CULTURAL BOUND SICKNESS

• In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society culture. There are no objective biochemical or structural alterations of body organs or functions, and the disease is not recognized in other cultures.

CULTURAL BOUND SICKNESS

• categorization as a disease in the culture (i.e., not a voluntary behaviour or false claim);

• widespread familiarity in the culture;• complete lack of familiarity or misunderstanding of the condition to

people in other cultures;• no objectively demonstrable biochemical or tissue abnormalities (signs);• the condition is usually recognized and treated by the folk medicine of

the culture

NAVAJO GHOST SICKNESS

Navajo Ghost Sickness• Attributed to Native Americans.

• Associated with death or dying, believed to be a result of the dead trying to take the living to a spiritual plane, or communicate that they are not at peace.

• Caused by disturbing the dead or not practicing proper rituals for the dead.

CHINDI•In Navajo religious belief, a chindi (Navajo: chʼį́įdii) is the ghost left behind after a person dies, believed to leave the body with the decedent's last breath. It is everything that was bad about the person; the "residue that man has been unable to bring into universal harmony". Traditional Navajo believe that contact with a chindi can cause illness ("ghost sickness") and death. Chindi are believed to linger around the decedent's bones or possessions, so possessions are often destroyed after death and contact with bodies is avoided. After death the decedent's name is never spoken, for fear that the chindi will hear and come and make one ill. Traditional Navajo practice is to allow death to occur outdoors, to allow the chindi to disperse. If a person dies in a house or hogan, that building is believed to be inhabited by the chindi and is abandoned.

HOGANPrimary traditional dwelling of the Navajo – the bodies of the deceased were held inside the

Hogan for prayers until burial

Cause

There are a variety of mainstream psychological theories about Ghost Sickness. Putsch states that "Spirits or 'ghosts' may be viewed as being directly or indirectly linked to the cause of an event, accident, or illness". Both Erikson and Macgregor report substantiating evidence of psychological trauma response in ghost sickness, with features including withdrawal and psychic numbing, anxiety and hypervigilance, guilt, identification with ancestral pain and death, and chronic sadness and depression.

NAVAJO GHOST SICKNESSSymptoms include:

general weakness

loss of appetite

feeling suffocated

recurring nightmares

feelings of terror

THE BLESSING WAY

There are two mains rites. “The Blessingway rite is concerned with peace, harmony and good things, and should exclude all evil,” The Enemyway is the opposite of Blessingway, where it mostly focus on bringing up negative conditions. As for the Blessingway, it is for “the purpose of the chantways is primarily the curing of illness. They are concerned with the etiological factors supposed to be at work, of which four are most commonly adduced, i.e.; snakes, bears, thunder [or lightning], and winds” (Wyman 4). Will the curing aspect of Blessingway is to help establish a new way to regain harmony again after being over expose to one those etiological factors mention above.

THE BLESSING WAY

•The rites and prayers in the Blessing Way are concerned with healing, creation, harmony and peace. The song cycles recount the elaborate Navajo creation story (Diné Bahaneʼ).

THE ENEMY WAYThe Enemy Way (Anaʼí Ndááʼ) is a traditional ceremony for countering the harmful effects of ghosts (Navajo: chʼįį́dii), and has been performed for returning military personnel.The Enemy Way ceremony involves song, sandpainting, dance, and the powerful mythical figure Monster Slayer. The ceremony lasts for several days and includes the enacting of a battle.

SANDPAINTINGSSandpaintings has two forms one is the art aspect, but the more important aspect for us to focus on is their used for traditional healing. “Navajo religion holds that everything consists of powerful forces, which are capable of good or evil. The balance between them is quite fine; if upset, even accidentally, some misfortune or even disaster will occur. Nature is balanced. It is in harmony, and only man can upset the balance... All of these deities are constantly in flux, causing good and evil. The goal is for these forces to be in balance, or hozho, a perfect state.”

DANCE•Religious leaders within the Navajo tribe repeatedly perform ceremonies to eliminate the all-consuming thoughts of the dead, dance was one of the ways.

NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE

•Native-American culture has a world view that is cynical rather than a cause & affect

worldview. What this means is that all events affect each other, regardless of when the

event occurs “PAST, PRESENT OR FUTURE”.