Cherokee Medicine Holistic Keys for all Mankind

Think about this alternative. HAD we befriended the native peoples of this land rather than destroying them, today we could be a lot more healthy as a nation. Instead of the modern concept of treating disease and giving new names to physical ailments so that more pharmacuetical companies can get rich, we could have been using herbs and roots and holistic methods, respecting the earth, understand the relationship between mind and body, but instead with stepped on them like ants, we smashed away all their millenia of knowledge, we made them fourth class citizens in their own land. And now we are paying the price. Now we are sicker as a society than anytime in history. Maybe it's the millions of their bones and vats of their blood in the land where we grow our food. We cannot escape the consequence of decisions, now, then or in the future. Sadly, it has taken us 400 years just to realize how stupid and terrible it was to throw all that value, all those innocent lives into pits, just like Hitler. Finally we are sad. Finally we are beginning to see. Finally we want to hear their advice and again, let THEM help us.

Here is a snippet of information about Cherokee Medicine. May I suggest you humbly ask your local Indian leaders to share their knowledge with you. May I suggest you take them a generous offering along with love and sorrow in your heart. If we start now, in 2010, maybe in another 100 or so years we can mend our brotherly love. We are all ONE FAMILY first and foremost. Please pull back your shades and let truth and sunshine fill your hearts for these relatives of ours.

In earlier Cherokee times the Medicine was based on formulas, and ceremony and rituals included the family, clan, and tribe. These Medicine formulas were traditional values that guided and helped the individual and family to find healing. A key in understanding Cherokee Indian Medicine is to accept that within our circle of life are influences and interferences that upset our balance and harmony as an individual and part of the family, clan, and tribe. Unlike the prevailing thought of today, the individual is not the center of the circle; he or she is an integral part of the circle. When a person fails, abuses drugs, or becomes diseased, it affects the entire circle of life. As an elder said, “Disease or illness affects all of us, not just the individual person.” The Medicine is to prevent such occurrences, or to bring that harmony and balance back to the circle. The formulas and remedies respect this harmony and balance for the benefit of all the circle.


Didanawisgi is the Cherokee word for medicine man. A common thread woven through all Native American remedies is the idea of “wellness” a term recently picked up by some in the modern medical professions. A state of “wellness” is described as “harmony between the mind, body and spirit.” The Cherokee word “tohi” - health - is the same as the word for peace. You’re in good health when your body is at peace. The “medicine circle” has no beginning and no end and therefore represents a concept of “harmonious unity.”

Cherokee medicine is a prevention-based system that incorporates the whole person, rather than the cure-based system that is used by most modern doctors of medicine today, which focuses on the disease.
more: www.aaanativearts.com/cherokee/cherokee-medicine.htm