Traditional bush medicine is still widely used across Australia. Traditional healers have extensive knowledge and are able to interpret symptoms and provide traditional healing treatments including bush rubs and medicines. Their knowledge is passed from generation to generation.
Some of the main techniques for healing include pampuni (a touch or massage technique), bush medicine, smoking ceremonies and spirit realignment.
Traditional healing refers to the health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs that incorporate First Nations healing and wellness. These practices include using ceremonies, plant, animal or mineral-based medicines, energetic therapies and physical or hands-on techniques.
Healing Practices
Prayer (group or individual) Cleansing (burning of sage) Song and Dance (drumming circles) Traditional Plant Medicine (for treatment of various ailments)
There are seven natural ways of emotional discharge and healing in Indigenous cultures: shaking, crying, laughing, sweating, voicing (talking, singing, hollering, yelling, screaming, etc.), kicking, and hitting. All of these need to be done in a constructive manner so as to not harm another spirit.
Self-determination is the key foundation of Indigenous healing. 2. Help people understand the nature of the problem. We must understand how Indigenous peoples' problems have arisen if we are to facilitate healing.
The primary focus of healing is on emotional and relational discernment, not cognitive understanding. The direct way to do this is in concrete activities like berry picking, making art or storytelling. The indirect way would be through talking, which is considered less effective.
Medicine Gardens are planted to honour the Medicine Wheel, and to grow Sacred Medicines associated with directional teachings. There are four Sacred Medicines: Tobacco, cedar, sage, and sweetgrass.
When Aboriginal people did fall sick, they used plants in a variety of ways to quell their ills. Some plants, like goat's foot, were crushed, heated and applied to the skin. Others were boiled and inhaled, and occasionally drunk.
Healing circles are often called hocokah in the Lakota language, which means a sacred circle and is also the word for altar. The hocokah consists of people who sit together in a talking circle, in prayer, in ceremony, and are committed to helping one another and to each other's healing.
Healing is posited as a three-pronged process, and referred to in the framework as the three pillars of healing: reclaiming history, cultural interventions, and therapeutic healing.
Indigenous healing in non-Western countries found three approaches often used: 1. use of communal, group, and family networks to shelter the disturbed individual (Saudi Arabia), to problem-solve in a group context (Nigeria), and to reconnect them with family or significant others (Korea).
Traditional Healers are an understudied group of health care providers that are largely unregulated, independent providers who perform health care services in the community.
The Aboriginals have practiced Smoking ceremonies for thousands of years. It is when various native plants are collected and used to produce smoke. This has been believed to have cleansing properties and the ability to ward off unwanted and bad spirits, which was believed to bring bad omens.
Ngangkari are the traditional healers of the Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara (NPY) lands in the remote western desert of Central Australia. Ngangkari have looked after people's physical and emotional health for thousands of years.
Traditional healing teaches us to live in balance in order to prevent illness. Psychological and spiritual wellness are involved in living in balance.
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, good health is more than the absence of disease or illness; it is a holistic concept that includes physical, social, emotional, cultural and spiritual wellbeing, for both the individual and the community.
In terms of medicines, many different parts of plants were used. Native mints (Mentha spp.) were remedies for coughs and colds, while the gum from gum trees, which is rich in tannin, was used for burns. The green plum (Buchanania obovata) is enormously rich in vitamin C.
Treatments included a poultice made from Cassytha filiformis (Dodder Laurel), a paste made from the mashed leaves and stems of Tinospora smilacina (Snake vine) and the soaked bark of the Acacia melanoxylon (Blackwood wattle). Steam baths were created by placing wet water weed on hot stones.
Concoctions of emu bush leaves were used by Northern Territory Aboriginal tribes to wash sores and cuts; occasionally it was gargled. In the last decade, leaves from the plant were found to have the same strength as some established antibiotics.
The Four Sacred Medicines (Tobacco, Cedar, Sage & Sweetgrass) have a historical and continuing cultural value to the spirit, physical & emotional well-being of native peoples.
Tobacco is the first plant that the Creator gave to Native people. It is the main activator of all the plant spirits. Three other plants, sage, cedar and sweetgrass, follow tobacco, and together they are referred to as the four sacred medicines. The four sacred medicines are used in everyday life and in ceremonies.
There are five main aspects of personal health: physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual. In order to be considered "well," it is imperative for none of these areas to be neglected.
Holistic Medicine: Types of Treatments
This may include diet, exercise, psychotherapy, relationship and spiritual counseling, and more. Complementary and alternative therapies such as acupuncture, chiropractic care, homeopathy, massage therapy, naturopathy, and others. Western medications and surgical procedures.
Holistic healing seeks to maintain or restore balance among (and within) the various dimensions of the individual. Rather than focusing on a specific condition or even an illness, holistic healing addresses all parts of the individual and their life.