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Transcript: Joshua J. Breedlove

Native belief in illness as the result of an imbalanced life

[Breedlove:]
With a lot of our tribal members, we have a very strong Christian population pool, so a lot of the Christian identity is involved with their beliefs with healthcare. Some people, of course, believe it’s a punishment or something of that nature, and then others have adopted just the Western philosophy of germs, bacteria, etc. We do have some traditionalists who do believe that a lot of the illness comes from some imbalance in their own life. They’ve been too hot, they’ve been too angry, or their passions have gotten too inflamed. They’re too much of something, and that has created an imbalance that allows them to get sick.