Shamanic healing and ritual drama
Subtitle: health and medicine in native North American religious traditions
By: Åke Hultkrantz.
Series: Health/medicine and the faith traditions
Publisher: Crossroad
Published: 1992
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 197
Subjects: Indians of North America -- Religion; Indians of North America -- Medicine; Indians of North America -- Health and hygiene; Traditional medicine -- North America; Shamanism -- North America
Description: In this pioneering work one of the world's leading experts on Native American traditions offers a detailed survey of Native American practices and beliefs regarding health, medicine, and religion. In contrast to the sharp Euro-American division between medicine and religion, Native American medical beliefs and practices can only be assessed, says the author, in their relation to their religious ideas. Spanning the full length and breadth of Native North American cultural.

Areas, from the Northeast to the Southwest, the Southeast to the Northwest, the book offers "thick" descriptions of traditional Native American medical and religious beliefs and practices, demonstrating that for Native Americans medicine and religion are two sides of the same coin: a coherent and holistic system in which supernaturalism acts as a motor in healing.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-185) and index.