Among the Lakota Sioux, the complex healing ceremony has a variety of rituals that are steeped in mystery and tradition. While the transition from isolated plains tribes into semi-assimilated, yet culturally unique, societies has expunged a great deal of the traditional ways of the Sioux, the healing ritual remains to some degree constant. Much of what is known about traditional Lakota medicine comes from modern day tribal representatives, individuals who have opened the door to a unique and complicated world. It is through their knowledge of this practice that much of what is known today about plains culture has survived and continues to grow.
At the start of the Lakota healing ceremony, the medicine person sings the “doctoring song,” an appeal to the spirit world on behalf of the patient. Though this facet of the healing ritual is deeply engrained in the practice of traditional medicine, it still remains a mystery even to those among the Lakota community who are not practitioners of traditional medicine. Recent research on Native American healing rituals has offered unique perspectives on these complicated and mysterious cultural traits. In collecting personal histories and first hand accounts of these and other native rituals, indigenous scholars have opened the door to a much more comprehensive exploration of Indian life. In Walking in the Sacred Manner, a highly valued source of information, members of the Lakota community discuss their experiences with such topics as vision quests, healing rituals, and the preservation of traditional ways within the modern day world.
These healing songs are actually prayers that are meant to invoke the healer’s guiding spirits. Known as the Wapiye’ Olowan (or curing song), this initial event asks for guidance from both personal and tribal spiritual entities. This is actually a community event, begun by the practitioner and accompanied by relatives and friends of the patient. As the healer becomes entranced by the blended voices, the singers raise their collective appeals to a powerful crescendo. The moment of trace occurs at the apex of the song—only then can the healer begin to practice his or her art. It is at this point that the healer receives guidance from the spirit world and can give the patient proper care.
David M Jones and Brian L Molyneaux, Mythology of the American Nations. (London: Hermes House, 2006).
Gilbert Legay, Atlas of Indians. (Hauppage: Barron’s Educational Services, Inc., 1995)
Peter Matthiessen, ed., George Catlin: North American Indians. (New York: Penguin Group, 1989).
Mark St. Pierre and Tilda Long Soldier, Walking in the Sacred Manner: Healers, Dreamers, and Pipe Carriers—Medicine Women of the Plains. (New York: Simon and Schuster,1995).
Carl Waldman, Atlas of the North American Indian. (New York: Checkmark Books, 2000).
Carl Waldman, Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. (New York: Checkmark Books, 2006).
