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-- A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader within some Native American groups in the United States and Canada. These terms are also used to refer to the traditional healers of other indigenous peoples and are compared to shamanism by white settlers.

Medicine men heal using physical and spiritual techniques to resolve health issues, some of which are associated with spiritual issues. Common healing practices include herbal remedies, sweat lodges and procedural treatments including bone setting, splinting and wound cleaning.

Role in native society
The primary function of these "medicine elders" is to secure the help of the spirit world, including the Great Spirit (Wakan Tanka in the language of the Lakota people), for the benefit of the entire community.

Sometimes the help sought may be for the sake of healing disease, sometimes it may be for the sake of healing the psyche, sometimes the goal is to promote harmony between human groups or between humans & nature.

So the term "medicine man/woman" is not entirely inappropriate, but it greatly oversimplifies and also skews the depiction of the people whose role in society complements that of the chief. These people are not the Native American equivalent of the Chinese "barefoot doctors", herbalists, nor of the emergency medical technicians who ride rescue vehicles.

To be recognized as the one who performs this function of bridging between the natural world and the spiritual world for the benefit of the community, an individual must be validated in his role by that community. Medicine men and women study through a medicine society or from a single teacher.

Cultural context
The term "medicine people" is commonly used in Native American communities, for example, when Arwen Nuttall (Cherokee) of the National Museum of the American Indian writes, "The knowledge possessed by medicine people is privileged, and it often remains in particular families."

Native Americans tend to be quite reluctant to discuss issues about medicine or medicine people with non-Indians. In some cultures, the people will not even discuss these matters with Indians from other tribes. In most tribes medicine elders are not expected to advertise or introduce themselves as such. As Nuttall writes, "An inquiry to a Native person about religious beliefs or ceremonies is often viewed with suspicion.  One example of this was the Apache medicine cord or Izze-kloth, whose purpose and use by Apache medicine elders was a mystery to nineteenth century ethnologists because "the Apache look upon these cords as so sacred that strangers are not allowed to see them, much less handle them or talk about them."

The 1954 version of Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, reflects the poorly grounded perceptions of the people whose use of the term effectively defined it for the people of that time: "a man supposed to have supernatural powers of curing disease and controlling spirits." In effect, such definitions were not explanations of what these "medicine people" were to their own communities, but instead reported on the consensus of socially and psychologically remote observers when they tried to categorize these individuals. The term "medicine man/woman," like the term "shaman", has been criticized by Native Americans, as well as other specialists in the fields of religion and anthropology.

The term "medicine man/woman" was also frequently used by Europeans to refer to African traditional healers, also known as "witch doctors" or "fetish men/women".

While anthropologists sometimes use the term "shaman," for Indigenous healers, "shaman" is the specific name for a spiritual mediator from the Tungusic peoples of Siberia,  and is not used in Native American or First Nations communities.

Herbal Remedies
Native American medicine utilized a wide variety of plant and animal substances for their physical and spiritual benefits. The way medicinal plants are collected is important to both the physical and spiritual impacts of the medicine. To the Iroquois, plants should be collected only during the morning, tree bark should be collected from the eastern side of the tree and prayer and tobacco should be offered. Barks should be collected in the spring, leaves and the root of annual plants collected just before the plant blooms and perennial roots collected in autumn. Methods of preparing the herbs include decoction, infusion, grinding into a paste or poultice and drying. Methods of administration include ingestion, topical application, smoke inhalation and immersement in a sweat lodge with medicated steam.

Echinacea
Echinacea is a flowering plant that has been used by Native Americans as an herbal remedy for at least 400 years. The following table examines why various tribes use echinacea. The entire echinacea plant is used medicinally, both dried and fresh. Common preparations include making a decoction or infusion of the roots and leaves, making a poultice of parts of the plant, juicing the root or simply using the leaves as they were.

Echinacea contains essential oils and polysaccharides that boost the immune system, leading to a faster recovery from various illnesses. Due to this property, echinacea has been commercialized and has had clinical trials support that it reduces the duration of a cold by 1-4 days and reduces the chance of developing a cold by 58%.

Sage
Sage is a small evergreen shrub used to treat inflammation, bacterial or viral infection and chronic illness. Commonly treated conditions include abdominal cramping/pain, bloating, bleeding, bruising, skin disease, cough, excessive sweating, menstrual cramps and flu as well as depression, obesity heart disease and cancer. Sage can be administered in tea, food, as a poultice or in smoke. The following table examines why various tribes use sage. Sage contains multiple essential oils as well as tannins and flavonoids which have, "carminative, antispasmodic, antiseptic, and astringent properties." In addition to being used in modern food preparation, sage is still utilized for herbal and pharmaceutical medicines with strong evidence supporting its impacts.

Witch Hazel
Witch hazel is a flowering plant with multiple species native to North America. It has been widely used by Native Americans for its medicinal benefits, leading white settlers to incorporate it into their own medical practices. An extract of witch hazel stems is used to treat sore muscles, skin and eye inflammation and to stop bleeding. Witch hazel is utilized by many tribes, including the Menominee for sore legs of tribesmen who participate in sporting games, the Osage for skin ulcers and sores, the Potawatomi in sweat lodges for sore muscles and the Iroquois in tea for coughs and colds. Witch hazel works as an astringent, a substance that causes the constriction of body tissues. The tannins and flavonoids found in witch hazel have astringent and antioxidant properties, respectively, which are thought to contract and protect blood vessels, thereby reducing inflammation. However, modern witch hazel extracts are often distilled and do not contain tannins due to health concerns.

Willow
The inner bark of willow trees has been used by Native American groups for health issues including headache, bleeding cuts, skin sores, fever, cough and hoarseness, menstrual cramping, stomach pain and diarrhea. The inner bark is most often made into tea and drank, though it is also made into a poultice to cover the skin over broken bones or used to wash skin and hair to promote skin repair and hair growth. Willow bark contains salicin, a compound similar to aspirin that has anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, and analgesic properties. The following table examines why various tribes use willow.

One reason for the vast differences in the use of the willow is that there are many ways to prepare it and these different preparations allow for it to be utilized in different ways. For example, the Thompson people would make a concoction of wood, willow, soapberry branches and "anything weeds" to treat broken bones. If they wanted to treat a cold, however, the Thompson people would make a decoction of red willow branches and wild rose roots.

Effectiveness
Some people believe Native American healing can be used to treat a variety of human ailments including heart disease, diabetes and cancer. However, according to the American Cancer Society while its supportive community aspects might improve general well-being, "available scientific evidence does not support claims that Native American healing can cure cancer or any other disease". The uses of Salvia officinalis, commonly known as Sage, by Medicine Men in Native American traditions aids in human health because there are certain Antioxidant activities within the sage plant itself that helps keep the body healthy. Antioxidants in a human diet helps fight off very harmful molecules within the body; "There is increasing evidence to suggest that many degenerative diseases, such as brain dysfunction, cancer, heart diseases and immune system decline, could be the result of cellular damage caused by free radicals, and antioxidants present in the human diet may play an important role in disease prevention. The reported high antioxidant activity of sage and its traditional medicinal uses prompted us to investigate this herb further to provide a better understanding of chemistry involved"