The Mahdi Times The Mahdi Times, Issue #28, March 2015 | Page 15

became available, people started to
depend heavily on the technology
and seemed to have forgotten about
their
roots (http://keller.clarke.edu/~engl
ish/honors/jen/index.html#roots) in
Native American cultures. People
began to focus more on advancing
technology and to try improving the
ways that medicine works, that they
forgot to thank the people who gave
them their beginning
knowledge: the Native American
Indians.
When discussing the differences in
medical values between the
Western medical society and the
Native American Indians, Candance
Croft, a Psychology professor at
Clarke College, pointed out that
Native Americans feel that if
you believe a certain remedy will
work, then you will see it working.
Western medicine say that in order
to believe a certain remedy works,
they must first see it working
(personal interview). Croft went on
further to note that the medical
society's focus is on "curing" people
while the Native American's focus
on "healing" people. When Native
American medicine men and women
are healing people, they are not only
treating the illness such as a sore
throat, for example, but they are also
healing the whole body. Native

Americans believe that the only way
a person can be healed is if they can
rid the body of the evil that has
fallen upon it. Paula Gunn Allen
states that "Healers must know
the spiritual causes of diseases, the
spiritual condition of patients and
the spirit that informs each plant
and animal entity they use in
treatment" (12). Healers must also
know the physical, emotional,
spiritual and mental state of the
patients as well (12). Gunn went on
further to point out that
"Native healers don't apply the same
medication or process to the same
physical symptoms in different
patients because they treat entire
entities, whole persons,
not symptoms" (12). At the other
extreme, the medical society uses
identical treatment techniques and
medications on patients who share
similar symptoms. Furthermore, the
medical society has far more
advanced technology
and medications to help them treat
patients. Native American healers
use knowledge, nature and prayer to
heal their patients.
Both Native American Indians and
the medical society have similar
types of medicine, the two just use
them in contrasting ways. The
medical profession uses strong
manufactured pharmaceuticals