Water
Water is a sacred, life-giving element that is used in a variety of ways within cultural practices and traditional medicine. Water is also an essential component of physical health and the health of the natural environment.
Health Benefits:
Stress reduction
Cardiovascular health
Anti-inflammatory
Diet/Nutrition
Health Condition:
Trauma
Anxiety
Depression
Type 2 Diabetes
Cardiovascular Disease
Method of Use:
Ceremony
Ingest
Alternative Names:
dihydrogen monoxide
Cultural Narrative
Indigenous communities describe water as life. It is one of the most important elements in many ceremonial traditions, representing physical and spiritual health. One participant describes drinking water to help with headaches that are a result of dehydration.
Another community member describes the numerous and vital roles that water has in healing, growing medicinal herbs, and functioning as a medicine in and of itself. She says “everyone has the medicine of water”. She describes some of the ways that water can be used in prayer and cultural traditions such as offering it to the earth, drinking, or recharging in water. She describes how in her Blackfeet traditions, women are herbologists and will use water to prepare medicinal herbs. She also describes how water is connected to songs, drumming, pipes and that it is an essential element in maintainingthose specific cultural traditions.