The Importance of Understanding Non-Western/Nonbiomedical Practices
Comprehending health-related practices that do not fit the Western biomedical model is important as it enables the practitioner to achieve more fruitful partnerships with the increasingly diverse clientele. Contemporary healthcare professionals encounter diverse clients in terms of their ethnic and religious backgrounds and may need to provide care to the representatives of minority groups with spiritually based perspectives on health. The failure to understand the assumptions on which energy-focused approaches to health are built can affect practitioners’ ability to interact with minority clients respectfully and without offensive assumptions about their cultural groups (Kleinman, 2019). Thus, the provider’s ability to understand non-Western models can ensure more effective communication.
The Sun Dance Ceremony: Description and Interesting Aspects
Sun Dance (SD) is a health-related practice used by Native American/Indigenous tribes to pray for their people’s physical and spiritual well-being. Regarding descriptions, SD represents a complex process in which a tribe sets up a camp and constructs a dancing area with a ritual pole and religious symbols (Wissler, 2019). Figure 1 features Throssel’s (1910) photo of one tribe’s preparation for the SD ceremony, such as mounting an eagle at the pole’s top to symbolize the body’s and the spirit’s unity.
Tribes select the fittest members to perform ritual dances for a few days in any weather and refrain from eating and drinking (Wissler, 2019). The ritual may also include attaching dancers to the pole by means of chest piercing (Wissler, 2019). SD ceremonies can benefit the community’s ill members at the spiritual level, promoting holistic health restoration (Notes from the Frontier Staff, 2019). Thus, dancers’ commitment and readiness to suffer for their close ones play a role in the healing process.
The most interesting thing regarding SD is that it is sacred. Filming the ceremony is believed to frighten the helpful spirits and is avoided at all costs (Notes from the Frontier Staff, 2019). For that reason, Throssel’s (1910) old photo remains one of the few artifacts to illustrate the preparatory stage. From my viewpoint, this fact deserves special attention because it suggests that the deepest possible connection between the tribe’s members and between the tribe and nature is required to make the ceremony work properly.
References
Kleinman, A. (2019). Indigenous systems of healing: Questions for professional, popular, and folk care. In P. A. Dunn (Ed.), Alternative medicines (pp. 138-164). Routledge.
Notes from the Frontier Staff. (2019). The sacred Sun Dance: The ultimate ritual of pain, renewal & sacrifice. Notes from the Frontier. Web.
Throssel, R. (1910). Raising the clan poles in a Cheyenne Sun Dance lodge [Photograph]. Notes from the Frontier. Web.
Wissler, C. (2019). The sun dance of the Blackfoot Indians. Good Press.