"Other ways of knowing," aka Different Cognitive Styles

[okasha]

114. I'm Tsalagi (Cherokee).

I grew up doing ceremony with my maternal family and learning Native medicine and tradition from my grandfather, who was an adeweh. My great-grandfather was also an adeweh, but he managed to be a Baptist deacon at the same time--and no, I have no idea how he managed that. Or maybe I do, since his fellow Baptists came to him and his son for healing for themselves and their livestock. (Never piss off the guy who can save your prize heifer and her calf!) I have been a Christian (Episcopalian) and found myself becoming what's referred to as an Episco-pagan, seeing that faith as encompassed by, rather than opposed to, pantheistic beliefs. It was only a small, lateral step back to Native religion. Currently, I do ceremony with an "ecumenical" group of Native Americans who include people of Seminole, Apache, Comanche, Northern Ute and European backgrounds.

I have no trouble at all with "shamanism" or "shaman," since it not only covers a wide array of practices but saves having to look up "adeweh" when you're talking to a Tsalagi, or "haatalii," when you're speaking with a Navajo, or "winan wakan" when you encounter a Lakota. The term I emphatically don't like is "witch doctor," and am not that fond of "medicine man," either, since it's generally used in ignorance of what the term actually means to a Native American.