Shared Knowledge Essay

Knowledge is something that we know that you have facts to back up to form your argument and is justified. Knowledge isn’t something that can be created overnight but something that we form over the course of life. I feel that being raised by my grandmother I gained a lot of knowledge and wisdom because she has years and experience over me and wouldn’t tell me anything to hurt me but to help me in life. We all learn from mistakes but with mistakes gain wisdom then knowledge. We don’t gain knowledge overnight but with growth we become more aware of our worldview.

Many traditional Native medicines and healing practices were discouraged with the advent of Western medicine, but now there is a movement to return to traditional ways (Zubek, 1994, p. 1924). Modern Western medicine treats the symptoms to cure a diseased state when the body is out of homeostasis. Native American healing traditions do this as well with herbs and plants suited to the purpose. These Native healing traditions also include sacred rituals, chants, and purification rites to help bring the spirit and mind of the afflicted back into balance. In effect, treating the whole person, not only the disease. A blending of these two healing practices could bring about better prognoses for today's patients. The purpose of this paper is

     Many of the inequalities in the health of the Aboriginal people can be attributed to the

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 cultural values, beliefs, and practices of the AI/AN, influence health care practices within their community. For example, healing is sacred work, the spiritual aspect of the individual needs to be considered to be effective. Contemporary Indians might use “white man’s medicine” to treat “white man’s disease” such as diabetes, cancer, and gallbladder disease and “native medicine” was used to treat “native problems” such as pain, family relationship issues, mental illness and alcoholism aka “sickness of the spirit” (Alvord, 1997; Hendrix, 1999). Many Western medicines were based on Indian herbal medications. For instance, aspirin is derived from willow bark (Alvord, 1997; Hendrix,

Indigenous individuals have many holistic approaches to healing which includes ceremonies, rituals and herbal remedies to cure their disease or illness. Through this holistic approach, the healer tries to connect the individual’s body to the environment so that they can be cured mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Every indigenous people manages to find the balance within themselves and the nature. The indigenous people practices the non-westernized medicalization, just like the Ayuverdic medicine. It all contains natural ingredients of herbs, where it will be applied on the affected area and used within the ceremony of healing.

The United States is home to five hundred and seventy-eight federally recognized indigenous tribes and twenty-one of those tribes reside in Arizona. In fact, Arizona State Tempe campus is located on the ancestral homelands of the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and Pee Posh (Maricopa) people. Native American healing is a unique system that varies from tribe to tribe but most share similar characteristics of treatment. Native American healing goes back thousands of years before the European settlers migrated to North America. The indigenous people at the time were familiar with plants, herbs, smoke, prayers, and chants to treat illnesses. It is believed that the indigenous population may have known more about the plants and herbs than today which kept illness and disease away. Native Americans believe in being in harmony with oneself, mother earth, and father sky. Native American healing takes a holistic approach which focuses on the body, mind, emotion and spirit during treatment. According to National Institutes of Health/National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), “Native American (NA) traditional healing is identified as a whole medical system that encompasses a range of holistic treatments used by indigenous healers for a multitude of acute and chronic conditions or to promote health and wellbeing.”2 When the Europeans migrated to North America they brought new diseases such as smallpox which devastated the indigenous population. Millions of the indigenous

Medical beliefs for Native Americans revolve around healing by spiritualistic means, and through remedies made with items that come from the earth. Most believe in an interconnectedness of everything between man, nature, and God. They hold healing ceremonies with prayer to help with their healing of diseases or ailments. “In some tribes/nations causes of illness were considered to be an "imbalance" between the spiritual, mental, physical, and social interactions of the individual and his family or clan” (Hendrix,

Similarly, American Indian Medicine believes that people are closely related to nature which is similar to Ayurveda culture. Also, the American Indian Medicine feels as the destiny of humanity, of trees, sky, and oceans are all associated. The treatments in American Indian Medicine include services and ceremonies. Another form of medicine is Curanderismo. It is a Mexican-American way of healing their societies. In Spanish, the verb “curar” means “to heal.” This form of medicine has three levels of treatment and they consist of spiritual, material and mental. African Medicine is related to American Indian Medicine as well as Ayurveda because they both use herbs and believe that they are linked to nature. African tribes treat people by seeking

"Native American medicine is based on widely held beliefs about healthy living, the repercussions of disease-producing behavior, and the spiritual principles that restore balance." -Ken "Bear Hawk" Cohen (Chrisman 1).

Traditionally, Native American healers would perform special rituals where they would smoke and pray as they prepared the herbal cures. They used plants and herbs to heal common alignments and were knowledgeable in which specific plants had certain healing properties. African American healers characterized their ability to heal and cure as a “gift” and believed their knowledge

Indigenous cultural perceptions of health and healing are distinctly different from the views of the biomedical approach of the Australian healthcare system (Ramsden, 1996). The factors that influence Indigenous Australian’s health behaviour are poorly understood by the biomedical approach to health care (Waterworth et al., 2015).

Most of the articles I read discussed how today Canadian are trying to move to a more traditionally and holistic form of medicine to reduce the gaps in health between aboriginals and non aboriginals. Traditional medicines often treat the whole person; the mind, the body and the spirit. This form of treatment is lost in our medical practices today. However, most of aboriginals in Canada were very healthy due to their extensive diet. For example, eating huckleberries help to reduce schizophrenia, paranoia, and scurvies. Crab apple bark and cherry bark reduce the chance of cancer, tuberculosis, and is an anti poison. Wild rose was used to prevent or cure scurvy, colds, blood deficiencies and bruising. Evergreen huckleberry is used for bladder infections and bacterial infections. Oregon Grape can increase your red blood cell count. Willow bark was used as a painkiller and Seneca was used for constipation. The list of dietary benefiting items could go on for many pages. What I fing truly interesting was that none of the things I’ve listed are used today in our medical practices. In our modern society if we have a headache we will take an Advil rather than using willow bark. I wonder which is less harmful for our body. I believe it would be less harmful to the environment and our bodies if we went back to Indigenous traditional methods of doing things. The indigenous knowledge and

The knowledge system of a society can be divided into two bodies of knowledge, shared and personal knowledge. Shared knowledge is a knowledge that shared and group of individuals it is also continually being contributed creating new forms of knowledge. While personal knowledge is knowledge that someone gains through the own experiences and research. Now in the natural sciences a scientist can further their personal knowledge through shared knowledge in how they can learn and further improve their experiments by learning from those who have performed similar ones. Now there are other instances such as with history. When you use primary sources, you are using personal knowledge firsthand accounts of an event. Personal knowledge is then shared to provide collective knowledge demonstrating that through personal knowledge one can further shared knowledge and vice versa. This all leads to the question How does the interaction between shared and personal knowledge allow for human progress?

Personal knowledge and shared knowledge are two extremely different ways in which people obtain knowledge. Shared knowledge is defined as ‘a socio-cultural knowledge, broadly along the lines of a set of norms, values, signifiers and cultural mores’ and ‘personal knowledge comes from the local experience of an individual’ . From my own perspective I believe shared knowledge is obtained through collaborative work; knowing from others, and personal knowledge is obtained from a person’s own opinion; what I know. The role the two forms of knowledge; personal knowledge and shared knowledge, play in human sciences and mathematics exemplifies their importance in a person’s understanding of the world.