Health and Healing

Compare and contrast the various forms of healing and ethnomedicine exhibited in this week's assigned articles and videos. How do cultural values and socio-economic conditions shape healing practices? Should western medical intervention have taken place in any of these examples? What differences and similarities do you see between this culture’s health rituals and that of most contemporary Americans?

Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length. Support your claims with examples from required material(s) and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references

Divine Drug (http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/taboo/videos/divine-drug/)
(This video examines the use of “daime,” or Ayahuasca, among the congregation of Santo Daime in Brazil.)

• Africa: Spirit Healers (http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/places/regions-places/africa-tc/zimbabwe-healers-pp/)
  (This video examines the use of traditional healers in a society that has access to modern medicine.)
• Vision Quest in the Jungle (http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/taboo/videos/vision-quest-in-the-jungle/)
  (This video examines a “vision quest” among people practicing Bwiti religion in Central Africa using the  psychotropic drug iboga.)