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At California Hospital, Doctors Heal Bodies while Shamans Heal Souls
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A Shaman pauses for a brief ritual by the casket
of Sen. Ted Kennedy (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
At Mercy Medical Center in Merced, California, certified shamans are now welcome to focus on Hmong patients’ spiritual health while doctors focus on their physical health, per the New York Times.
The Hmong people are not Vietnamese or Korean; the Hmong community in the United States was originally made up of 100,000 refugees from Laos who began to arrive in 1975 after the Vietnam War. Most Hmong people now live in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and shamans continue to play an important role in their healing.
In Hmong culture, the shaman is a powerful and highly respected man. He is viewed as a communicator with the world of spirits, one who can see and understand things that are unseen to others. There are religious aspects to the work of shamans that we should respect, for they are an important part of Hmong culture. But we also need to understand that professional medical care is what people need when they are sick or injured.
Some staff members at Mercy Medical Center were initially skeptical about the presence of the shamans, but that changed about ten years ago when a Hmong clan leader “miraculously recovered,” from a gangrenous bowel following shamanistic rituals. The staff, under the guidance of the “integration director,” now welcomes shamans as they do chaplains. A 26-year-old resident physician from the Hmong community, who is also the granddaughter of two accomplished shamans, stated, “If I were sick, I would want a shaman to be there. But I’d go to the hospital.”
To learn more about Hmong shamanism, watch an 11-minute lecture here: Hmong Shamanism.
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