Becoming a Diné Navajo Medicine Man

hey ru hey ru hi ah oh oh eh oh eh oh eh oh eh oh eh uh for people that the ones who sing the songs those are hurt awfully the singers the the medicine people and the healers so there's a lot a lot of power within our voice and can be utilized for many different purposes I think you said your father is a medicine mill you hear that term so much what exactly is that oh just one study fraid is it a family thing varies for for every tribe and for people you know you know when people use the term shaman or things like that you know it's kind of not really offensive it just doesn't really you know fit with with what our traditional people do you know I think shaman or terms like that you know might refer to people from Siberia for him other cultures but when somebody says I talked before people a singer you know there's a long process that you know you have to go through it's a first somebody recognizes that you have an ability to heal or to help someone my father when he was a young man injured himself and you've actually had to go through a process of healing and and you know this grandfather kind of helped him along the path and recognized that he had this ability and from there on apprenticed him and he spent his whole you know youth and you know much of his young adult life you know staying by his side studying learning not like songs prayers and paintings herbs medicine how to manipulate the body chiropractics and just everything that you know you needed to know to survive on this earth because we didn't have hospitals years back now even today you know that now that we have hospitals a lot of people go and you know the stuff you know prescription medicine that they get and it only masks it covers it up doesn't solve the problems a lot of times even now we still go back to our medicine practitioner and today like my father he works at hospital if you want to see a medicine person usually it's somebody that's related through your family or something like that and you know you have to know where they live and you know ask them for some help or advice and then the healing process it's mental physical spiritual it's not just you know like some sort of quick fix if there's a lot of complex really specific things that poor people are passed on orally you know can only be learned you know at that time when the ceremonies being practiced or you know sometimes it's only in the winter or different seasons you know or depending on where the moon or all these things you know you really have to have an understanding of the whole spectrum the universe it's a very long lengthy process and not one person could know all the different ceremonies that we have and there the more the ceremonies are specifically for ailments you know if somebody is affected by this you know then you go to the medicine person they find out they do a diagnosis process and see okay this is the root of the problem this is where it started it might have been even before you were born and you're still in the womb and from that point you can actually you know figure out well you know if this was the cause it's not just what is affecting you now it's the symptom but you know we develop habits and all these things that are learned behaviors and you could start dressing those and transforming you know your life and moving it more into balance into Georgia the beauty way so it's a long complicated process and it's like you know going for your master's degree or your doctorate you know you really have to study intensively and today a lot of people are learning there's very few people out at 250,000 people on the Jeannette nation or 300,000 there's maybe five percent that are traditional and that five percents like only one percent that you know know the ceremonies know all these beautiful songs and things that that hold our natural world and all these things in balance oh wait I hey I uh uh-uh

Channel: Explore Documentary Films

Views: 59,638

Rating: 4.86692 out of 5

Keywords: Diné, Navajo, Medicine Man, Grand Canyon, Clayson Benally, Navajo Medicine

Id: gwTt6wIQnVk

Length: 5min 46sec (346 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 18 2015