Honoring the Medicine

From the Random House Editor's Description:

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HONORING THE MEDICINE is the major comprehensive work on Native American/ First Nations healing traditions. It was written as much for the general reader who is unfamiliar with American Indian medicine, as for the medicine man and woman or the western physician. Kenneth Cohen has been a teacher and health educator for more than 40 years, and is able to put complex subjects in terms that are easy to understand.

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Kenneth Cohen takes a simple, but revolutionary approach to Native American medicine. The book begins by exploring the core principles of Native American medicine: what values make one a whole and happy human being, in harmony with one's family, community, and the natural world? Then there are entire chapters on specific Native American methods of healing, including counseling and massage-- fundamental therapies that no previous author has explored in detail. He offers new interpretations for the roles of humor, prayer, music, herbs, and dreams in healing, and discusses the differences between men's and women's healing gifts.

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In each chapter, Cohen explains how Native Americans of various nations understand healing therapies, how western medicine, psychology, or religion interpret them, and how he understands them, from the vantage point of nearly a half century of practice. He includes numerous case studies, drawn from his own clients. Yet, Cohen writes from within the tradition, well aware of what kind of information may not be put on the page-- such as practices that are proprietary to individual healers, clans, or nations or never in the public domain because they are given to specific individuals who have followed cultural protocols.

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Today, people throughout the world admire Native American arts, crafts, and literature. Yet America's original healing traditions remain unknown, and most people consider them something of the past, perhaps even extinct. HONORING THE MEDICINE reveals the diversity, richness, continuity, and effectiveness of Native American healing, giving it the place of respect it deserves among the world's great healing traditions.

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Cohen shows that Native American healing is not a museum relic, but a living tradition. Also, he does not shy away from examining the effects of colonialism, including the economic and political injustices that continue to threaten Native values, traditions, land, and life. How can we preserve original peoples' healing wisdom, Cohen asks, without preserving their lands and sovereignty? His book is a call for peaceful activism and justice.