The medicine pipe is found throughout North America and is an important cultural item among many indigenous tribes.
This week, we looked at another ascpect of the complex healing rituals unique to indigenous culture. Although difficult to totally classify most aspects of native society, the parallels are interesting. Though I focused maninly in the Mandan and the Mid-western tirbal groups this week, I hope I was successful in conveying the universal nature of these complicated rituals. My study of native spiritual and medicinal practices has produced a plethora of research, the surface of which we have just barely gleaned. In the comming weeks, I would like to return to our glimpse of native lifeways with a review of how native societies view star signs, concepts like death and the afertlife, and good versus evil. Of coarse, this will all lead up to the introduction of Christianity and how indigenous cultures adapted.
