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Aromatherapy is healing and magical practice that has been used for thousands of years. It is recorded in hieroglyphs of Egypt, but certainly has a much longer history. The oldest known medical text to work with aromas and oils found in the Orient and is about 5000 years old. One has to assume that if medical texts were written this long ago, the fledging practice or aromatherapy is much, much older. To make a medical text had to be a story to be used as starting.
ancient cultures developed their activities based on what plants were available to them. AS began to increase between Asia, Africa and Europe, the oldest spice routes, sailing observations and later trade routes led to the over-cultural contact. This, in turn, created some similarities in practice and form. In America, separated by thousands of miles oceans to the east and west, the aromatherapy practice developed based on different types of plants and some differences in ritual. Until tobacco became a recreational drugs, America had little crossing their practices with other continents.
Although other cultures in the world searched near and far, from continent to continent for special woods and flowers to create their products, native culture in America lived more in harmony with the land, with native plants. Of course it was much harder for them to deal with oceans to cross, but the relative insulation from external sources created an evolutionary difference in their choices and practices.
The Shamans southern America used hallucinogens like mescaline for spiritual journeys and his Machis drove away evil spirits with herbs. In the northern regions of America, Hallucinogen choice was peyote and evil spirits were driven out by smoke Sage.
Although Egyptians used olive oil as a base for their essential oils, there is no evidence to Cultures of the Americas used oil as a base in the same way. Herbs were dried for digestion (for medical purposes) and smudging to cleanse the body and space to track potential energy. It would be logical, however, for them to be making salves and unguents from rendered fats. With a large supply of native nuts, oil may have been drawn from them. The tribes who had settlements probably had more variety in the way they combine herbs and forests but the tribes that were essentially nomadic.
If you want information about some of the plants that were used in America, read my article Ten Native American Herbs and Their Uses.
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