Native American Medicine

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Recommended: Western medicine perspective on traditional native american medicine

Native American Medicine

If you were in the desert or woods and bitten by a snake, where you go for help? A call to the local ambulance and a fast ride to the emergency room are not available to you. How would you know what potions to use and what would heal your wounds? This was the dilemma of the Native American People hundreds of years ago. How did they handle it? The medical traditions and customs have remained a mystery to us for hundreds of years. This paper will try to explore some of these customs and possibly uncover some of the mystery.

Our life is an age of previously unimaginable medical breakthroughs. The technology we know today is one that emulated witchcraft to our great grand parents. Yet, with all that we can do, all of the healing we can accomplish by this modern medicine, we seen to be resorting back to the idea of natural holistic health care. Maybe, the Native American People had the right idea.

Our arrogance leads us to believe that we know the most about health care but the ancient people, who lived in this country before us, knew more than we are willing to give them credit for. "Their medicine was combination of faith, blind luck and relying on the good earth -- relying on what was there" (Howard, 2000. P.2)

Early man's medicine was mixture of fear, folklore and superstition. They used plants that resembled the diseased or injured body part with shapes or colors that copied them. For example, yellow leaves were good for Jaundice and red ones for blood. If a leaf resembled the shape of the liver, that is were it was used. Native Americans were great inventors and well ahead of their times. They developed syringes, had knowledge of anesthetics and antiseptics as well as knowing how ...

... middle of paper ...

...are extremely spiritual and hold customs and traditions very close to them. We need some knowledge of these customs in order to properly care for them. These deeply imbedded beliefs were taken away from them by the American Government and I believe it is especially important to keep that in mind when caring for the Native American People.

Bibliography:

REFERENCES

Dharmanda, Shbuhit. (2000). Native American Traditional Medicine. Institute for Traditional Medicine. Retrieved from the World Wide Web October 4, 2000: http//itmonline.org.

Howard, Gregg. (2000). Native American Healing Alternative Medicine. Retrieved from the World Wide Web October 4, 2000: http://www.nativeamericanhealing.com

Smith-Mala. (2000). Native American Healing Alternative Medicine. Retrieved from the World Wide Web October 4, 2000: http://www.nativeamericanhealing.com

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