Medicine man (Native American)

Cultural context

In Indigenous North American communities, the term "medicine" within ceremonial settings typically refers to spiritual healing. Those known as medicine people draw on a variety of practices, including deep expertise in Native American ethnobotany. While many Indigenous households across the Americas commonly use herbal remedies, medicine people possess a more specialized understanding of plants for healing and other purposes. The titles medicine people or ceremonial people are sometimes used within Native American and First Nations communities.

Native Americans are generally very hesitant to discuss medicine or medicine people with non-Indians, and in some cultures, these topics are not even shared with American Indians from other tribes. In most tribes, medicine elders are forbidden from advertising themselves or introducing themselves as such. For instance, the Apache medicine cord, or Izze-kloth, remained a mystery to nineteenth-century ethnologists because the Apache considered these cords so sacred that outsiders were not allowed to see, handle, or discuss them.

The terms medicine man and medicine woman, along with the term shaman, have faced criticism from Native Americans and from specialists in religion and anthropology. Although non-Native anthropologists often apply the word shaman to Indigenous healers worldwide, including in the Americas, shaman specifically refers to a spiritual mediator from the Tungusic peoples of Siberia. While some Inuit communities have adopted this term, it is not preferred by Native American or First Nations communities.