Talk:Medicine man

message: Skepdic.com could not be a more libertarianistic vomitfest of "setting the record straight".  It may make one's life more content to debunk the nature of psychoactive drugs and their abilities to induce dramatic personal insight.  Calling Castaneda a fraud on the basis that his movement was a coincidence of the 1960s and referencing interest with peyote, mescaline, and other organic compounds that initiate an elevated state of conscious awareness in such a cynical manner is not only closed-minded it is completely ignorant and almost offensive to any individual with an ounce of scientific education.  Inform yourself, then choose.
The second point I may raise issue with is that while shamanism or any etymological research thereof would conclude that this term is solely characteristic of Siberia, that does not remove the fact that the nature of these individuals remained quite similar.  The plants are different, the illnesses may be different, the people are different, but the goal is the same.  To use the planet as a means of healing the sick or injured.
Anthropology, ecology, or any humanistic science field will long be neglected if we continue to get fools like you posting information from snopes or skepdic.  Please think outside the box and not about it.
:It is a bad practice to call other people "fool," and in general to demean people by any means. Please maintain a civilized environment out here in the Void. P0M 04:17, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Re: Castaneda is a fraud

message: It seems like this term is used broadly for different roles in varied societies.  Surely each of these societies had their own word for what has been lumped into Medicine Man.  It seems like the best use of this article would be to list the other terms it has encompassed, linking each to their own article.  It could include a brief history of how and why all these positions got lumped together by Euroethnic documenters.
:I agree with this approach. A user of Wikipedia might reasonably expect to find an article on Medicine Man, and the encyclopedic thing to do would be to provide useful information.--Curtis Clark 19:53, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at things from the aspect of their similarities, they are all "the same."  Looking at things from the aspec of their distinguishing characteristics, they are all "different."  Even in the case of one "religion" that has had a long and voluminous written tradition, Buddhism, what people say is "true Buddhism" can vary greatly from school to school and book to book.  To understand how many different traditions of belief and practice have evolved out of a common source it is generally least confusing to begin at the beginning and trace things through. In the case of Shamanism, the task may not be so easy.
If it is true that the beliefs and practices of the Australian aborigines is very similar to the beliefs and practices of shamanism as practiced in northern Asia and in the Americas, then it may be that (1) the ability to shamanize is fairly common among all groups of humans, and/or (2) those who originally populated Australia around 80,000 years ago carried their traditions with them at that early time and have preserved them there with little or no change.
Mircea Eliade made the best attempt I know of to try to objectively describe these beliefs and practices and then make comparisons among them. His book, entitled Shamanism in its English version, is regarded as a classic. I know of nothing to compare it to.  It is, I suppose, always possible to pick holes in somebody else's work, but anyone who wanted to start working in this field on a comprehensive basis would need to retrace his researches.
His general position is that regardless of whether possibility (1), possibility (2) or both are valid explanations for particular cases, in general there is so much similarity worldwide among the religious practices he calls shamanism that it looks like something interesting is going on. In such a case the best course is not to try to force the evidence to support one ideology or the other, but to patiently gather the evidence and eventually let it speak for inself. 
Even among Native American groups, there are many languages and many words for people who employ similar religious practices.  Humans get in trouble when they let language rule over reality. P0M 04:52, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite for Medicine Man 

message: I have started to try to clear up some of the problems with the current version of this article.  I got down to this point--
The medicine man was a very important figure in Native American society. When European missionaries came over to try to convert the Natives into Christianity, the medicine man  stood as a major obstacle to the missionaries in trying to convert them. 
and decided to delete it.  First, it is unsourced. If I thought it was right, or remembered something vaguely along those lines, I might have left it and tried to find a citation to fit. Second, it sounds to me entirely POV. For one thing, use of the word "obstacle" makes it sound like the "medicine men" were out there trying to protect their turf and keep the pure light of Christian revelation out of the eyes of the dupes whom they had under their spell.  From reading Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions, and other such sources, I get a different story.  What I remember from the two times that I met Lame Deer was that if he had negative feelings toward anyone in this regard it would have been the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs), not the local preacher.  
One of the problems with the quoted passage is that it pictures a clash of ideologies. The missionary comes in and says, "Jesus died for your sins, and if you do not believe it you will go to hell." (That's what a Lutheran (?) missionary from Finland told me in Kyoto, Japan.) And the "medicine man" trots out his one-line sermon, which is... What?  I remember what Lame Deer said one time when commenting on Christians taking a bath in guilt and then copping a plea (my words, not his):  "Why don't they forgive themselves and reinvolve themselves with their lives and communities?" (The second half is a paraphrase. I heard his words decades ago.) Anyway, I think the typical Native American "medicine man's" reaction to the ideologies of the various missionaries and preachers would likely have been, "I do not believe it, and I don't see anything that would tend to make me want to believe it." There is no opposing ideology to speak of.  There no equivalents to Biblical texts to throw back at the missionaries. But if you don't know anything about the other guy's religion, then you are likely to think it is a "perverted" version of your own, even its negative image, perhaps. 
Some of the criticism of the article listed above do not seem to me to correctly interpret what the article currently says. Please point out problematical texts and give specific criticisms. P0M 05:46, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Points needing attention 

message: The presence of even a short section on "plastic shamans" tends to overbalance the objective descriptions of the real "medicine men" in the Native 
American traditions. It's already bad enough to have an article that uses a Euro-centric term (and one that may carry negative connotations due to its similarity and possible connection to "traveling medicine shows").
There is another account of a Native American "medicine man" by John Neihardt. It is older, and written more entirely from the Euro-centric perspective, so it isn't as useful as Lame Deer's book. Another problem is that, if I remember correctly, Neihardt also wrote about the Lakota.
It would be good to get information about a much wider range of people and cultures. I can try to find out something about the Cherokee who remained on the East Coast. I think one person who contributed recently may have some direct personal experience and might be able to put us onto written sources.  Then there are the groups that use peyote. My guess would be that someone has written objectively about their religious beliefs and practices, but I don't recall having seen anything.
A broader question in regard to this article is how it is supposed to fit in with other articles.  If the article on shamanism is adequate, then this article would only have to detail the distinctive practices of Native American groups, e.g., sweat lodges, sun dance, ghost dance, the sacramental use of smoke, the so-called peace pipe, etc. If I remember correctly, Lame Deer makes mention of the shamanizing practices of other American Indian groups that he has visited. I guess that kind of thing is at least quotable first-person anecdotal information.P0M 19:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted one paragraph--No need for "phony X" in articles on X 

message: I have noticed that a few articles (i.e. "Maria Sabina") that contain the link "medicine woman" redirect to an article titled "medicine man." Is there a difference between a medicine woman and a medicine man?  If so, perhaps there should be two separate articles.  If not, then perhaps the original article should have more emphasis on this fact given the title.  Comments?--Shady Jade (talk) 07:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Point of View Issue 

message: That image at the top of the page scared me half to death. Maybe someone should switch the first and second image around.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.85.129.6 (talk) 02:55, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spooky Image 

message: All the tribal societies I have known (and I have known a few in both Canada and Australia) had both male and female healers who were considered to have equal if sometimes different powers and knowledge. I propose this article's name be changed to something like "Native American healers", "Traditional healers of the Americas", or something equally unbiased. Of course, it would be important to provide redirection notices for such names such as "Medicine men", and so on, so that readers can easily access the article. I also believe there should be another article for Traditional healers in other societies. I would welcome any comments from other editors before I move this article. I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 22:19, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  The title of this article is misleading and sexist and should be changed 

message: The 1954 version of Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language reflects the poorly-grounded perceptions of the people whose use of the term effectively defined it for the people of that time: "a man supposed to have supernatural powers of curing disease and controlling spirits." What exactly is incorrect about this definition? Iapetus (talk) 23:01, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Webster's "poorly grounded perception" 

message: This sentence in the second graf, "those who employ Native American ethnobotany, a practice that is very common in a large number of Native American and First Nations households.[2][3][4]" has what appear to be bogus or unreliable sources. Nos 2 and 4 are not scientific, nor are they objective or reliable, they are position papers. Any statistical weight they can bring to bear to support the claim that "Native American ethnobotany, a practice that is very common" would be 3rd hand or further removed. Citation 3 links to an abstract of a scientific examination of the effectiveness of Native American ethnographical botanical practices but says nothing about its prevalence/frequency of use/common knowledge within the various Native American communities. Therefore, this assertion is not supported, and smacks of advocacy for a naturalist, "Noble Savage" worldview that presents a problematic bias towards Native peoples  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.109.171 (talk) 23:59, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ethnobotany as very common is not supported 

message: Is witch doctor really an offensive term?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dloewenherz (talk • contribs) 17:28, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: No, and there is a full article on the term on Wikipedia. Thanks for pointing the editorializing out, fixed. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:32, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Witch Doctor 

message: how would I go about finding a true honest authentic Shamen or Medacine Man/Woman in my area? I'm in need of protection, and the Native American culture is the only ones who have the knowledge. Stacy d moore (talk) 02:54, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shaman