American Indian Medicine Ways

In Creek Indian Medicine Ways, Jordan traces the written accounts of Mvskoke religion from the eighteenth century to the present in order to historically contextualize Lewis's story and knowledge. This book is a collaboration between anthropologist and medicine man that provides a rare glimpse of a living religious tradition and its origins.

The book highlights American Indian spiritual leaders, miracle healings, and ceremonies that have influenced American history and shows their continued significance--Provided by publisher.

Improving the dire health problems faced by many Native American communities is central to their cultural, political, and economic well being. However, it is still too often the case that both theoretical studies and applied programs fail to account for Native American perspectives on the range of factors that actually contribute to these problems in the first place. The authors in Medicine Ways examine the ways people from a multitude of indigenous communities think about and practice health care within historical and socio-cultural contexts. Cultural and physical survival are inseparable for Native Americans. Chapters explore biomedically-identified diseases, such as cancer and diabetes, as well as Native-identified problems, including historical and contemporary experiences such as forced evacuation, assimilation, boarding school, poverty and a slew of federal and state policies and initiatives. They also explore applied solutions that are based in community prerogatives and worldviews, whether they be indigenous, Christian, biomedical, or some combination of all three. Medicine Ways is an important volume for scholars and students in Native American studies, medical anthropology, and sociology as well as for health practitioners and professionals working in and for tribes. Visit the UCLA American Indian Studies Center web site

For too many years, the academic discipline of history has ignored American Indians or lacked the kind of open-minded thinking necessary to truly understand them. Most historians remain oriented toward the American experience at the expense of the Native experience. As a result, both the status and the quality of Native American history have suffered and remain marginalized within the discipline. In this impassioned work, noted historian Donald L. Fixico challenges academic historians--and everyone else--to change this way of thinking. Fixico argues that the current discipline and practice of American Indian history are insensitive to and inconsistent with Native people's traditions, understandings, and ways of thinking about their own history. In Call for Change, Fixico suggests how the discipline of history can improve by reconsidering its approach to Native peoples. He offers the "Medicine Way" as a paradigm to see both history and the current world through a Native lens. This new approach paves the way for historians to better understand Native peoples and their communities through the eyes and experiences of Indians, thus reflecting an insightful indigenous historical ethos and reality.

For thousands of years, Native medicine was the only medicine on the North American continent. It is America’s original holistic medicine, a powerful means of healing the body, balancing the emotions, and renewing the spirit. Medicine men and women prescribe prayers, dances, songs, herbal mixtures, counseling, and many other remedies that help not only the individual but the family and the community as well. The goal of healing is both wellness and wisdom. Written by a master of alternative healing practices, Honoring the Medicine gathers together an unparalleled abundance of information about every aspect of Native American medicine and a healing philosophy that connects each of us with the whole web of life—people, plants, animals, the earth. Inside you will discover • The power of the Four Winds—the psychological and spiritual qualities that contribute to harmony and health • Native American Values—including wisdom from the Wolf and the inportance of commitment and cooperation • The Vision Quest—searching for the Great Spirit’s guidance and life’s true purpose • Moontime rituals—traditional practices that may be observed by women during menstruation • Massage techniques, energy therapies, and the need for touch • The benefits of ancient purification ceremonies, such as the Sweat Lodge • Tips on finding and gathering healing plants—the wonders of herbs • The purpose of smudging, fasting, and chanting—and how science confirms their effectiveness Complete with true stories of miraculous healing, this unique book will benefit everyone who is committed to improving his or her quality of life. “If you have the courage to look within and without,” Kenneth Cohen tells us, “you may find that you also have an indigenous soul.”

Patrisia Gonzales addresses "Red Medicine" as a system of healing that includes birthing practices, dreaming, and purification rites to re-establish personal and social equilibrium. The book explores Indigenous medicine across North America, with a special emphasis on how Indigenous knowledge has endured and persisted among peoples with a legacy to Mexico. Gonzales combines her lived experience in Red Medicine as an herbalist and traditional birth attendant with in-depth research into oral traditions, storytelling, and the meanings of symbols to uncover how Indigenous knowledge endures over time. And she shows how this knowledge is now being reclaimed by Chicanos, Mexican Americans and Mexican Indigenous peoples. For Gonzales, a central guiding force in Red Medicine is the principal of regeneration as it is manifested in Spiderwoman. Dating to Pre-Columbian times, the Mesoamerican Weaver/Spiderwoman—the guardian of birth, medicine, and purification rites such as the Nahua sweat bath—exemplifies the interconnected process of rebalancing that transpires throughout life in mental, spiritual and physical manifestations. Gonzales also explains how dreaming is a form of diagnosing in traditional Indigenous medicine and how Indigenous concepts of the body provide insight into healing various kinds of trauma. Gonzales links pre-Columbian thought to contemporary healing practices by examining ancient symbols and their relation to current curative knowledges among Indigenous peoples. Red Medicine suggests that Indigenous healing systems can usefully point contemporary people back to ancestral teachings and help them reconnect to the dynamics of the natural world.

Ethnologist with the Smithsonian Institution offers a wealth of material on nearly 200 plants used by Chippewas of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Emphasis on wild plants and lesser-known uses. 33 plates.

The legend of the Native American Medicine Man goes back for thousands of years. Many of the Native Americans turned to the Medicine Man for the knowledge of mixing herbs, roots and other natural plants that helped to heal various medical conditions. But remedies were not the only part of the healing process. Healing practices varied from tribe to tribe. Many involved ceremonies, and rituals that healed the spirit and mind as well as the body. The end goals was to find a complete harmony within themselves, their creator, the environment and the people around them. Only when harmony was in place, could good health resume. Herbs played a large process in the healing process. The remedies made from natural herbs and plants gathered from the local environment resulted in a variety of cures. These herbs and plants were considered sacred. As was the way of the Native American Indians, these practices were handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. They were never documented in writing. Many tribes had no written language, except for the Cherokee. They in later years documented some of their practices for their preservation and history. Sadly the knowledge of some of those tribes who had no written language has been lost over the years. When no one was left to pass down their customs, the heritage of those tribes disappeared. When the early Europeans arrived in North America, they were surprised to see that the Indians used herbs to heal medical situations that in some cases they had thought to be terminal. Sadly for the Indians, they had no cures for the diseases that the Europeans brought with them. White man's diseases, such as measles and small pox, wiped out thousands of the natives over the next few centuries. Not only were these Native Americans lost, but in many cases the knowledge of history and medicine went with them. Today many modern medicines are based on plants and herbs that were used by the Indians. Many of the remaining tribes continue to guard the knowledge of their medicine people and the subject will not be discussed with non-Native Americans. Many believe that sharing of the healing knowledge will weaken the spiritual power of the medicine. In this book you will learn of the medicine man, medicine wheels, herbal treatments, songs for healing and the ways of Body, Mind and Spirit. You will learn to channel the power of the universe and use it to be in better health and achieve life goals. You will learn the ways of Native Americans and a forgotten path to inner harmony.