The Native American Medicine Man

Mind, body and spirit are the foundation of the Navajo community. The Navajo culture is known to be very primitive and reserved. This could cause some complications in the health care field. Their basic lifestyle may lead to several health complications, belief in prayer and evil spirits is prominent, they believe that the role of a physician is to be a partner in their healing, there are several nursing practices that need to be considered when caring for a Navajo patient, and as a nurse it is important to treat these people with respect even if their ways may seems unorthodox.

Dreams are also a guide in Ojibway culture, " 'one of the things that elders tell you nowadays to try real hard to remember, write them down even to help you. '" (Wagamese 252). It is believe that through dreams one receives visions that are " 'sent to them by the spirit world. That vision could be just about anything and was meant to be a sacred and private thing for the seeker. Gave a direction for their life. '" (252). Dreams are believed to be important messages that provide one with " 'direction and strength '"(252).

The Indigenous people of America are called Native Americans or often referred to as “Indians”. They make up about two percent of the population in the United States and some of them still live in reservations. They once lived freely in the wilderness without any sort of influence or exposure from the Europeans who later came in the year of 1492, and therefore their culture is very different from ours. The Iroquois are northeastern Native Americans who are historically important and powerful. In the following essay we will discover some differences between the religious beliefs of the Native American Iroquois and Christianity to see if culture and ways of living have an effect on the view of religion, but we will also get to know some similarities. I am going to be focusing on the Iroquois, which are the northeastern Native Americans in North America.

The Plains Indians religious beliefs were quite similar and interesting. The Plains Indians believed in Animism. Animism is the belief that everything possesses a spirit. Besides Animism, the Plains Indians only worshiped one other “god.” That was the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit was the mother of all things. They would perform ceremonies for her. Sacred items were also important to the people of the Plains. They would have items that they believed had spiritual or talismanic powers. The items would be located in a pouch at the person’s side. The Medicine Man would also carry around multiple pouches with different talisman. This could come in the form of a peace pipe or a calumet or something that they

The medicine man healed him and taught him types of his healing powers. He became known as Old Broken Nose, and the Iroquois hold a ritual and created a mask that honors him, and represents his smashed face. (Support Native American Art, 1) This supports the belief system that the Iroquois already have, which is believing in greater spirits that have more power than them. They believed in the “Great Spirit”, as well as the “evil-minded”. (Mohammed, 25) In the False Face Society, they believed in the Spirit Medicine Man and honored the Old Broken Nose. All were considered powerful, spirits, which were capable of doing powerful things. The way they focused on trying to be obedient to the Great Spirit and not submit to the Evil-minded brother, (Mohammed, 25) shows that they believe in goodness and good power. The Spirit Medicine Man and Old Broken Nose both possess good power, one that can heal anyone. The False Face Society fits into their belief system of honoring and committing to strong spirits that possess good

The Iroquois Confederacy, also known as Five Nations or Six Nations after the 1720 inclusion of the Tuscarora, was a collective of tribes that occupied the upper region of New York state around Lake Ontario, Pennsylvania, and Southern Ontario and

Women who were midwives or healers were known to be very smart and capable of curing

The Native Americans had settled in the land years before the arrival of the Euro-Americans. Hundreds of Native American groups occupied the land, each tribe with its separate culture, language, and spiritual way-of-life. Despite the many differences, “there was also considerable interaction and dialogue among tribes about spiritual concepts. Through the common language of sign-talk, ideas could be shared and compared among Indian tribes including the spiritual concepts that are an intricate part of the Indian’s everyday experience” (Treat). The Native American culture was primarily oral. Almost all tribes believed in a cosmology or creation myth regarding how this world and the things inhabiting it came to be. Most native peoples worshiped an all-powerful, all-knowing “Master Spirit.” They also revered and placated a host of lesser spirits in hopes of receiving assistance in their daily interactions with the world around them. Often times shamans, who were believed to have supernatural powers through visions, were called upon to communicate and implore the spirits to ensure a good harvest, or victory in warfare, or healing, or interpreting dreams, or other matters of great

Five tribes made up the confederation called the Iroquois. The Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida and Cayuga tribes

One of these Native American colonies was the Iroquois who were mainly from the colony of New York. Iroquois were a nation of five then later six Native American tribes. The six original Iroquois tribes were the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Tuscarora. They were known as the people of the long house. This is because they lived in long houses, many families lived together in one house.

The tribes who sided with the British suffered the most due to the success of the Thirteen Colonies’ independence. The American invasion of their homeland drove many of the Iroquois into southern Ontario where they have remained to this day on government funded reserves. With large Iroquois communities already located along the upper St. Lawrence in Quebec at the time, roughly half of the Iroquois population has since lived in Canada. This marked a major split among the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. As a result, the confederacy’s bonds that were painstakingly woven together were undone and everything that the six nations collectively accomplished was lost, particularly the strong, unifying power of security. In the United States, much of the Iroquois homeland was surrendered to New York land speculators in a series of treaties following the Revolutionary War. Despite this, most Seneca, Tuscarora, and Onondaga avoided removal during the 1830s and have remained in New York. There are also sizeable groups of Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, and Caughnawaga still in the

Ritual healing involves “health, emotion, identity, religion, self, suffering, modernity, and colonial situation”, according to Thomas Csordas, who spent a lot of time on the Indian lands with anthropologists studying the Navajo and their daily lives. There is one ceremonial healing practice that was studied in depth by Thomas Csordas and that is the Night Way Ceremony.

During that time, what is now New York State was populated by Native Americans. Tribes like the Iroquois populated the southeastern part of present-day state. The Iroquois tribes consisted of an alliance between six tribes, which at one point were at war with each other. These nations were the, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora.

"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).

Shamanistic healing, one of the oldest spiritual healing powers, has recently become a topic of interest in modern medicine.