Book ID: CBB020086029

Red Medicine: Traditional Indigenous Rites of Birthing and Healing (2012)

unapi

Patrisia Gonzales addresses "Red Medicine" as a system of healing that includes birthing practices, dreaming, and purification rites to re-establish personal and social equilibrium. The book explores Indigenous medicine across North America, with a special emphasis on how Indigenous knowledge has endured and persisted among peoples with a legacy to Mexico. Gonzales combines her lived experience in Red Medicine as an herbalist and traditional birth attendant ith in-depth research into oral traditions, storytelling, and the meanings of symbols to uncover how Indigenous knowledge endures over time. And she shows how this knowledge is now being reclaimed by Chicanos, Mexican Americans and Mexican indigenous peoples. For Gonzales, a central guiding force in Red Medicine is the principal of regeneration as it is manifested in Spiderwoman. Dating to Pre-Columbian times, the Mesoamerican Weaver/Spiderwoman -- the guardian of birth, medicine, and purification rites such as the Nahua sweat bath -- exemplifies the interconnected process of rebalancing that transpires throughout life in mental, spiritual and physical manifestations. Gonzales also explains how dreaming is a form of diagnosing in traditional Indigenous medicine and how Indigenous concepts of the body provide insight into healing various kinds of trauma. Gonzales links pre-Columbian thought to contemporary healing practices by examining ancient symbols and their relation to current curative knowledges among Indigenous peoples. Red Medicine suggests that Indigenous healing systems can usefully point contemporary people back to ancestral teachings and help them reconnect to the dynamics of the natural world.

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Reviewed By

Review Renae Watchman (2014) Review of "Red Medicine: Traditional Indigenous Rites of Birthing and Healing". American Indian Quarterly (pp. 255-258). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB020086029/

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Authors & Contributors
Borozdina, Ekaterina
Julie Laplante
Fai, Vincenzo
Jiménez Sureda, Montserrat
Calandra McCool
Rockey, Robbins
Concepts
Medicine
Women and health
Midwifery
Native American civilization and culture
Traditional knowledge
Colonialism
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
16th century
Ancient
Early modern
Modern
Places
Mexico
United States
Italy
Great Britain
Citizen Band Potawatomi Indian Tribe of Oklahoma
Guyana; British Guiana
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