Powwow Woman
by Robert Widder
Category: Fiction

Powwow Woman is the story of an Indian Medicine woman who saves the life of a Scandinavian fur trapper and marries him. They settle in a frontier town, near what is now Pittsburgh, where they run the tavern and saloon. She is content to be the understanding wife of a handsome ladies' man until the sheriff banishes her from the territory. She, her husband's squaw-wife, and their half-breed sons are all that keep him from becoming the town's mayor. The sheriff adds that his daughter will marry the new mayor. The spurned wife plots her bloody revenge. The details of Indian medical lore are interwoven with the story of the Indian woman meeting and marrying the white man and their escape from her tribe. Extensive descriptions of Indian medical lore are based on tales of a family ancestor who probably lived and dispensed herbal remedies in and around Fort Duquesne.