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anonymous INDIGENOUS HEALING - Arnhem Land April 14, 2007 3:19 AM

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2007/1890329.htm#transcript

Here's the blurb from ABC Radio National's Health Matters Program, broadcast on Easter Monday about healing the indigeneous way in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory.

"No matter what the advances in modern medicine are, there are still too many times when a patient's sickness is cured but the patient doesn't feel better. The body is fixed but the spirit is languishing. It's a challenge without a solution - so far. A small experiment taking place in Arnhem Land might just provide some answers for all of us."

An extract from the transcript......

Gulumbu Yunupingu: I had a daughter, she had an accident here in town and they transferred her to Darwin Hospital and she was nearly dying. And during that day I used bush medicine in Royal Darwin Hospital, she was paralysed. I was told by a doctor she is dying slowly - no hope.

Sharon Carleton: It's not that Gulumbu and the other women here reject mainstream medicine at all, it's just that it doesn't always work well enough. Gulumbu's daughter was 34.

Gulumbu Yunupingu: I went and got these bush medicine leaves.

Sharon Carleton: Did she have faith?

Gulumbu Yunupingu: (and others) Yeah. She knows that there's something else that will help her, heal her. And these leaves got oil in it, there was paper bark, reeds, chestnut leaves and stringy barks, boil it and soak it and then use that too. Use it and massage.

Sharon Carleton: It's a bush liniment?

Gulumbu Yunupingu: Yes, and then I had this treatment for steaming four times in Darwin.

Sharon Carleton: Fires are not allowed on the beaches in Darwin and so Gulumbu applied for, and got, special permission from the authorities to prepare her fires and her saunas for her very sick daughter. The healing went ahead.

Gulumbu Yunupingu: (and others) She was moving just one side and one arm, not much talking. I made this sauna for her and then laid her down on the sauna and then covered her with paper bark for two or three hours. It's like that person is lying in a shallow grave with steam and the reeds are put on top. In America and Canada they have the sweat lodges, it's something similar like that. That person is lying there like she was describing.

Sharon Carleton: And what happened?

Gulumbu Yunupingu: She's moving now.

Sharon Carleton: Gulumbu's daughter was cared for over the following months with traditional medicines which included shark meat, brains and liver as well as massage and saunas. She didn't die and has regained 60% mobility. She lives independently and has started reading again

Here's something about the importance of making the patient happy and connected.   [Maybe one of the secret ingredients of our Healing Circles??  Connecting with others over the internet in a good way.  What do you think?]

Gulumbu Yunupingu: (and others) It is going to be a mini hospital, the patient will have this treatment, after the treatment maybe in the evening we'll put on a musical or someone to sing songs for dancing or make them happy. Not just treat them and leave them there.

Much warmth,

Merril

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ACHA! May 19, 2007 12:54 PM

This is an amazing and wonderful story! In all of the world's medicine and in the healing modalities, these examples from Indigenous Peoples are so often overlooked. This one -- a precursor of "modern" Integrative Medicine Healing -- is profound! =sapan=

 [ send green star]
 
 May 19, 2007 3:26 PM

Nice one Merril. That's the way suffering people should be treated and everybody knows it for ages, yet the medical system is still ill-treating its patients. So, what's going on? Maybe it meant to be like that - as a part of the "plan"?!?!?!
  [ send green star]
 
Native Healing May 27, 2007 6:50 PM

What amazes me is that we Native (indigenous) Peoples have to apologize for showing some distrust in allopathic medicine. My People, and all indigineous Peoples on this planet, always treat the whole person, body-psyche-soul, we try to get to the root of the dis-ease, instead of treating the symptoms and covering up the root cause. Our true medicine men and women never get paid for healing someone, but out of respect for their knowledge and effort and sometimes danger, we give away to them in the form of gifts, food or money. Before the healing ceremony, the patient is always told what items to provide in order for the healing ceremony to be successful. Healing incorporates sound (songs, mantras, drum, rattles, didgideroo (?) and others), meditation or ritual prayer (thought energy to connect to the universal web of consciousness), color (in the form of sand paintings or body paint), all to draw the positive, creative energy of love and light into the dis-eased body, and to draw out and send any negative energy out into space to be absorbed.  [ send green star]
 
anonymous PRAYERS NEEDED June 21, 2007 3:13 AM

PLEASE URGENT Can everyone start praying and sending Reiki to the idigenous people of Australia, there is desperate need for healing throughout the Australian community not only for the Indigenous native people but also for the immigrant settlers to also help heal and open their eyes to what we all have been doing and I believe Asutralia has turned their backs on the people for too long. People do not want money they want hope, aceptance to feel human and loved by their own country, (Not ignoring the other needs such as assistance so desperately needed which should come from charity and government aceptance and acknowledgment). Here is the article today on the current sufferng of people in the Northern Territory: Thursday June 21, 07:03 PM Govt to control 60 NT indigenous areas Alcohol and pornography will be banned in indigenous communities in the Northern Territory as part of unprecedented federal intervention aimed at stamping out widespread child abuse. The commonwealth seized control of 60 Northern Territory Aboriginal communities as Prime Minister John Howard declared the problem of child abuse a "national emergency". He also announced an increase in police numbers, compulsory health checks for Aboriginal children and changes to the permit system which restricts non-Aboriginal access to indigenous land. Mr Howard said he was intervening because of the NT government's failure to act on evidence of systemic child abuse, the sex trade and juvenile prostitution in Aboriginal communities, as spelt out in a damning report last week. The federal government will override territory laws to deal with the crisis and, if necessary, recall parliament in the winter break to push through laws, including reforms to ensure welfare money is spent on essentials like food, instead of drugs and alcohol. Mr Howard said the measures represented a "dramatic and significant commonwealth intervention" in the territory, but he was unapologetic. "We are dealing with children of the tenderest age who have been exposed to the most terrible abuse from the time of their birth, virtually," he said. "It is interventionist, it does push aside the role of the territory to some degree - I accept that. But what matters more: the constitutional niceties, or the care and protection of young children?" Mr Howard challenged Western Australia, NSW and Queensland - where the federal government does not have the power to intervene - to implement the same measures to tackle child abuse. "I'm asking them to do what we have said we will do, and we will co-operate with them." The sale, possession, transportation and consumption of alcohol will be banned across the indigenous communities for six months, except in designated "wet" canteens. Possession of X-rated pornography will be banned and all publicly-funded computers searched for evidence of stored pornography. Fifty per cent of welfare payments through Centrelink to parents of children in affected areas will be quarantined to prevent all their money being spent on alcohol. "Effectively, the arrangements will be that, that 50 per cent can only be used for the purchase of food and other essentials," Mr Howard said. The commonwealth will also make welfare payments dependent on children attending school. The federal government will further take control of Aboriginal townships through five-year leases to improve property and public housing, Mr Howard said, adding that compensation would be forthcoming if required. The government will also marshal work-for-the-dole participants to clean up Aboriginal communities. Mr Howard said there would be a meeting next Thursday of the intergovernmental committee on the Australian Crime Commission. "At the meeting our minister will ask the ministerial council to formally refer this issue to the Australian Crime Commission to allow the crime commission to locate and identify perpetrators of sexual abuse of indigenous children in other areas of Australia." Mr Howard said the measures will cost "tens of millions of dollars". The response will be overseen by a taskforce of eminent Australians, led by Magistrate Sue Gordon, chair of the National Indigenous Council and author of the 2002 Gordon Report into Aboriginal child abuse in Western Australia. Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough said the government was also prepared to enlist the armed services to support the police and provide equipment and vehicles. He said Canberra was taking control in communities to remove protection for the paedophiles, drug runners and alcohol sellers. "What we will be sidelining is the strong men and those people who are actually working against the interests of their people," Mr Brough told ABC Radio. NT Chief Minister Clare Martin said she was happy to work with the federal government but dismissed as "utter rubbish" suggestions her government had been slow to act. Greens leader Bob Brown said appalling evidence of neglect and abuse has been in the public arena for years but the Howard government had failed to act until now, several months before an election. Democrats leader Lyn Allison condemned the move as "an outrageous authoritarian crackdown". Aboriginal lawyer Michael Mansell said the government's actions were an "immoral abuse of power" and aimed at taking over Aborigines' lives. Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said Labor would do whatever it could to work with the government to address the abuse crisis.  [report anonymous abuse]
 
anonymous  June 21, 2007 3:15 AM

I myself will not comment on the above article as I think everyone can see how they are being treated and how desperate an entire community healing is really required nation wide from the government down. xo  [report anonymous abuse]
 
anonymous  June 21, 2007 5:05 AM

If anyone would like to donate to native aboriginal causes in Australia or to volunteer or help in any way you can go to the folowing sites:

http://www.reconciliation.org.au/i-cms.isp
http://www.wunan.org.au/
http://www.kirinari-acas.com.au/

 [report anonymous abuse]
 
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