The Lakota And Mapuche Healing Practices

Across a large distance, two cultures will be dissected to show how health and care is administered to the people of the Lakota and Mapuche. I will show the ways in which they are alike and different. Also discussed will be the pros and cons of their practices in reference to modern, western medicine. All have factors that affect the ability to provide the best care to the people of their lands. This paper will also dive into the history from which the techniques come and discuss how the changes that have been made to the techniques are changing the people and will continue to affect them into the future.
One thing that is common and ubiquitous between the two tribes is that most of their knowledge was passed down orally. The primary healer in Mapuche medicine were the Machi, or Mapuche shaman. These shaman would use a variety of techniques to heal those who sought them which largely involved altered states of consciousness including dreams, visions and trances. In this altered state the Machi would often experience possession and rebirth. These techniques and stories were most commonly passed down orally through biographies and mythohistories which contain elements of normal linear story telling along with cyclical story telling. Time and events move along in a scientifically linear temporal fashion and yet events also repeat in similar formats, seeming to have ties to the past (Raimondi, 2013).
In total there are three types of healers in Mapuche medicine including the Machi. As shared by Cruz-Coke (1995) the first is the Vileus. These individuals worked mostly after the arrival of the Spanish and believed that disease was caused by insects and worms. These beliefs are very similar to what is understood in modern, western medicine with most disease being caused by virus and bacteria. Besides the Machi, the other healer type was the Ampiver. These doctors used simple remedies such as medicinal herbs and they would make basic diagnoses and take blood pressure.
The Lakota health practices are similar in nature including utilizing smoke techniques as the Mapuche do. As the Mapuche believe the Lakota people believe in not only healing the body but also healing the soul. That they must have brought the sickness on themselves by committing evil deeds. Purifying themselves and making offers to their gods was a common practice. There is a story telling of a women wearing a white bison skin and bringing the sacred pipe to the Lakota people. She showed the people how to perform the ritual properly and the offering that must be paid to their deity. The story is as follows, “a long time ago, during a time of famine, a woman appeared, wearing white buffalo skin, and carrying a sacred pipe. She explained that the wooden stem was for the trees, and everything growing on earth, the red bowl symbolized the flesh and blood of all people, and the smoke was the breath of their prayers going to Wakan Tanka, the Creator. The woman showed the people the pipe ceremony, where offerings were made to the four directions, while drums were played, and sacred songs were sung. The people learned of the connection between the sky and the earth and the unity of all life. They learned that offering thanks to Wakan Tanka with the pipe would yield many blessings here on earth. Before leaving, the woman said that she would return when the time was ripe. Then she turned into a buffalo, changing colors several times. Finally, she changed into a white buffalo calf, and disappeared into the distance. The people followed her teachings and were hungry no more” (Ed McGaa, 1990)
In the summer of 1994, her promise of return in the Lakota’s eyes had come to pass when a rare white bison was born in Jamesville, Wisconsin. Since its birth the bison went from white to black to red then yellow and back to white. These two tribes believe to have good health and good things in life that there must be a balance. Pray to the gods, give back to the earth and live honorably. Living harmoniously with the planet we live on.
In both tribes they are trying to incorporate modern western medicine into their healing practices. They are looking to the future to make themselves strong as a people to not forget the old ways but not to ignore what might help. The local governments of the regions have help pitch in with financial support (Estrada, 2008). Women’s health has improved over the years not just in western medicine but also in the native American practices that use techniques that are a blend of the two different practices. I came across an article on the Lakota healing practices where it talked of the first female doctor in the tribe and her great many achievements. Her dream was to one day open a reservation hospital. Though she passed away, her dream was later realized two years after her death. “In the early years of the 20th century, Susan La Flesche Picotte kept a yellow lantern on her front porch every night, a beacon of hope for many sick Omaha Nation families and white neighbors desperate for medical care” (Pascale, 2012).
Traditional native healing process varied greatly and included things like sandpainting, sweat lodges, and wooden masks to frighten evil spirits from a body. Many also have used, and still use, plants, herbs and roots to heal the sick (Pascale, 2012). While calling these medicines by their lay-person botanical names makes them sound primitive, the use of plants, herbs, and roots is still something modern, western medicine largely relies on. Painkillers like morphine and coding are derived from the poppy plant and penicillin is derived from fungi.
Sanapia, a Lakota medicine woman who died in 1968, became a healer by conquering her own sickness and using her knowledge to treat others. She specialized in treating a type of recurring paralysis she called “ghost sickness,” which may be the condition westerners call sleep paralysis. While western medicine takes this type of paralysis which sometimes occurs between the waking and sleeping moment as a natural, albeit rare occurrence, Sanapia first diagnosed her patients’ problems as spiritual and gave them a purifying bath to reduce the power of the harmful spirits. She also used herbs which she would claim to locate in a trancelike state with an animal helper and she would chant and massage the patient with the herbs to help with their sleep paralysis. Sanapia stated before her death that she was not opposed to scientific medicine but believed it does not cure the root of the cause, which she identifies as more spiritual in nature. (Pascale, 2012)
In Mary Regina Ingrams (1989) dissertation, she talks about the different healing practices among the native American tribes. She brought it down to the key points of health care on the reservation in north and south Dakota. As she says here, “Understanding the health and caring practices of a cultural group is essential to the provision of nursing care that is both therapeutic and culturally sensitive. Investigation into the ethnohealth and ethnocaring practices of the northern Lakota Sioux bands has been lacking in nursing and anthropological research. Likewise, research about modern women in shamanistic training is limited to two studies, neither of which centers on healing practices. This study employed a blend of ethnonursing and phenomenological approaches to: (a) explore and explicate the cultural modes of health and caring among the Hunkpapa band of the Lakota Sioux who reside on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota and South Dakota and (b) to generate a description of medicine-woman apprenticeship. Data collection entailed participant observation, dialogal interviews, and semistructured interviews guided by orienting theory”. “The results produced an ethnonursing account of health and caring practices of this particular cultural group. Conceptual categories of ethnohealth and ethnocaring were constructed using indigenous terms. The researcher's encounters as an adoptive member of the Hunkpapa kinship network and as an apprentice medicine woman yielded a descriptive, experiential account of traditional healing ways as experienced by a nurse practitioner. An account and analysis of the nurse's endeavors to incorporate ethnohealth and ethnocaring practices into her professional practice concluded the study. It was determined that the use of ethnohealing interventions initiated by the nurse must take into consideration kinship ties, client expectations, and the professional scope of nursing practice”.
It seems that all of the native practices are something that can be learned from. A blending of the cultures not only results in healing their body, but also healing their minds and balancing their lives. Not shutting their eyes to the medical advancements of other cultures, but trying to include it into their everyday practices, has had a positive impact on the health of the modern day Lakota and Mapuche peoples. Their goal is to offer better care with the help of local government programs and private institutions that give money to the many research projects that will make life and health better.

Bibliography:

Cruz-Coke, Ricardo (1995). Historia de la medicina chilena. Primera edición. Santiago de Chile: Andrés Bello, retrieved December 06, 2013

Overview of the history of medicine in Chile including for the Mapuche people.

Estrada, D. (2008). HEALTH-CHILE: Government Finances Mapuche Medical Service. Retrieved January 19, 2015. http://www.ipsnews.net/2008/01/health-chile-government-finances-mapuche-medical-service/

Discusses some of the governmental efforts to help finance medical services which are at least partly based in traditional methods.

Ingram, M. (1989). Ethnohealth and Ethnocaring Practices Among the Lakota. Retrieved January 19, 2015. http://content.lib.utah.edu/utils/getfile/collection/etd1/id/961/filename/1589.pdf

Overview of the Lakota tribal health practices.

McGaa, E. (1990). Mother Earth Spirituality: Native Americans Paths to Healing Ourselves and Our World.

Many anecdotal stories of healing and healing practices.

Pascale, J. (2012). Alternative methods still important to Native healers. Retrieved January 23, 2015. http://cojmc.unl.edu/nativedaughters/healers/alternative-methods-still-important-to-native-healers

Description of many modern stories of healers using the traditional Lakota methods.

Raimondi, R. (2013). Shamans weave myth and history to rewrite story of a subjugated people. Retrieved February 2, 2015, from http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2013/10/058.html

Focus on the Machi in the Mapuche culture and how they operate to heal, pass along stories, and act as (mostly) female shaman.