Post Series: Global Traditional Medicine Systems
In order to spread awareness about the rich living herbal traditions from around the world, this post series is intended to introduce some of the characteristics of the herbal or traditional medicine systems to which plants belong.
Native American traditional healing is identified by the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) as a whole medical system. Native American Traditional Medicine is practiced by the Native American tribes that are indigenous to North America. The practices and beliefs vary significantly amongst the various groups (over 500!) but have some similar aspects.
For example, all groups have a long history of the use of plants for medicinal, food and spiritual purposes. Continuing today, several medicinal plants hold significance, often spanning Native nations, including Tobacco, Cedar, Sage and Sweetgrass. There are also shared beliefs and interventions, including bio-psycho-socio-spiritual approaches and traditions.
Among the healing practices in Native American belief and ceremony are traditional healers or shamans who facilitate healing on physical-emotional-social-mental and spiritual well-being, sweat lodge ceremonies, drumming, a healing or medicine wheel, medicine bundles (collections of herbs, and/or stones and other ritual objects held by a traditional healer), shamanic journeys, hallucinogenic substances, and dietary therapies. One saying in Native American culture, “Mitakuye Oyasin”, or “All My Relations”, exemplifies the belief of all things living in relationship/kinship to each other, which underpins a holistic view of health and wellbeing.
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