A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Each culture has its own name in its language for spiritual healers and ceremonial leaders.
A sweat lodge is a low profile hut, typically dome-shaped or oblong, and made with natural materials. The structure is the lodge, and the ceremony performed within the structure may be called by some cultures a purification ceremony or simply a sweat.
Incense is an aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burnt. The term is used for either the material or the aroma. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, religious worship, aromatherapy, meditation, and ceremonial reasons. It may also be used as a simple deodorant or insect repellent.
A censer, incense burner, perfume burner or pastille burner is a vessel made for burning incense or perfume in some solid form. They vary greatly in size, form, and material of construction, and have been in use since ancient times throughout the world. They may consist of simple earthenware bowls or fire pots to intricately carved silver or gold vessels, small table top objects a few centimetres tall to as many as several metres high. Many designs use openwork to allow a flow of air. In many cultures, burning incense has spiritual and religious connotations, and this influences the design and decoration of the censer.
Salvia apiana, the Californian white sage, bee sage, or sacred sage is an evergreen perennial shrub that is native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, found mainly in the coastal sage scrub habitat of Southern California and Baja California, on the western edges of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts.
The Sun Dance is a ceremony practiced by some Native Americans in the United States and Indigenous peoples in Canada, primarily those of the Plains cultures, as well as a new movement within Native American religions. Members of otherwise independent bands gather to reaffirm beliefs about the world and the supernatural through rituals of personal and community sacrifice. Typically, young men would dance semi-continuously for several days and nights without eating or drinking; in some cultures self-mortification is/was also practiced.
Neoshamanism, refers to new forms of shamanism, where it usually means shamanism practiced by Western people as a type of New Age spirituality, without a connection to traditional shamanic societies. It is sometimes also used for modern shamanic rituals and practices which, although they have some connection to the traditional societies in which they originated, have been adapted somehow to modern circumstances. This can include "shamanic" rituals performed as an exhibition, either on stage or for shamanic tourism, as well as modern derivations of traditional systems that incorporate new technology and worldviews.
Bursera graveolens, known in Spanish as palo santo, is a wild tree native to the Yucatán Peninsula and also found in Peru and Venezuela.
Helichrysum petiolare, the licorice-plant or liquorice plant, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is a subshrub native to the Cape Provinces of South Africa — where it is known as imphepho — and to Angola, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It is naturalized in parts of Portugal and the United States. Growing to about 45 cm (18 in) high and 150 cm (59 in) broad, it is a trailing evergreen subshrub with furry grey-green leaves and small white flowers. Other common names include silver-bush everlastingflower, trailing dusty miller and kooigoed. The foliage has a faint licorice aroma, but Helichrysum petiolare is not closely related to true liquorice, Glycyrrhiza glabra, from which liquorice candy is made.
Plastic shamans, or plastic medicine people, is a pejorative colloquialism applied to individuals who attempt to pass themselves off as shamans, holy people, or other traditional spiritual leaders, but who have no genuine connection to the traditions or cultures they claim to represent. In some cases, the "plastic shaman" may have some genuine cultural connection, but is seen to be exploiting that knowledge for ego, power, or money.
Hierochloe odorata or Anthoxanthum nitens is an aromatic herb native to northern Eurasia and North America. It is considered sacred by many Indigenous peoples in Canada and the United States. It is used as a smudge in herbal medicine and in the production of distilled beverages. It owes its distinctive sweet scent to the presence of coumarin.
Bear worship is the religious practice of the worshipping of bears found in many North Eurasian ethnic religions such as among the Sami, Nivkh, Ainu, Basques, Germanic peoples, Slavs and Finns. There are also a number of deities from Celtic Gaul and Britain associated with the bear. The Dacians, Thracians and Getians in the Eastern Balkans were noted to worship bears and annually celebrate the bear dance festival. The bear is featured on many totems throughout northern cultures that carve them.
Kuksu was a religion in Northern California practiced by members within several Indigenous peoples of California before and during contact with the arriving European settlers. The religious belief system was held by several tribes in Central California and Northern California, from the Sacramento Valley west to the Pacific Ocean.
Espiritismo is a term used in Latin America and the Caribbean to refer to the popular belief that evolved and less evolved spirits can affect health, luck and other aspects of human life.
Religious use of incense has its origins in antiquity. The burned incense may be intended as a symbolic or sacrificial offering to various deities or spirits, or to serve as an aid in prayer.
Smoking ceremony is an ancient and contemporary custom among some Aboriginal Australians that involves smouldering native plants to produce smoke. This herbal smoke is believed to have both spiritual and physical cleansing properties, as well as the ability to ward off bad spirits. In traditional, spiritual culture, smoking ceremonies have been performed following either childbirth or initiation rites involving circumcision. In contemporary culture, elements of smoking ceremonies have been incorporated into Welcome to Country performances and other spiritual events held for the general public.
Native American religions, Native American faith or American Indian religions are the indigenous spiritual practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Ceremonial ways can vary widely and are based on the differing histories and beliefs of individual nations, tribes and bands. Early European explorers describe individual Native American tribes and even small bands as each having their own religious practices. Theology may be monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, shamanistic, pantheistic or any combination thereof, among others. Traditional beliefs are usually passed down in the oral tradition forms of myths, oral histories, stories, allegories, and principles. Nowadays, as scholars note, many American Natives renew their interest in own tradition.
A ceremonial pipe is a particular type of smoking pipe, used by a number of cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in their sacred ceremonies. Traditionally they are used to offer prayers in a religious ceremony, to make a ceremonial commitment, or to seal a covenant or treaty. The pipe ceremony may be a component of a larger ceremony, or held as a sacred ceremony in and of itself. Indigenous peoples of the Americas who use ceremonial pipes have names for them in each culture's Indigenous language. Not all cultures have pipe traditions, and there is no single word for all ceremonial pipes across the hundreds of diverse Native American languages.
Shamanism is a religious practice present in various cultures and religions around the world. Shamanism takes on many different forms, which vary greatly by region and culture and are shaped by the distinct histories of its practitioners.
Shaking tent ceremony is a ritual of some Indigenous people in North America that is used to connect the people with the spirit realm and establish a connection and line of communication between the spirit world and the mortal world. These ceremonies require special tents or lodges to be made, and are performed under the direction of a medicine man, or spiritual leader, who uses different practices, rituals, and materials to perform the ceremony. This ceremony is more commonly used by specific indigenous tribes long ago but is still practiced around the continent today.
