Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes - Molly Bassett
61. What role does healing play in Native American and Indigenous religious traditions? Or, what's religious about health and healing in Indigenous religious traditions?
Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes - Molly Bassett
Suzanne Crawford O'Brien [+]
Pacific Lutheran University
Suzanne Crawford O'Brien is professor of Religion and Culture and chair of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program at Pacific Lutheran University. She is the author of Coming Full Circle: Spirituality and Wellness Among Native Communities in the Pacific Northwest (University of Nebraska, 2014), and with Inés Talamantez the author of Religion and Culture in Native America (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020).
Description
This chapter explores the central location of healing within Native American Religious traditions. It argues that healing is fundamentally about restoring the whole person within community, and that such work is spiritual in nature. Indigenous traditions play a central role in healing the soul wounds of colonialism, wounds that can lead to mental, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual illness. For many communities, la cultura cura: as individuals reclaim traditional worldviews and practices, they find new pathways forward.