Religious Healers

“There is no man alive today that is as religious as the indians where.” This was said by Chief Plenty-Coup. What he said is very true, the Native Americans whole life was centered around the spirits. Everything thing they did was somehow connected to the spirits. Today you don’t see religion like the Native Americans had.

Religion in the Native American culture has always been a way of life, and therefore made the Indians very religious, because religion was the reason for everything they did. For the Native Americans medicine was always about healing the person, and less about the health issues they were undergoing. Whenever someone falls ill in the tribe it is believed to the Indians as spiritual problems. So when the medicine man in the tribe would come to help the ill person, they were mostly trying to balance the sick person back to a pure state of spirituality. Some healing rituals could go on for days and during these days the sick person’s family would be around the whole time for the healing ritual contributing mostly by pray. The family members could also join in the medicine man’s singing and the chants. Some of these rituals are still practiced today.#

In the book “Plenty-Coup; chief of the Crows”#  by Frank Linderman, Plenty-Coup tells the story of a battle he was once in where one of their men got shot. The medicine man (also known as a Shaman), of his tribe at that time, performed a ritual for the shot man by the creek. He made a path the creek and told everyone in the tribe they where not to pass it or else the spirits would be upset and something bad might come to the wounded warrior. Before the ritual could begin the Shaman put on a wolf’s skin and made clay wolf ears. He also painted  the injured man Blue.The Medicine man placed the hurt man on the ground and skipped around four times like a wolf does. He would jump over the man repetitively and howling at the same time he soon lead the man slowly towards the creek down the path until they where standing in the creek. The man soon began to bleed rapidly turning the calm water a dark red,the shaman hurried to clean his wounds. Four days after this ritual the wounded warrior passed away sadly, the Crows explanation for his death was that somebody must have walked over the path causing the death of the man. Religion circled the Native Americans life with everything they did.

Death in the Native Americans perspective was not seen as a scary doom to them. Death was apart of everyday life, and they faced it with dignity.
by riley