half bowl of the powder mixed with water to make it a paste again, every
day you are not isolated, when the spirits are not fighting." |
| CB 19, 311 |
Durc's Birth
By late afternoon, Ayla's labor was stronger. Iza gave her a root decoction of a certain yam with special qualities that relieved the pain of childbirth. |
Text References: Food
| CB 6, 77 |
Feast for New Cave
Ayla watched Uka stir up chunks of the meat and bone from the neck
of the bison that were cooking with wild onion, salty coltsfoot, and other
herbs. Uka tasted it, then added peeled thistle stalks, mushrooms, lily
buds and roots, watercress, milkweed buds, small immature yams, cranberries
carried from the other cave, and wilted flowers from the previous day's
growth of day lilies for thickening. |
| CB 9, 133 |
Ayla was slicing pieces of yam to put into a skin pot that was boiling
over a cooking fire. After cutting away the parts that had spoiled, there
wasn't much left of each one. |
| CB 9, 136 |
"Are there any acorns left? (...) We'll leach out the bitterness and
grind them up to add to the meat. Yams will be good for her, too."
[baby food for Uba] |
| CB 17, 278 |
"Does anyone know where the yams are?" she motioned.
"I think they were in the place Brun cleared out," Ebra answered. "We
may not find them until next summer." |
| CB 17, 280 |
"She's over there, just beyond the last hearth looking for yams." |
| CB 17, 282 |
She was (...) looking for yams. |
| CB 24, 391-392 |
Feast at Clan Gathering
Heaps of wild yams, white starchy breadroots, and potatolike groundnuts
boiled gently in skin pots slung over fires. |
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Abbreviations |
Editions |
| CB |
The Clan of the Cave Bear |
The page numbers refer to the hardcover editions by Crown Publishers, Inc, New York 1980, 1982, 1985, 1990.
Book 1-3 are the Special Collector's Edition, I don't know if the page numbers differ from those of the 'normal' hardcover editions. |
| VH |
The Valley of Horses |
| MH |
The Mammoth Hunters |
| PP |
The Plains of Passage |
| (...) |
omission |
Copyright |
| ... |
original in text |
All book quotes: © Copyright Jean M. Auel
The format and text contents of this site are the property of the author |
| MGMH |
'A Modern Herbal', by Mrs. M. Grieve |
Comments, suggestions, errors, anything else ... emails are welcome!
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