Native American Medicine native americans believe that all things in nature are connected. emotional,and communal harmony are at the heart of native American medicine. http://www.wholehealthmd.com/refshelf/substances_view/1,1525,721,00.html
Extractions: What Is It? Native American medicine is an umbrella term that encompasses the healing beliefs and practices of all the indigenous people of North America. Its therapeutic approach combines spirituality, herbalism, and magic in treating a wide range of physical and emotional ailmentsfrom the common cold to depression. Like other ancient healing systems, such as traditional Chinese medicine and Indian Ayurveda, Native American medicine is a holistic approach that emphasizes the treatment of body, mind, and spirit. Because Native Americans believe that the health of an individual is inextricably linked to the people and objects surrounding that person, their healing practices promote harmony among everyone in a communityand with the physical environment and the spiritual world as well. Although there are variations in the specific healing methods of the different Native American nations (also called "tribes"), four practices are common to most. Native Americans have utilized and benefited from them for at least 10,000 years and possibly much longer. These practices include:
Native American Myths And Legends native American Myths and Legends Indian tales, myths and legends. tales speak of timeless messages of peace, life, death, and harmony with nature. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/NA-IndianMyths.html
Extractions: LEGENDS OF AMERICA American History Ghost Towns Historic People Native Americans Old West Route 66 Treasure Tales Vintage Photos Legends Home Travel To .... Places Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Idaho Illinois Kansas Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma Oregon South Dakota Texas Utah Washington Wyoming Free Newsletter Rocky Mountain Store Main Page Book Shelf Country Store Freebies Jewelry The Lodge Photo Prints Postcards Route 66 Tradin' Post Video Store Guestbook Legends Stuff About Us Awards E-Mail Us Forum Freebies Free Newsletter Guestbook Home Legends Blog Links Press Raves Recommend Services Site Map Sponsorships Submit A Story What's New Writing Credits E-mail Us Ghostly Legends Ghostly Books Haunted Forts Haunted Hotels Links Route 66 Ghosts Reader's Stories State by State Testimonials Site Map More Travel Fun Legends Lodging National Parks Quirky Stops Route 66 RV'ers Scenic Byways Travel Tips What's New!!
Extractions: Email: mehlmadrona@aol.com Other Pages on Lewis Mehl-Madrona Summary : Increasingly, traditional Native American healing practices are being requested by Native Americans and non-Natives alike. A series of meetings among traditional Native American healers and the author resulted in a dialogue between the Native American world view and that of biomedicine. Recommendations arose for how treatment should proceed in the modern world and how best to introduce interested non-Natives to Native American healing practices. An approach was developed for bridging cultures to facilitate the interaction of non-Natives with traditional healers. One hundred sixteen patients were treated in this manner by the author in conjunction with traditional Native American healers. More than 80% of patients showed significant, persisting benefits of a time-intensive treatment program. A comparison group of patients derived from the author's emergency room patients showed significantly lower rates of improvement. The author suggests that an intensive treatment experience (inspired by Native American practices) over 7-10 days for treating chronic physical illness achieves both health benefits and improved cost utility.
Native American Oral Literatures Wiget s native American Literature and Ruoff s American Indian Literatures Many of these stereotypesthat Indians were in perfect harmony with nature; http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/nativetr.html
Extractions: Native American Oral Literatures Contributing Editor: Andrew Wiget Teachers face a number of difficulties in bringing before their students something as unfamiliar as Native American oral literatures. The problems will vary, of course, from situation to situation. Jeanne Holland's article in the Bibliography on page 13 outlines some of the difficulties she faced in using the first edition of this anthology, some of which we have tried to remedy in this second edition, others of which I addressed in a recent issue of The Heath Anthology of American Literature Newsletter (see Bibliography). Native American Literature and Ruoff's American Indian Literatures constitute a very valuable core of essential reference works. Instructors should also consult the Smithsonian's new, multivolume Handbook of North American Indians , for its many articles on the history and culture of specific tribes and its extensive bibliographies, and Murray (1990) for a thorough discussion of how the dynamics of the translation/transcription situation shape the text we read. culture . Culture is a system of beliefs and values through which a group of people structure their experience of the world. By working with this definition of culture, which is very close to the way current criticism understands the impact of ideology upon literature, we can begin to pluralize our notion of the world and understand that other peoples can organize their experience in different ways, and dramatize their experience of the world through different symbolic forms. If time is available, I would highly recommend that the class view "Winds of Change," a PBS documentary that dramatizes the adaptability of contemporary Indian cultures, and goes a long way toward restoring the visible presence of Indian diversity.
UnderstandingPrejudice.org: Teaching About Native American Issues Many US teachers discuss native American history and culture, especially at of respect for every form of life and for living in harmony with nature. http://www.understandingprejudice.org/teach/native.htm
Extractions: Many U.S. teachers discuss Native American history and culture, especially at Thanksgiving time. Unfortunately, the portrayal of Native Americans is often stereotypical, inaccurate, or outdated. This page offers several tips on how to teach more effectively about Native Americans. A Checklist of Dos and Don'ts The following checklist is based in part on recommendations from the Council on Interracial Books for Children: Do not equate Indians with "things." For example, if alphabet cards say, "A is for apple, B is for ball, .... I is for Indian," pick a different word so that Indian people are not presented as objects.
Native American Proverbs native American Proverbs and Wisdom. Listed and randomized. Proverb Search. To touch the earth is to have harmony with nature. Oglala Sioux http://oneproverb.net/bwfolder/nativebw.html
The Cherokee Full Circle Now Cherokee authors JT and Michael Garrett share native American Spiritualpractices emphasizing harmony with nature and the entire Circle of Life http://www.manataka.org/page248.html
Extractions: A comprehensive overview of Native American spiritual principles and their application for personal spirit-healing. *Includes traditional sacred exercises, teaching tales, case studies, and suggested rituals for individual and group healing. *Outlines the core principals of Native American traditional values and teaches how to apply them to the contemporary path of wellness and healing. Publication to coincide with annual Full Circle gathering in September 2002 The Four Directions, the four seasons, and the four elements that make up the sacred hoop of the full circle must be in right relationship with one another or disharmony will result. Native American ritual has always emphasized the restoration of balance through ceremonies that provide a forum for learning, transition, and expressions of personal growth. Now Cherokee authors J. T. and Michael Garrett share Native American traditions to explore interrelationships as a tool for growth and transformation. The Cherokee Full Circle gathers techniques representing Native American cultures from across America-stories, exercises, and individual and group rituals-to teach the inherent dynamics of right relationship and apply them to the healing path. The authors provide a comprehensive overview of Native American spiritual principles and traditions and demonstrate how these ideas and methods can be applied universally to deal with life's situations-from depression and grieving to finding purpose and establishing positive relationships.
Extractions: Editor's Introduction What did Amerindians do before they began to make big money by running casinos and selling tax-free cigarettes? Well, for starters, they devised unique agricultural techniques indeed, they were the folks who invented irrigation. (Fortunately for us, they disclosed their amazing innovation to "modern society," which is why we are able to practice irrigation today.) This is the sort of phony-Injun stuff that Addison-Wesley is peddling in a high-school book. This article ran in The Textbook Letter, November-December 1994. the Panderer's Friend You probably haven't seen the name of Chief Thunderbottom until now, but you may well have encountered some of his work. The Chief is the proprietor of Thunderbottom Public Relations, Inc., a company that cranks out press releases telling phony stories about American Indians. The stories are becoming increasingly conspicuous nowadays, because unscrupulous writers are copying them and putting them into textbooks. The writers evidently believe that printing the Chief's ready-made rubbish is an easy way of pandering to the multi-culti mob. A lot of the stories that the Chief peddles are clever-aborigine tales. These are similar to noble-savage fantasies, but they have imaginary scientific or technical elements. Each clever-aborigine story seeks to convince readers that some group of aborigines made great scientific or technological discoveries, and the story may also claim (implicitly or explicitly) that the aborigines' achievements contributed mightily to the development of modern civilization. Clever-aborigine tales come from various sources and involve various groups of people, but the ones that glorify American Indians seem to be especially popular with textbook-writers.
Theme Week Info What does living in harmony with nature mean? Invite a native Americanstoryteller to the classroom to tell stories and talk about traditional legends http://gpn.unl.edu/rainbow/theme_info_native.asp
Extractions: Grant Tau-hin-dauli, last chief of the Trinity River Wintu Indian tribe, painted in oils at least three scenes of Mount Shasta. As a turn of the century Indian chief, and as the medicine person of his tribe (shaman), he is perhaps an unlikely a person to adopt the Western European style of art. But he was by all accounts an extraordinary person, one who was respected by his fellow Indians and White friends alike, not only for his Indian knowledge and story-telling abilities, but as well for his reasoned attempts to understand the gap between the two cultures he inhabited. The artist's roots go back to the Trinity River Valley area, a region just over the high ridges west of the upper Sacramento Canyon. In the early 1850s, the Trinity River was overrun with gold miners, and many of the the local Indians were forced to flee to the Sacramento Canyon. Some of these settled at the medicine site later known as the Upper Soda Springs, and one of those refugees was the chief and shaman, Wi-tau-hin-dauli. 'Wi' means 'chief' in the Wintu language , and perhaps naively, he was called Wi-lliam, or Bill, by the McCloud family, who in 1855 bought the Indian healing site. The elder chief then lived and worked for the McCloud family, and in 1873 his son Grant was born.
Extractions: Introduction Information is a resource for Native American governments, communities, organizations, and people. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provides technical expertise, reports, and other impartial information sources that benefit Native Americans interested in subsistence issues, water, resources and land use, and the health of many parts of the environment. Native decisions based in USGS data and analyses support the goals of Native self-sufficiency, economic development, and conservation. The USGS works in cooperation with American Indian and Alaska Native governments, conducting research on: water energy and mineral resources; animals and plants of environmental, economic, or subsistence importance; and natural hazards. Digital data on cartography, energy and mineral resources, streamflow, biota, and other topics are available to American Indian and Alaska Native individuals and institutions. The USGS also recognizes the need to learn from and share knowledge with Native peoples. This report describes most of the activities that the USGS conducted with American Indian and Alaska Native governments, educational institutions, and individuals during Federal fiscal year (FY) 2003. Some of these USGS activities were conducted cooperatively with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) or other Federal entities. Others were collaborations with Tribes, Tribal organizations, and professional societies.
Extractions: People Occupations Literary Works Proverbs ... WorldVillage "Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Walk beside me that we may be as one." Ute "A good man does not take what belongs to someone else." Pueblo "It's impossible to awaken a man who is pretending to be asleep." Navajo "It is less of a problem to be poor, than to be dishonest." Anishinabe "The rain falls on the just and the unjust." Hopi "Those who have one foot in the canoe, and one foot in the boat, are going to fall into the river." Tuscarora "Listening to a liar is like drinking warm water." tribe unknown "Many have fallen with the bottle in their hand." Lakota "What the people believe is true." Anishinabe "There is no death, only a change of worlds." Duwamish "Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne "It is easy to be brave from a distance." Omaha "A brave man dies but once; a coward, many times." Iowa "One rain does not make a crop." Creole "A rocky vineyard does not need a prayer, but a pick ax." Navajo
Extractions: At the time of French settlement in 1700, many Indian groups lived in Louisiana, which then encompassed the Mississippi Valley and Gulf Coast region. These groups ranged from small clans of hunters to large communities of farmers. Several Louisiana societies established extensive cultural and economic exchange networks and traded material goods, belief systems, language patterns, technology, and recreational practices with other native groups in North America and probably even in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, and later with European settlers. As in most Indian societies, Louisiana Indians carried out tasks defined along gender lines. Men ruled and defended the tribal communities and hunted and constructed buildings and canoes with tools they made. Women cared for children and the elderly, planted crops, and made clothes and utensils, which they used to prepare foods and decorate their homes and religious centers. One early French settler, Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz, observed that "most of the labour and fatigue falls to the share of the women," while Indian men had "a great deal of more spare time than the women."
Ceremonies, Rituals And Spirituality Books native american indian arts, humanities and culture, native american books, music,videos, and how to learn to live in closer harmony with nature. http://www.tahtonka.com/sacred.html
Extractions: Ceremonies, Rituals and Spirituality Books Spirituality is not religion to Indians. Religion is not an Indian concept, it is a non Indian word, with implications of things that end badly like wars in the name of individuals God's and so on. Indians do not ask what religion another Indian is, because they already know the answer. To an Indian, spirituality is about the Creator, period. "For me, the essence of a medicine man's life is to be humble, to have great patience,
Native American Wisdom native American Wisdom. Copied with permission from Moonlight Magick So theseforces can help, or can interfere with the harmony of nature. http://www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Ancient_religions/North_america/nat
Extractions: to promote a multidisciplinary view of the religious, spiritual and esoteric phenomena. About Us Links Search Contact ... Science home Religion sections World Religions New Religious Groups Ancient Religions Spirituality ... Extremism Science sections Archaeology Astronomy Linguistics Mathematics ... Contact Please, help us sustain this free site online. Make a donation using Paypal: Copied with permission from Moonlight Magick Based upon a Native American Legend Once upon a time the colors of the world started to quarrel : All claimed that they were the best, the most important, the most useful, the favorite.
Extractions: mcclusky@asu.edu The almost thirty year freeze on research into the beneficial uses of psychedelics is slowly starting to thaw. Human subject studies have been approved by the FDA for Phase 1 safety studies of ibogaine (a derivative of a West African plant iboga) which may turn out to be an important new treatment for heroine and cocaine addiction. Ketamine (a general anesthetic, which at sub-anesthetic doses facilitates altered states of consciousness), has been shown to facilitate abstinence from alcohol in chronic alcoholics (Krupitsky 1992, 1997). Research is now underway in Peru to study ayahuasca, a mixture of two Amazonian plants that may also be of use in the treatment of addictions. From time immemorial, indigenous peoples have used mind-altering plants to facilitate spiritual growth and healing. Early petroglyphs in Northern Africa indicate mushroom rituals (circa 12,000 B.C.) and early Indian Vedic texts mention soma, a mind altering substance, also believed to be a mushroom. Unfortunately, to date there have not been any controlled studies of the use of peyote in this setting to treat alcoholism or other addiction disorders. Most of the literature has consisted of anecdotal accounts of its effectiveness (Albaugh & Anderson,1974; Bergman, 1971; Pascarosa, & Futterman, 1976; Pascarosa, Futterman & Halsweig, 1976). The closest research that has been done in this area is with LSD back in the 50s and 60s. Virtually all double-blind controlled studies that have been done with LSD in the treatment of alcoholism have met mixed reviews by the scientific community. There has been short term or "afterglow" improvement in patients which diminishes with time (Halpern, 1996). It is important to note that most of these studies only measured drug effect with no appropriate clinical direction and support. (Smart & Strom, 1964; Hollister et al., 1969; Ludwig et al., 1969; Mottin, 1973).
Native Spirituality The native people of North America believe in God whom they call The Great Spirit . We were instructed to live in harmony with nature and human kind. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/9118/knockwood.html
Extractions: Native Spirituality * By Noel Knockwood, Spiritual Leader, Elder, Micmac Nation The Native people of North America believe in God whom they call "The Great Spirit". Knowing that all Gods are in a Spirit form, which is a universal rule of mankind, they felt the presence of the Great Spirit in every object, in every person, and in every place. The Great Spirit does not take on a human form and could be without gender. Hence, the term Grandfather, Grandmother God is occasionally used. S/he has never revealed itself to humans, only in forms of visions, dreams or in altered states of consciousness: fasting, vision quests, sweats, or during special holy and sacred rituals. There are prayers but not litany as such because the Natives did not have a written language. Prayers are spontaneous and that's our communion or transmission of thoughts through our speaking. We praise the Great Spirit through chants and we dance in His honour. The sacred offerings burned are: Sweetgrass, sage, tobacco, cedar, corn or birch bark. We have holy rituals for: death, marriages, name-giving, burials, healing, prayer and worship to only one God. There is no trinity, angels, saints, saviours, or intermediaries. When one prays, it is directed exclusively to the Great Spirit, The Creator and the Maker of all things.
Native American Culture - Music Links to various types of native American music and instruments. Spiritual,native American Influenced native Earth Music in harmony with nature. http://www.ewebtribe.com/NACulture/music.htm
NATIVE AMERICAN WAY Blog native American Ways, History and Culture. as a period of massive change inthe future when people will live in harmony with nature and each other. http://www.legendarysurfers.com/naw/blog/
Extractions: @import url(http://www.blogger.com/css/navbar/main.css); @import url(http://www.blogger.com/css/navbar/2.css); BlogThis! American Indian Ways, Wisdom, History and Culture A good explanation for some peculiarities of what's sometimes known as the Harvest Moon that shines in September and sometimes October:
