Customer Reviews

Creek Indian Medicine Ways: The Enduring Power of Mvskoke Religion

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4 star:		(1)
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If you are descended from any of the Nations that are from the SE of the US, you should read this book. It is a great book that gives a first person account of traditional Mvskogi medicine traditions passed through a particular family of the bird clan. Ok, there was an anthropologist involved...but he keeps his distance and admits his shortcomings. I really commend him for that. The account is what the medicine person himself wanted to say...

I'm Mvskoke Creek and a traditional stompdancer and medicine taker. However, I am not a medicine man, so the info in this book was very interesting to me. I learned things that I would not have learned otherwise, even at my family grounds. Things like this are not told to anybody except young men that are learning to become medicine makers. It is said that if you speak of things that go on within the Creek culture, you will get very ill. So we only speak generally about our traditions on a "need to know" basis. I feel that this belief is what is killing my culture. I'm glad that at least one person was brave enough to write about these things so that I can pass this knowledge down to my son. With this book and the few others like it, I hope that my culture stays around for eternity.

I thought this was a good book. My son who is more educated in Creek Indian culture differs in opinion. He felt that it wasn't authentic enough. My personal feelings are that it held plenty of knowledge for my interest level. It was a quick and fun read. I leave it in the guest room for visitors to browse. I had a few visitors who have stayed up too late because they got caught up in reading it. I would classify this as a book that might get you interested in knowing more. The author doesn't claim to be the last and only expert in this area.

Over the years, my ties to Muscogie Ways was through neighbors and friends with deep ties to the Creek Baptist Churches. Weighing those testimonies with these, harmonizes their special witness in a a world seeking assimilation of sovereign cultures everywhere.