One afternoon when I was having my annual physical, after my doctor had finished poking and prodding and I had stopped complaining about it, we sat down to talk for a few minutes while he made notes and wrote a prescription or two. I learned that he had recently been to a conference on American Indian medicine. It sounded so interesting that I signed up for the next session.
So, some months later in Tucson, I was one in a circle of people around a Mescalero-Apache medicine man as he turned to the four directions and began to pray, ending with a chant for morning prayer.
Among the 200 people attending, there were at least three races and several nationalities. Most were non-Indians, but there were many tribes represented. The prayer leader, Paul Ortega, was dressed in a sweater and slacks. Two other medicine men were present-both in suits-Edgar Monetathchi Jr., Comanche, and Alonzo Flores, Cheyenne.
Monetathchi was director of the gathering, sponsored by St. Mary's Hospital and Health Center, a Roman Catholic institution in Tucson. It was the twentieth conference on Traditional Indian Medicine in Today's Health System.
The conferences grew out of a workshop in traditional Indian medicine held at nearby University of Arizona. A nurse from the hospital attended and was so inspired that she convinced hospital authorities to develop a program emphasizing the spiritual focus of healing, based in Indian spirituality. Monetathchi was hired to develop and run the program.
Most of the participants in the conference were health care workers, the majority nurses.
Our teachers emphasized the unity of the human being-body, mind, spirit-as the basis for healing. There was teaching about the Indian understanding of the unity of all creation and respect for everything God has made. At the center of all teaching was the practice of unconditional love. Indian spirituality was presented not as a part of life, but as a way of life. Much time was given to teaching ways of meditation.
It was puzzling that in the group of 200 there were so many who reacted to unconditional love and the spiritual way of living as if they were new concepts.
Among the speakers was Frank Clarke, a Hualapai Indian, a physician in family medicine with the Indian Health Service in Phoenix. Clarke said that the non-Indian world seemed to be trying to catch up with Indian wisdom. "The western world has divided up the universe and people into comfortable little pieces, and has forgotten how to put it back together. When western medicine thinks about sickness-which Indians call lack of harmony or unbalance-they send the body to hospitals, send the mind back to schools or mental institutions with bars, and send the soul to church on Sunday."
The Indian way, Clarke said, was "to see the human person as part of the universe." His idea of person, family, and tribe all flowed from a relationship, "a sense of belonging to each other and the total picture."
For the sick, Indians have sacred places for healing, he said. While the modern hospital is cold and sterile, the Indian healing place "puts the ill person into a community of friends; he belongs."
The use of smoke, tobacco, the beat of the drums, and chanting help to focus the consciousness of the ill person, and through creating a harmony of his energies, the sick one is brought back to balance "with the healing forces."
Clarke added, "Indians are part of the world which itself seems to be suffering from a human-caused disease. To heal the earth, native wisdom must be made available. Religion is meant to bind people together. A person must believe in his relationship with the Creator, with creation, and with his world neighbors. Then we can help heal the earth. There is beauty out there and in me."
The meditation techniques, taught mostly by David Powless, an Oneida Indian, were aimed at opening the person to be in touch with self, with God, and with creation. The ultimate aim was shalom-peace, harmony. Much time was given to guided meditations in which we were asked to see and do certain things in our imaginations. Some were designed to confront negative feelings and attitudes. My favorite involved "Apache tears," little black rocks held during the meditation and used as a focus to get rid of negativity and then as a focus for receiving the love of God.
The night before the closing session the Indians held a powwow for us. In the center of the enormous room were the musicians, four Comanche Indians with a "moon drum." Powwows are events, and other Indians came to join the conference participants. At the opening, Edgar Monetathchi tried to make announcements, but David Powless had arrived in his tribe's traditional ceremonial clothes, hung with bells. No one could hear until he stopped walking.
We were invited to join the dances. Curiously I sat out all of them until the war dance. As we shuffled along I said to the sisters from the hospital, "Should you be doing a war dance?" One answered, "Should an Anglican priest?" We laughed and danced on. Later, winded, I turned down invitations to get into what looked like a combination of the Texas two-step and the Virginia reel.
Standing outside, watching the dancers, I was joined by an Indian woman from Canada, a member of the Blackfoot tribe. She had been distressed by hints of New Age ideas in a few of the sessions. "Don't let them get your soul, Father," she said to me. "You take back to Kentucky what you came with." I promised and she smiled, satisfied.