Love Medicine

Medicine is an important symbol in the story, as demonstrated by its honored place in the title. Medicine appears in several different forms throughout the novel; most significantly, Albertine studies medicine at an American university, in direct opposition to Lipsha’s Ojibwe spiritual practices of healing. American hospitals are widely distrusted on the reservation, so people who can provide medical care within the community are greatly respected, such as Moses. Thus, medicine is tied to the fraught and violent history between the United States and Indigenous American tribes. Tribal medicine is also one of the last remaining indigenous traditions that can be practiced on the reservation, even though in Lipsha’s case the tradition gravely fails. Erdrich also uses medicine metaphorically in that love, relationships, and even inspiration from nature can be seen as kinds of medicine in this novel, intended to heal not only the body but the spirit. Similarly, if medicine is intended to make a person feel better, then the effect love has on the characters works just like medicine. Even though Lipsha’s literal love medicine, the blessed turkey hearts, fails to restore his grandparents’ marriage, it does facilitate a friendship between Lulu and Marie, healing one kind of old wound.