"Today, with little notice, vast archives of knowledge and expertise are spilling into oblivion, leaving humanity in danger of losing its past and perhaps jeopardizing its future as well. Stored in the memories of elders, healers, midwives, farmers, fishermen and hunters in the estimated 15,000 cultures remaining on earth is an enormous trove of wisdom.
This largely undocumented knowledge base is humanity's lifeline to a time when people accepted nature's authority and learned through trial, error and observation. But the world's tribes are dying out or being absorbed into modern civilization. As they vanish, so does their irreplaceable knowledge."
into the celebration of life and the healing traditions of indigenous people the world over...
Represented here are healing traditions of indigenous peoples from around the world -- traditions that have proven to be effective for thousands of years and techniques that modern science has only begun to scratch the surface of in its quest to explore and explain how and why these methods work.
History and Philosophy
Traditional medicine refers to the combined healing practices of all indigenous peoples. Specific practices vary among tribes, from region to region, country to country...but, all traditional healing is based on the understanding that man is part of nature and health is a matter of balance. Throughout the universe there is a striving for union of Yin and Yang -- an urge for the passive feminine and active masculine principles to unite as one. The natural world thrives when its complex web of interrelationships is honored, nurtured and kept in harmony. The collective philosophies of all indigenous people recognizes aspects of the natural world that cannot be seen by the eye or, in many cases, not even by technology, but which can be experienced directly and intuitively. To all indigenous people, the term medicine refers to the spirit power of a life form. There is a deep understanding that just as each person has an immeasurable inner life which powerfully influences well-being, Nature includes unseen but compelling forces which must be addressed and integrated for true balance to be achieved.
Traditional healing practices may well be older than 40,000 years. Many of the various indigenous cultures are often followers of oral traditions. They are cultures that have not developed written language so there is no documentation of there traditions. Until recently, documentation has been limited to the observations of those outside of the culture. Unfortunately, such writings describe only the outward appearance of these people and their healing traditions, but they cannot capture the rich subtlety, the amazing power of their chants and songs...therefore, making the efforts to document such traditions woefully incomplete.
Traditional healing throughout the world is completely embodied in a lifestyle that honors all of creation and simply cannot be reduced to an academic body of knowledge and technique. The methods are intrinsically holistic to such a degree that conventional western allopathic medicine is only beginning to conceptualize. Traditional healing addresses imbalance on every level of life from the most personal inner life to the most overt behavioral issues. Disease is not defined by physical pathology, but is viewed from an expanded context that includes body, mind, spirit, emotions, family, social group and lifestyle. There is a deep understanding that there are endless ways to achieve balance and that effective treatment is a marriage of a skilled, compassionate "healer" and a committed patient. The uniqueness of each "healer's" approach is not simply tolerated, it is prized! Of equal importance is the patient's choice to heal. The patient's preferences are always honored -- to disregard them, or to use even subtle force against those preferences will never establish harmony.
Unfortunately, undocumented living traditions can only survive through living practitioners. As whole tribes die out, much of the traditional knowledge is lost. As the number of the indigenous people continue to take up European ways, fewer take interest in keeping their own traditions alive.
It is our hope to tell the stories of the people and their traditions. At times, the stories will lend themselves to being written. At other times, we will attempt to capture the richness of the stories through the traditional oral traditions of the tribal storytellers (with the help of modern technology.)
Let the journey begin...
Last Updated on Friday, 18 June 2010 21:20
Medicine Circles
Written by Administrator
Thursday, 17 June 2010 00:00
"Herein Lies Our Medicine" artwork by Litina Egungun
The Universe is My Country
The Human Family is My Tribe
~ Kahlil Gibran
A common thread that bonds all indigenous peoples is the ideal of wellness. "Wellness can be defined as the state when the mind, the body, and the spirit are all connected and in balance. One cannot be separated from the other. The Medicine Circle -- having no beginning and no end -- represents this concept of harmonious unity.
The Medicine Wheel or Medicine Circle is symbolic of the Great Wheel of Life. Respect and understanding of Indigenous People's concepts of creation and its interplay with life and nature are foremost. The Medicine Wheel gives language to archetypal images of the "Four Great Directions" of the "Circle of Life", or "Circle of Law". Within this circle are all forms of life: animal, plant, mineral, human; held in four elements of nature: earth, air, fire, and water. Understanding these forms and how they manifest in the People's view of the world gives language and understanding to the complexities of self, and our individual and community relation to the world.
Last Updated on Monday, 21 June 2010 12:45
Australia Dreaming
Written by Administrator
Tuesday, 15 June 2010 11:51
Time before Time
They say we have been here for 40 000 years, but it is much longer...
We have been here since time began, we have come directly out of the Dreamtime of our creative ancestors. We have kept the earth as it was on the first day -- our culture is focused on recording the origins of life.
We refer to forces and powers that created the world as creative ancestors.
Our beautiful world has been created only in accordance with the power, wisdom and intentions of our ancestral beings.
We don't own this land, the land owns us. The Land is our mother...our mother is the land...it is the starting point to where it all began. It is like picking up a piece of dirt and saying "this is where I started and this is where I will go".
The land is our food, our culture, our spirit, our identity...we don't have boundaries like fences, as farmers do. We have spiritual connections...
We are the Indigenous people of Australia and the islands that surround her...Tasmania, Fraser Island, Palm Island, Mornington Island, Groote Eylandt, Bathrust and Mellville Islands.
To understand the sacredness of our world, one must enter the Dreamtime -- the time before time. The Dreamtime is the beginning of knowledge from which came the laws of existence. To survive, these laws must be observed.
All life as it is today -- Human, Animal, Bird, Fish -- is part of one vast unchanging network of relationships which can all be traced to the great spirit ancestors of the Dreamtime. To enter the Dreamtime is to enter the time of the Ancestor Beings as they emerged from the earth at the time of creation. Time began in the world at the moment that these supernatural beings were "born out of their own Eternity".
The Earth was a flat surface, in darkness...a dead, silent world. Unknown forms of life were asleep below the surface of the land. Then the supernatural Ancestor Beings broke through the crust of the earth from below with tumultuous force.
The sun rose up out of the ground and the land received light for the first time.
These supernatural Beings, our Totemic Ancestors, resembled creatures or plants and were half human. They moved across the barren surface of the world. They travelled, hunted, fought and changed the form of the land. In their journeys, they created the landscape, the mountains, the rivers, the trees, waterholes, plains and sandhills.
Moving from Dreams to actions, the ancestors made the people who are descendants of the Dreamtime ancestors. They made the Ant, Grasshopper, Emu, Eagle, Crow, Parrot, Wallaby, Kangaroo, Lizard, Snake and all of the food and plants. The made the natural elements -- Water, Air, Fire. They made all of the celestial bodies -- the Sun, the Moon and the Stars.
Each creation could transform into another...a plant could become an animal, an animal could become a landform, a landform could become a man or a woman. Everything was created from the same source. Everything was created in our Dreamtime.
Throughout their lives on earth, the Ancestors left inseminating powers in the soil. They created and taught us many songs including those recounting the history of their own lives, songs for healing the wounded and the sick, injuring the enemy, bringing the rain, arresting the flood, or causing the wind to turn back.
Then, weary from all of their activities, they retired back into the earth, the sky, the clouds and the creatures to live within all they had created in our Dreamtime. Some of their spirits turned into rocks or trees or became a part of the landscape. These became the sacred places, each of these sites have special qualities.Today the Dreamtime continues on as the "Dreaming" in the lives of the people.
The Dreaming refers to all that is known and yet to be known -- all that is understood and yet to be understood. It is the way that the people explain life and how their world came into being. It is central to the existence of the people -- their lifestyle and their culture -- for it determines their values and beliefs and their relationship with every living creature and every feature of the landscape through the revelations and insights received in dreams and recurring visions. The influence of The Dreaming is embedded in every aspect of daily life.
Dreaming is an approximate English translation of an indigenous concept which has not equivalent in the English language. Various tribal groups have their own words for this concept -- the Pitjantjatjara people use the term Tjukurpa, the Arrernte refer to it as Aldjerinya, the Adnyamathanha use the word Nguthuna.
Nature Based Traditions
