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THE MEDICINE MEN: OGLALA SIOUX CEREMONY AND HEALING by Thomas H.
Lewis. University of Nebraska Press, 901 N. 17th St., Lincoln, NE
68588-0520. The Nebraska University Press online catalog is
available on the Internet by telneting to CRCVMS.UNL.EDU, username
INFO, choosing UNIVERSITY PRESS, and ONLINE CATALOG. Illustrated,
index, notes, bibliography. 219 pp., $9.95 paper. 0-8032-7939-6
REVIEW
The responsibilities of the Sioux (Lakota) medicine men have
remained the same for centuries: to preserve the links with the
tribe's past and contemplate its future. Their specific acts,
however, have changed in modern times.
Last year during the Gulf war, a Sioux medicine man led a
tribal prayer at an anti-war protest in Washington, D.C. Two years
before, a Sioux medicine man was called to perform a burial
ceremony for a skull, believed to be that of an Indian, that had
been used as a trophy for the winner of the annual Ohio Wesleyan
and Wittenberg university's football game.
Other recent duties have involved a successful four-day rain
dance in Clyde, Ohio - the Sioux medicine man was called there in
response to a severe drought, and the U.S. Air Force consulted with
a Sioux medicine man to protect burial sites that may be in the
path of a 79-mile long MX missile communications cable.
Lewis, however, confines himself to the direct effects of the
traditional practices of the medicine men on the Pine Ridge
reservation in South Dakota, tracing the healing techniques they
utilize and how those techniques have changed over time. This is
a paperback reissue of the 1990 hardcover edition.
Trained in psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Lewis was hired in
1968 as a physician at the Pine Ridge Mental Health Clinic. From
that time until 1974, he followed Peter Catches, Robert Holy Dance,
and Frank Fools Crow as they performed healing ceremonies and gave
medical advise to their patients.
The book is a wonderful look at patients who depend on a
medicine man to not only heal their sickness or support or oppose
what the patient is told by a clinic or hospital, but also to serve
as a social mediator. He diffuses conflicts, dispenses convention-
al wisdom, counsels caution, and suggests action. Thusly, he
reaffirms tribal identity.
Lewis discusses the contribution of sings, dances, the use of
various herbs (including peyote and the Native American Church),
the influence of different Christian movements on the reservation,
and the use of magic, in curing physical and mental anomalies.
For the Sioux, Lewis concludes, the medicine man not only
counteracts individual anxiety, but is a primary influence on
tribal cohesion. Lewis' story is intelligent and reverent.