Synopsis
A Stanford-trained doctor tells how he gave up the promise of a lucrative practice to learn more about the Native American healing arts his ancestors used and describes his efforts to incorporate the benefits of modern and ancient medicine
Reviews
A treatise on ``half-breed'' medicine that partakes of both Anglo and Native American traditions but is at home in neither. Mehl-Madrona, who now teaches family-practice medicine at the University of Hawaii, offers two books in one. The first is an account of the education of a doctor, one that often veers into self-importance (``I have always believed I have a mission on earth'') but that may prove instructive for anyone tempted to enter medical training. The second is a look at Native American healing practices, and it is even less satisfying. The literature of Native American medicine is already peppered with naive and uncritical texts that suggest that healing techniques can be divorced from their cultural contexts and readily adapted elsewhere. Mehl-Madrona contributes to this notion of mix-and-match doctoring: ``The medicine passed in a dipper around the circle,'' he writes in a description of a healing ceremony. ``Everyone took a sip. Then we passed the dipper again, pouring water on our heads to open the crown chakras.'' (Hanta yoga, anyone?) The author, who claims Cherokee ancestry, is clearly a longtime student of Native American traditions, and he discusses some of them with welcome clarity. He inclines, however, to a mysticism that will discomfort some readers, as in his description of an encounter with a curious rattlesnake during healing ceremonies in the Arizona desert (``its head rested on my shoulder, and its rattle massaged my foot''). Elsewhere Mehl-Madrona writes, ``Native American spirituality is a gift to us from North America itself. . . . Native American people have been preservers of this spiritual path for centuries, but they do not own it.'' This position is likely to appall cultural purists, but it will comfort browsers in the great department store of spiritual salves that is the New Age. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
In Native American traditions, coyotes are survivors. Half Cherokee, Mehl-Madrona is certainly a survivor, too. Here he describes his twin journeys through the worlds of medicine and of the spirit. His medical education gave him the background he needed to practice regular medicine, but he failed to complete several residencies in internal medicine and psychiatry, for his fascination with Native American healing, which, often in long metaphorical stories, emphasizes the spiritual aspects of life, made it difficult for him to knuckle under to the bureaucratic, overly mechanical responses of modern medicine. Some of the most moving and illuminating parts of his story are those in which he describes, in detail, the sweat lodge and other Native American healing ceremonies. Several shamans, whom he depicts as personalities as well as carriers of tradition, helped teach him aspects of Native American medicine, and he finally completed his residency and wound up in Hawaii, a practitioner and teacher of both types of medicine. William Beatty
With all the recent books on Native American healing and numerous accounts of how physicians are combining both alternative and traditional medicine, librarians might think there is no room for another. But they would be wrong if they did not add this title to their collection. Mehl-Madonna, a "half-breed Cherokees Injun," was only 21 when he graduated from Stanford University's medical school in the mid 1970s. Originally planning to go into family practice and psychiatry, where he could use his knowledge of Native American healing gleaned from his grandparents, he was either thrown out of or resigned from three different residency programs because he could not hold his tongue about what he often thought of as modern medicine. He considered giving up orthodox medicine but finally completed his residency. All readers, from those with a casual interest in Native American healing to health providers who want to learn more about alternative medicine, will enjoy and learn from this book. Recommended for most collections.?Natalie Kupferberg, Ferris State Univ. Lib., Big Rapids, Mich.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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