mutually held beliefs between practitioner and patient, a patient’s trust,
elements of hope and other factors with a potential to foster a placebo effect.
Given this, a conventional practitioner may want to consider seriously
whether to positively support a healing ceremony, or indeed for it to become
a part of integrated care for an aboriginal person living in an urban situation
and looking to try a traditional practice.
The sweat lodge: some key points for step 2 discussion
The sweat lodge is chosen to illustrate certain points that can be useful when
responding to a patient who asks whether a healing ceremony might be
helpful, as well as for exploring their expectations.
The sweat lodge is where you can talk openly about how you feel
about alcoholism, family abuse or whatever. It becomes an important
support. Whenever you have difficulty, you know there will always
be people in the circle who do care about you, and do care if you
survive or not, and do care for your family. And, too, I’ve heard a lot
of talk from older people on how it helps not only the spiritual part,
but also aches and pains. It’s one of the best medicines for stress.These words from the chief of a Mi’kmaq reserve, where the sweat lodge
ceremony was recently introduced (after being in limbo for generations) as
part of the revitalisation of traditional ways and values, reflects both the
widespread use of the lodge to help with sociomedical problems (e.g.
spousal abuse, drug addiction) as well as specific physical ailments such as
rheumatic disorders.
Although details of the sweat lodge and ceremony are generally well
known in outline, it is helpful to stress the beliefs and symbolism behind
every stage in constructing a lodge and each step in the ceremony. A brief
flavour is given in the following summary of the Mi’kmaq chief’s descrip-
tion. This is similar to other accounts of sweat lodge ceremonies although
there are many variations in detail such as differences in construction (from
permanent to small low-level lodges), in details of the ceremony (e.g.
whether fasting before and after a ceremony takes place), and whether the
conductor of a ceremony is viewed as a shaman or merely one able to help
participants find personal and community connections.
Whatever the differences in detail, spiritual connections are borne in
mind throughout the construction of a lodge and the ceremony. This begins
with choosing the actual site. On one occasion, the chief’s brother saw an
eagle fly down into a wooded area, but surprisingly it did not reappear.
Given the symbolic nature of the eagle in aboriginal spirituality this was
considered a sign of a spiritual place suitable for a lodge. Then, each step in
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