Americana & the U.S.

My personal connection to Sibbell Dressback, the Indian doctor is my grandfather Roy Youngs was the last baby she had delivered in 1881 in Kossuth, Ohio. Sibbell was said not to reject anyone, Christian or non-Christian, for her medical care, which was one of the reasons she was rejected by strictest Christians. In my interview in 1965 with John Bollinger, he told me the passage on her tombstone was not as much a biblical reference, but for her meant anyone who knocks on my door for care, it is open to them! Another fact is that they had set her tombstone outside “Holy Ground,” but by mistake had buried her in “Holy Ground.”

When Sibbell died, her White husband Zebedee was lost without her; only thing of hers he kept was her “healing wand.”  Before husband died in 1906, he gave 3-foot wand to John Bollinger, who gave it to me in 1965.

In 1965, when I received the “healing wand” of Sibbell “Belle” Dressback from John Bollinger, he told me as described to him by Sibbell’s husband Zebedee wand’s ceremonial use in the cure of male disorder of “impotency.” Sibbell would stand in front of patient chanting in Native American language, holding in right hand the wand to ground. Then she would move wand counterclockwise around man, at his back she’d reach around to grasp wand with left hand, drawing the wand around the man to complete circle in front of patient. She slowly tipped wand up with both hands to softly touch the affected private part, bring wand back to ground before raising wand high above the man’s head and end with another Native chant. It is said Sibbell with this ceremony had a perfect cure rate.

Once when I described this ceremonial cure for impotency in a speech, doctor in audience remarked 90 percent of impotence is psychosomatic, so with faith in Sibbell’s wand, he would cure himself. I asked Bollinger if Zebedee told him what the “healing wand” was made of? “A penis,” John had answered. “A stretched out, dry and cured bull’s penis.” (See close up of cut end in front of frame which verifies its identity as a bull’s penis. A naturalist claimed the wand appeared to be hundreds of years old!) I was told my grandfather Roy O. Youngs’ birth in 1881 was very difficult; saved by Sibbell, he was given middle initial O. in her honor.