Families around the world all have different beliefs and religions that they follow. Some move to America just so they can give their families a better life, but that doesn’t mean that they leave behind the traditions that they followed. It just makes it difficult sometimes for them adjusting to the American ways compared to how they were used too back in their country. Especially when it comes down to how people get sick and how they are treated so that they can get better. Here we discuss about the Hmong culture and how there’s a difference with how they heal people compared to how it’s done in America. Healing someone can be through medicine or any type of treatment from some kind of doctor or as the Hmong heal, they use a shaman. A shaman is a person with a …show more content…
The Hmong culture comes from china and it’s a way of paying tribute to the Chinese government. For example, the lees come from the Chinese government that were settled in Laos which was in Thailand. So they are very traditional when it comes to believing in their beliefs, such as the healing process. They don’t like any type of treatment or medicine wise to cure them, they use a healer in their words a shaman which in other words they describe it as a txiv neeb describing a person with the healing spirit. A couple reasons why they look up to them healing is because they can take the bad spirit’s away and don’t need to pay for any type of consultation like you do when you’re in the hospital. To the Hmong people, quag dab peg is an honor (Fadiman 1998, pp.22). The way they also do there healing is by getting rid of the evil spirit and a special ceremony where there has to be an animal sacrificed and drums are played. No matter where they are the shaman will be there for the
The Hmong’s believe in shamans. Shamans are religious specialists commonly found in small-scale egalitarian societies. They are believed to have the power to contact powerful cosmic beings directly on behalf of others, sometimes by traveling to the cosmic realm to communicate with them. Shamans are
In addition, relying on a doctor who does not share the same beliefs as one does can become fearful. Trusting the doctor for full treatment is necessary but when from a different cultural background it can prevent them on trusting them. According to a research article, Cross- Cultural Medicine a Decade Later, clearly states “when the basic belief structure of biomedicine and another set of health beliefs differs radically, problems and frustrations almost inevitably arise” (Barker, 1992, p.249). The central purpose of the research was to show whether or not health beliefs between patient and doctor differs will they find it difficult to interpret the symptoms and treatment variations to accommodate their beliefs. However, the doctor having faith in one’s health beliefs can sometimes be beneficial for the patients because they’ll be fully understood and not misjudged as being crazy. As stated by the author, for the article Chinese Health Beliefs of Older Chinese in Canada, “the findings support the previous prescriptive knowledge about Chinese health beliefs and illustrate the intergroup socio-cultural diversity that health practitioners should acknowledge in their practice” (Lai, 2009, 38). Like the Chinese, Hmong’s too first go to their shaman for traditional treatment rather than going to the doctor; to them an illness and their healing is more of a spiritual thing that
I found much of the traditional Hmong birth practices highly interesting. For instance, the Hmong believe that if the pregnant mother did not strictly eat the foods she craved, certain deformities would result to the child. They also find it true that drinking hot water during the labor will assist in unlocking the birth canal. After the birth, the placenta is buried by the father, so that the when that person dies, their soul can return to its” first jacket” (jacket meaning placenta in Hmong language), in order to continue it’s after death journey. On the other hand, I feel that a few of their specific practices could potentially be very dangerous. Foua gave birth to twelve of her children on the dirt floor in the home that her father had
The Hmong Culture of South Asia is a very interesting ethnic group. Between 300,000 to 600,000 Hmong live in Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. About 8 million more live in the southern provinces of China. Since the Vietnam War ended in 1975, Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia have settled in Australia, France, Canada, and the United States. The largest Hmong refugee community lives in the United States with a population of about 110,000. The U.S. Department of state has tried to spread Hmong refugees out across the country to reduce the impact on any one region. Because Hmong families tend to be large in numbers, the community grows rapidly.
While the language barrier became very obvious to them as the Hmong language has very long descriptions for even the simplest words, the cultural barrier lead to a cultural bias in regards of western medicine. Hmong patients expected to be released of the ER with any kind of medicine they wouldn’t need. In addition to that the Hmong had a negative attitude towards surgery or any other invasive treatments, as it was frowned upon in their culture. One aspect that made it even harder was that pregnant Hmong women preferred to stay at home till the really last moment, so that often Hmong children were born in the parking lot or the elevator. They distrusted the western medicine so much that they preferred not getting better by gratefully accepting the medicine and diagnosis to save their pride and dignity. Just as history showed, they would rather die than give up their pride.
An unknown author once said, "Families are like fudge—mostly sweet with a few nuts. My family is the most important aspect to my life. No matter how much they sometimes pester or annoy me I still love them. I do not think people can live through life without the support of family. My family mostly supports me throughout all my actions, and they make me laugh. I do not really think I resemble either my mom or dad. They both had very difficult lives growing up, and I do not think I will ever experience that. Before there was me, there were my parents whose struggle against communism led them to the United States to find the life they deserved.
In ‘The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down’, Lia, a Hmong baby girl, is born to a Hmong family living in California as refugees away from their war torn land in Laos. In Laos the Lee’s where farmers and lived in the country according to their Hmong traditions and beliefs. In California they barely understood the language, much less Western culture or medicinal practices. In Hmong tradition, illness was seen as a spiritual problem rather than a physical problem and a Shaman that practiced spiritual ceremonies and used natural remedies was sought to prevent or cure certain illnesses and/or diseases; so when Lia suffered her first seizure at the age of 3 months and was taken to Mercer
Native American traditional medicine and spiritual healing rituals go back for thousands of years, these traditions often focus on different variations of alternative medicine. This knowledge is passed on throughout generations, many of the tribes learn that by mixing natural plants such as herbs and roots they can make remedies with healing properties. It is believed that being healthy is when people reach a state of harmony not only spiritually, mentally but physically. To be able to overcome the forces that cause illness people must “operate in the context of relationship to four constructs —namely, spirituality (Creator, Mother Earth, Great Father); community (family, clan, tribe/nation); environment (daily life, nature, balance); and self (inner passions and peace, thoughts, and values)” (Portman & Garret, 2006, p.453). In this research paper I am going to show evidence of the tremendous influence that Native American medicine and spiritual healing have over modern medicine in the course of healing
The Hmong cultural/religious belief in shamanistic animism claim that wicked spirits are continually searching human souls, mostly those of defenseless or unappreciated children. For Hmong culture, epilepsy is known as qaug dab peg which means, "the spirit catches you and you fall down" in English (Fadiman 1997), which epileptic invasions are seen as affirmation of the epileptic's capability to enter and stay temporarily into the spirit world (unconsciousness). In Hmong
At birth, the Hmong view their newborns as a gift and extremely special. At birth, it is called “Mus Thawj thiab, “go become again” or more simple, “reincarnation,” is a traditional Hmong belief (Bankston 2000). When a child is born, they are automatically seen as a gift and reborn as a reincarnated soul. Though, if a child dies after three days of living there are “no funeral ceremonies…since the child did not have a soul yet” (Bankston 2000). The Hmong believe if the child lives past three days, their soul is present though if they die, the infant never had a soul to begin with. If the child lives past day three, then a shaman is brought in and he “evokes a soul to be be reincarnated in the baby’s body” (Bankston 2000). This is considered
“In the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, Anne Fadiman explores the subject of cross cultural misunderstanding. This she effectively portrays using Lia, a Hmong, her medical history, the misunderstandings created by obstacles of communication, the religious background, the battle with modernized medical science and cultural anachronisms. Handling an epileptic child, in a strange land in a manner very unlike the shamanistic animism they were accustomed to, generated many problems for her parents. The author dwells on the radically different cultures to highlight the necessity for medical communities to have an understanding of the immigrants when treating them.
We learned through many years of practice or through practices of firing someone of the simplest illness to a very severe illness through many different types of practice. We see how the science of medicine to the works of tribes and cultures utilize their own resources made available to them and using their resources in order to cure someone of an illness. We see how shamans heal, they often heal by working with a spirit or a soul, using mother nature such as rocks, trees, and the nutrients the earth has provided along with the knowledge and information that is passed down from generation to generation by their ancestors. We see how often shamans must communicate with the spirit that will help them in order to proceed with a cure for the ill-person. The effectiveness of a shaman is generally measured by the results he or she is able to achieve. The actual techniques and methods of the shaman are so unique that there is no way to see if the shaman and their technique actually works if you can not honestly put faith in the shaman. Using tools other than the nature such as drums, rattles, and singing. It is believed that if you do not believe in the system of healing then the process will not work for the individual whose pride and trust is not complete for the
The primary belief system across Laos is that all individuals and objects have various souls. This animism, along with the idea of reincarnation and ancestral worship, has a direct link to their healthcare. Among the Lao populous spirituality is exceptionally connected to their views of illnesses. Either the sins of one have angered their ancestors, or one has lost a soul because of their misdeeds or actions. With a combination of natural and super natural causes, a Hmong individual believes illness can befall them. A list of common reasons of Lao illness is as follows: accidents, infectious disease, curses, spells, and any taboo violation. The Hmong believe so strongly that illness is caused by some supernatural cause, they may request a multitude of health services when visiting the US.
The critical components of healing in Native American is based on spirituality, practice which prayer is an important part, other methods of healing are music, massage, counseling. Native American sees illness has a spiritual problems, imbalances which can be cure by herbs, meditation and rituals and they have multiple types of healing practices which differ between various nations, healers. Most common include the use of herbal remedies such as tea, tinctures and salves which is used to treat many physical conditions. Symbolic healing rituals which include chanting, dancing, painting bodies are used to revoke the spirits and cure the sick person which vary greatly due to multiple tribes and can also last for
The ravages of illness and disease are elements that all people will eventually have to face at some point throughout the course of their lives. It is interesting to consider that disease is such a consistent force in life affecting people of all cultures equally, and yet every culture seems to have it’s own unique way of interpreting the causes of illness and treating diseases. Over the course of human history, there have been many cultures that have believed in the power of supernatural specters and the shamans who seek to cure the diseases and evils caused by those specters (Samovar et al 2010: 364). There are groups of people who believe that the body is a self-sufficient system that, with time, will heal itself. Even still there