It is important to acknowledge that not only is there great diversity between Aboriginal communities across Canada, but also a great variance in their conceptions of health and well-being amongst their people (Skye 2010). However, some common themes are apparent. Firstly, we must remember that each of the elements of life are interconnected, and that the well-being of both the land and its inhabitants is dependant upon a balance and harmony between each of the beings (Skye 2010; Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 3:3, 1996). Therefore, attaining good health is not simply maintaining balance within oneself, but with others in the family, community, nation, the earth, and the universe (Robbins & Dewar 2011).  

 

To expand on this concept of balance within oneself, Aboriginals believe that each person is composed of the four basic elements: physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional (Roberts 2006; Skye 2010). Traditional healing acknowledges that, as stated previously, each of these components are intimately connected to each other within a person (Robbins & Dewar 2011), and as such, reaching “whole health” involves the balance between them (Skye 2010; Struthers, Eschiti & Patchell 2004; Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 3:3, 1996). In a way, this can be understood through a circular concept, one that links the body with the mind, emotions, and spirituality of the individual, and then outwards with the community and the land as well (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 3:3, 1996).  

 

This concept of balance and interconnection is a complex notion, and the medicine wheel is often used as a tool to help explain the basic tenets of the concept (Wilson 2003). The wheel, like the compass, is separated into four directions - each direction representing one of the four elements of a person: physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1. An example of the medicine wheel concept. Retrieved from http://trauma-informed.ca/trauma-and-first-nations-people/cultural-practices/the-medicine-wheel/

 

 

The wheel shows that no aspect is isolated; events in one area affect all areas of the wheel (Roberts 2006). It is interesting to note that the number four is often significant within Aboriginal culture, not only because of the aspects of the individual, but because of things such as:

 

the 4 seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter)

the 4 physical elements (earth, air, fire, water)

the 4 sacred medicines (cedar, sweetgrass, sage, tobacco)

 

The wheel not only highlights the “inseparability” of each person, but also the family and community (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 3:3, 1996). Understanding the notion that health requires harmony in all of life’s aspects is therefore very important, otherwise the “imbalance can threaten the conditions that enable the person..to reach their full potential as a human being” (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 3:3, 1996).

 

There were, and still are, many traditional Aboriginal techniques used to restore the “imbalance” of an ill body (Struthers, Eschiti & Patchell 2004). However, I would like to note that the concept of “traditional” is one that has been communicated from a British colonial perspective (Robbins & Dewar 2011). As such, it is often disliked by many Aboriginal groups, as it is a rather ambiguous term that “does not engage the full spectrum of knowledge interpretation that Elders and healers have to offer” (Robbins & Dewar 2011). I believe it also marks the Aboriginal concept of health and healing as “alternative”; something that is less scientific, and consequently, appears less valid and credible. Many Indigenous groups have advocated for simply the term “medicine” to be used, and in respect of this, the use of “medicine” throughout the rest of this piece will imply the traditional healing practices of Aboriginal peoples, mainly the use of herbal remedies and specific ceremonies and rituals to promote spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing (Robbins & Dewar 2011).

 

Some of these healing rituals may include divination, prayer, chanting, music, the laying on of hands, counselling, ceremony etc. (Struthers, Eschiti & Patchell 2004; Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 3: App 3A, 1996). In turn, relying on the accumulated wisdom of elders was incredibly important and encouraged (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 3: App 3A, 1996). Of course, this list is not exhaustive and only provides some general insight into the possible methods and activities used.

 

The healing rituals were performed by the community healers, typically known as shamans.  These were deeply respected men and women (depending on the tribe) who restored “harmony and health”, and were seen as spiritual leaders within the community (Jasen 1997; Noel 2006; Struthers, Eschiti & Patchell 2004).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2. A Gitksan woman shaman. Retrieved from http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_groups/fp_nwc5.html

 

 

This healing ability was acquired through a number of ways, including inheritance from ancestors, transmission through another healer, or many years of training and apprenticeship (Struthers, Eschiti & Patchell 2004).  They were often appointed by their community due to their apparent (and unique) abilities for communicating with the nonmaterial, or spiritual, world (Roberts 2006; Dickason 2002). It was sometimes believed that these healing powers came from the Great Spirit, and that it was the spirits who communicated with the shaman and instructed how to best restore health to the ailing individual in their care (Struthers, Eschiti & Patchell 2004). This communication was often brought about by smoking tobacco, as the use of tobacco with prayer was thought to be the link between humans and the spirits (Struthers, Eschiti & Patchell 2004). An interview with an Aboriginal medicine healer conducted during the work of Struthers et al. (2004) sheds light on these “helping spirits”:

 

All these spirits can communicate. This aspect of spirituality is an important component of medicine; it is the real part of the effectiveness of the practice of medicine and of the treatments that are used…You know I’m a medicine man. I go out there in the woods and I don’t go along with all this imaginary stuff. I’m out there to think and to listen and to hear the spirits…When I go out there in the woods, I say a prayer, and I offer my tobacco, and I talk to the spirits in the woods. If there’s a true spirit for me to see, I’ll see it.

 

Also, Wilson (2003) highlights an interview with an Anishinabek healer, who reflects on how Western Medicine does not realize how integral spirituality can be concerning health. The healer goes on to say that:

 

...there is a spiritual component which becomes weaker when it is analyzed. It is difficult for medical professions in the Western world to understand it. Western medicine is the physical, mental, emotional but not the spiritual. I find it’s not there. In the Native world everything comes from the heart. That’s where it is.

 

Research conducted by Hollow et al. (2004) into traditional Indigenous health led to development of the following table to help organize the thoughts surrounding medicine within Aboriginal (Indian) culture vs the current Western context:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 3. Comparison of traditional Indian (Aboriginal) medicine with modern Western medicine (Hollow 1999).

 

Of course, it is important to note that these historical treatments will vary between tribes and between healers. However, there was still a common understanding across communities of the gravity and responsibility that came with accepting the role as healer: the undertaking of a serious, but honourable, commitment in service of the people of their community (Struthers, Eschiti & Patchell 2004). For healing “does not occur in isolation”, but rather through the community mind and thought (Robbins & Dewar 2011).

 

For Aboriginal healers, Mother Earth always supplied plants as a major source of medicines required for healing (Dickason & Newbiggin 2010). In a way, healers were “all by nature physicians, apothecaries, and doctors by virtue of knowledge and experience they have of certain herbs” (Dickason & Newbiggin 2010). It was through these medicines that individuals were able to become spiritually connected to both Mother Earth and the Creator, ultimately leading to a maintenance or restoration of good health (Wilson 2003). The four sacred medicines included cedar, sweetgrass, sage, and tobacco - usage of these plants in a variety of ways allowed for connection to the spirits (Wilson 2003). Amazingly, at least 500 of drugs originally used are still utilized today (Dickason & Newbiggin 2010; Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 3:3, 1996).

 

In additional to herbal remedies, other common health care practices included the sweat lodge (video available here) and the smudging ceremony. Smudging was seen as a symbolic washing or purification of body, mind, and spirit (Wilson 2003). A major component of this ritual was the offering of prayers to Mother Earth and the Creator through smoke created by burning of the sacred medicines (Wilson 2003). These rituals and many others are also still in use by Aboriginal peoples today.   

 

 

References

 

Dickason, O.P. (2002). Canada’s First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times (3rd ed.). Don Mills: Oxford University Press.

 

Dickason, O.P. & Newbigging, W. (2010). A Concise History of Canada’s First Nations (2nd ed.). Don Mills: Oxford University Press.

 

Hollow W.B. (1999). Traditional Indian medicine. In: J.M. Galloway, B.W. Goldberg, J.S. Alpert (Eds.), Primary care of Native American patients: diagnosis, therapy, and epidemiology. (pp. 35). Boston: Butterworth and Heineman.

 

Jasen, P. (1997). Race, Culture, and the Colonization of Childbirth in Northern Canada. The Society for the Social History of Medicine, 10(3), 383-400.

 

Noel, J. (2006). Power Mothering: The Haudenosaunee Model. In D.M. Lavell-Harvard & J. Corbiere Lavell (Eds.), “Until Our Hearts Are On the Ground” Aboriginal Mothering, Oppression, Resistance and Rebirth. (pp. 76-93). Toronto: Demeter Press.

 

Robbins, J.A. & Dewar, J. (2011). Traditional Indigenous Approaches to Healing and the modern welfare of Traditional Knowledge, Spirituality and Lands: A critical reflection on practices and policies taken from the Canadian Indigenous example. The International Indigenous Policy Journal, 2(4), PAGES.

 

Roberts, J. (2006). First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples: Exploring Their Past, Present, and Future. Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications Limited.

 

Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. (1996). Health and Healing [Chapter 3]. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: Volume 3 Gathering Strength. Retrieved from http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071115053257/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sgmm_e.html

 

Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. (1996). Traditional Health and Healing [Appendix 3A]. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: Volume 3 Gathering Strength. Retrieved from  http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071115053257/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sgmm_e.html

 

Skye, A.D. (2010) Aboriginal Midwifery: A Model for Change. Journal of Aboriginal Health, 6(1), 28-37.

 

Struthers, R., Eschiti, V.S., & Patchell, B. (2004). Traditional indigenous healing: Part 1. Complementary Therapies in Nursing and Midwifery, 10, 141-149.

 

Wilson, K. (2003). Therapeutic landscapes and First Nations peoples: an exploration of culture, health and place. Health & Place, 9, 83-93.