Worlds Apart

Sweat Lodge in Use, circa 1880 to 1910, courtesy Library of Congress

Though insanity was rare, Native Americans did sometimes have to deal with tribal members they deemed insane. Their methods were less harsh than European ones (see last post) and Native Americans often tried to cure insanity rather than settle for the long-term confinement of the affected person. Many Native Americans believed that illness came from evil spirits, so their rituals emphasized that aspect of healing. The Shoshones believed that a ghost entering a person’s body caused sickness, and used incantations, prayer, drums, medicine whistles, and sweat lodges to prepare a patient to have the ghost extracted. After preparation, their healer would form a tube with his hands and place them over the patient’s mouth. He then sucked until the patient vomited or belched out the evil spirit. The Creeks sometimes used four white pebbles in water to alleviate insanity. The tribe’s healer performed ceremonies and sang songs, then put some of the water in his mouth and spit violently upon the head of the insane person. The latter then drank from the cup of water four times. This ceremony gave the healer power over the sufferer and allowed him to eventually cure the individual.

Native American cure rates were probably similar to European ones. The important point is that their treatments were culturally acceptable, just as European ones were for New World settlers. European and Anglo-American patients would not have accepted or been comfortable with Native American ceremonies to cure insanity, and it is little wonder that Native Americans were not comfortable with European-derived treatments. One of the great failures of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians was that it did not take culture into account when staff interacted with patients.