September 17 -- Talking Health But Doing Sickness

Talking health but doing sickness

—Patricia Kinloch, Health Services Researcher in Samoa

The quote above is the title of a book on Samoan health. I find it to be a very profound epigraph.

How often do we talk health and do sickness. We talk about ridding our people of disease and we support industries that release carcinogens into the air. We talk about healing, and we use drugs that have side effects that are later found to be lethal. We talk about raising healthy children and we isolate our young mothers with little or no support.

The Samoans see sickness as a disruption in the social order. Illness, in Samoan culture, is much bigger than germs and biology. They recognize that illness is not just an individual issue. It affects the community and the group to which the person belongs.

It is important to see that even our ideas about illness are culturally based.

From: Native Wisdom for White Minds by Anne Wilson Schaef