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 cultureâ€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.)