16 Facts About Sanapia

Sanapia is believed to be the last of eagle doctors, a Comanche title referring to a person with eagle medicine for healing the sick.

Sanapia was influenced by traditional Comanche medicine, incorporating elements of Christianity and Peyotism.

Sanapia was born Mary Poafpybitty in spring 1895 to David Poafpybitty and Chappy Poafpybitty, both Comanche, living near Fort Sill, Oklahoma Territory.

Sanapia was sixth of eleven children but the first girl to be born in her family.

Sanapia 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.

Sanapia 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.

Sanapia was overcome with grief, and she drank heavily, gambled, and was promiscuous.

Sanapia remarried around 1945, and after menopause, she began her healing practice.

Sanapia 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.

Sanapia healed many people using a medical kit of both botanical and non-botanical medicines, such as sneezeweed to treat heart palpitations, low blood pressure and congestion, mescal bean for ear problems, rye grass for the treatment of cataracts, red cedar to ward off ghosts, prickly ash to treat fever; iris for colds, broomweed for dermatological ailments etc.

Sanapia believed that the ghost throws a feather into the body of the affected patient and unless it is removed the patient will die.

Sanapia 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 the patient with cedar smoke.

Sanapia was buried in the Comanche Indian cemetery near Chandler Creek, Oklahoma.

Sanapia 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.