Hmong Healing Practices
The Hmong community has a strong tradition in everything they do. The culture is very spiritual and they believe that all things have spirits. Among the Hmong community, the Shamans play the role of spiritual healer and advisor. The evil spirits that disturb the people of Hmong community are driven away by building alters in villages and building shrines in fields grounds and by the side of trails. The shaman is not blamed, incase the treatment fail to work, but however the people believe that it is impossible for the shaman to drive away the evil spirits. While in western medicine if the doctors fail to cure the disease and the patient dies, the doctors also are too not blamed for failing to cure the disease. Furthermore, patterns and Symbols are decorating on the garments that the Hmong ladies prepare from hemp. These symbols and patterns are made from dyes that are prepared from vegetables materials and are used to impel away evil spirits and catch the attention of friendly ones (Nuttal & Flores 1998).
By tradition, the Hmong people strongly believe that souls can become captured or lost by evil spirits. And in addition the evil spirits can have an effect on the person’s well-being and health, however the Hmong community have strong believe that physical body can not get cured and till the soul is reinstated. In addition the shamans, in a trance, plead with spirits for the restoration of the soul. On the other hand the western medicine practitioners believe that sickness is caused by bacteria, virus and protozoa infecting the body with various types of diseases. Furthermore the western doctors believe the cure of a disease is the use of medicine to heal the sickness and when the body gets healed also the soul is healed respectively (Nuttal & Flores 1998).
In addition The Hmong communities trust that the human being soul is a valued possession and ought to for all time be reserved happy. The Hmong community in addition trusts that the soul has a sphere of influence where it rests typically where it was born. Following the culture of Hmong community after a woman gives birth; it is the responsibility of the father to dig a whole and burry the baby’s after births. In a given situation that the new born is a girl, her after births is buried beneath her parents’ bed; and incase it is a boy, his afterbirth is buried in a region of greater respect, close to the bottom of the house’s innermost wooden pillar. They Hmong people hold their culture and traditions lock to their hearts, same as the medical doctors at western Hospitals do, too to save a dieing patient (Anne 1998).
Furthermore the Hmong community believe that throughout childbirth, the woman ought to be left unaccompanied in the house till the new born arrives in the world. In addition the pregnant mother goes through a lot of pain and suffering because they are not allowed to use medicine and painkillers by their culture. On the other hand the western doctors lay their emphasis on proper hygiene and safety measures and in addition they advice pregnant mothers to give birth in hospital were by all complication and emergencies can be handled in presence of doctors, nurses and close family members including the father.
However the Hmong community does not believe the initiative of using a pain killer to get a way pain. This therapy has no important role to play in relation with bad spirits that are the main cause of pain. Furthermore during pregnancy, the Hmong pregnant mothers are not given time to rest but instead do a lot of work throughout the pregnancy until the go into labor, contrarily the western medicine doctors advice the pregnant mothers to take rest during pregnancy ,especially the last months prior to getting into labor. In the Hmong community the birth of a child is a colossal spiritual and religious occasion. The newborn was not left alone for a few minutes by the mother since the Hmong community trust that the bad spirit will take control of its body since the bad spirits believe that the new baby is not honored in the community. While the western doctors see pregnancy as more of a scientific or medical event. The pregnant mothers are given proper diets, regular check up and vitamins by medical doctors. There is very little religious and spiritual influence during pregnancy (Anne 1998).
However, in the Hmong community, they do not allow shots and blood removal from the body in large volumes and in addition they don’t permit anything can cause an effect on the dab hence allowing bad sprit to get their way into the human soul. Contrarily in western medicine blood sample is usually taken for performing various clinical test required in verifying the main cause of a disease and the cure. Moreover the Hmong community trusts in use of animal sacrifice, herbs and liquids to treat the body fairly than western medicine who treat the patient using injections and needles to draw blood.
In conclusion, there is a need for western medicine practitioners to reexamine the technique they use to deliver medical care; western medicine is often biased and maintains to be right most of the time. In addition Western doctors assert to carry out scientific-based medicine and consequently cite spiritual and cultural dissimilarities as the main barriers of successful healing for patients of diverse ethnicity (Anne 1998).
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