Native Americans

  The main healing used by Native Americans was the medicine man (or medicine woman). According to Native American beliefs, everything has a spirit. Sometimes the Native American' s tribe's healer would say that the patient's soul was stolen by another spirit. Then they would ask the spirit guides to regain it. This is called "Soul Retrieval". Sometimes they would go as far as to say that the patient is "possessed" by another person or animal. Today there are ten top selling herbs in U.S.A, and seven of them have been used by Native Americans.

                        Apart from the medicine man, herbal medicine was also very popular. So says the Native Americans, there are many ways to take herbs. You could take them as tea or with some other drink. Sometimes they would burn the herbs and let the smoke waft over the patient. 

                    Here are yet more facts about curing a patient:

• They could rub stones on the patient's body if they were supposedly diseased.

• A healing room, was small, pitch black (except for the glow of rocks.) and hot because boiling liquids were poured onto rocks. This created steam, which created sweat, which gave rise to its nickname, sweat lodges.