In Si.si.wiss tradition, songs empower the healer and provide a continuous background during the laying on of hands. Most songs are accompanied by a regular drumbeat. Many healers substitute or add the rattle to their healing sessions, using the sound and movement of the rattle to shake away disease. The Indian flute, although rarely used in healing others, can be an important instrument of self-healing. Patients play the flute to empty the mind of worries and preoccupations while meditating with Nature and attuning to Her healing power.
Some healing ceremonies consist of nothing more than smudging the patient while praying.
Because the tools of the Native healers are hands, heart, and spirit, sensitivity to energetic or spiritual imbalance is a necessity for diagnosis and therapy. Today, because of drastic changes in the environment and population and the scourge of new diseases, these remedies are not as effective. Most of my Native relations do not hesitate to see a conventional medical doctor for any condition that generally requires antibiotics or surgery. Weatherford 83 has an unsurpassed narrative account of the gifts of Native American medicine to Western pharmacology. Peyote has been attributed with cures of leukemia, tuberculosis, pneumonia, stroke, and other disorders.