The Changing Practice Of The Oglala Medicine Man

Abstract

Among the most durable elements of tribal culture are the quasi-secret ceremonial procedures of the medicine man, surviving the Conquest, suppression, and various revivalist movements almost intact, and retaining rituals possibly dating to the Pleistocene. Consciously rejected aspects of Christian training have reappeared in modified form, as in a wedding ceremony here described. Other syncretisms can be traced to the political activism of recent years, and the impetus it has given to a resurgence of the old religion. By 1978 the Oglala medicine man, originally a healer, seer, and sage, had assumed additional roles as tribal representative to other governments, political leaders, mediator in disputes, judge and counsellor, justice-of-the-peace, mental health worker, psychotherapist, and provider of primary health care.