Medicine Men

Native Americans, New Agers, and charlatans alike have radically augmented and revised the tenets of traditional Native American religions. "Crystal skull caretakers" sit beside Native American medicine men and medicine women, shamans and priests, and "Star Beings," rather than buffalo, are pondered. Outraged Native Americans have entered this fray, castigating those they see exploiting traditional Native American spirituality.

Native American tribes did not call their medicine people "shamans." This is a New Age term often misapplied to native american spiritual leaders by people of European descent, self-professed "medicine" people and their followers.

The medicine men and priests among the Indians were usually merely those men who thought more deeply and strenuously than the average men in the tribe. These thinkers tended to live among the more successful tribes. To think, one needed at least some time free from the chore of procuring food.

These medicine men or spiritual leaders were in a different class than the other men of their tribe. This special status was not dependent on their hunting and fishing. Contact with other tribes enabled thinkers to build and expand their belief frameworks, so medicine men or spiritual leaders were more prevalent in tribes that were accessible to outsiders.

As contemporary Native American religious flowerings are best understood by first examining the origins of Native American Spirituality, all of the contemporary sects are best comprehended in light of the traditional religions. As these differ from their New Age and Christian versions, each group is also unique compared to other traditional sects. These traditional sects are best understood as a conglomerate by investigating a few individual traditional Native American religions.

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