“Over time, our views on individual and community health have significantly changed. “

In recent years, a mixture of the growing depression and apathy in north American culture, and the re-visitation and review of older societies and cultural ways of living has changed our outlook on what health is, what personal happiness is, and what community is. Looking back at some of the older pre-modern cultures, one can see that the sense of happiness and fulfillment are integrated into their cultural views on health, and their views and roles in society. The main difference that one can see is that in cultures which have a fulfilled religious society, everyone in the culture accepts their role or path with reverence and joy, and the sense of community and community events are engrained into those cultures. This drives them to maintain their health, the feeling of purpose and connectedness in their work means they must maintain healthy bodies and minds to be able to carry out the work that they consider "sacred".
There are numerous examples of cultures where spirituality is integrated into daily life to give a sense of fulfillment, I'll be looking at the Huicholindians of North America, the Kogi people from Columbia and the Bwiti people of West Africa

Since the unification of Christianity as a dominating global religion, there have been major setbacks in human concepts of health, and what it means to be healthy.
The average person in the modern world for many hundreds of years, and up until recently believed general health to be the functioning of the body, the absence of sickness, and mental “health”, a term which in itself is quite vague and hard to define.
Happiness it would seem is not a stand-alone feeling, but a combination of fulfillment and motivation. Feelng fulfilled in ones place, with ones life, or with ones actions is a concept which has only recently come into human consciousness.

Beforehand, one would say people were "healthy", when they weren't sick physically, there was no recognition of the mental and emotional state of mind. Now we can see that happiness, and healthiness, are tied into a greate holistic all-encompassing picture, that revolves alot around fulfillment. One could say that fulfillment and apathy are polar opposites, with apathy believing that the quality of life is determined by other sources and that effort won't change anything. This is one of the fundamental problems of caucasian, "first-world" culture, the belief that the government or some other entity is going to change the quality of life for you, leading to a very disempowered culture. Another aspect of our culture which is detrimental to self-generated happiness is the feeling of separation from other human beings, the feeling that you need to compete with your immediate friends, make more money than them, have more "resources" available, and that would allow you the choice to do what you want, and thus be happy, which is not the case. This materialist-driven mindset makes for waste, unhealthy patterns and habits, distraction and a lack of any real fulfilling role in the world other than material posessions. But material posessions do not make you want to exercise, work hard to contribute back to your society, or maintain your physical or emotional health.


One of the strongest concepts of overall health in these tribal cultures is the sense of "unity" or connectedness to the spirit, or the sacred. These concepts are key for individual and community health, because it blurs the line between the two, meaning that if one member of a community is unhealthy, the whole community shares his or her burden. This could be seen both metaphorically and literally, metaphorically speaking the belief that we are all one consciousness means that sickness in one means sickness in all. But in the literal sense, if a member of the tribe is sick physically or emotionally, they won't be able to contribute and won't be able to maintain their responsibilities for the community.

There are many ways to arrive at this conclusion of unity, and harmony, within the community and nature. Most of these cultures have some kind of initiatory right, or sacred ceremony with which the members of the community can conncet to eachother, and nature. The sense of responsibility that comes from being connected as such greatly drives people in their life, and helps them feel accepted in their communities and in their place in this world. The sacred feeling of connectedness in the religions of most of these older cultures is the maintaining force for the health of the people in those cultures, and its maintanance is the most important thing for maintaining true health. Western culture has "teased apart" the strands that weave health together into individual strings, identifying problems such as vitamin deficiency or lack of exercise, while ignoring the fact that all of the problems, mental, physical and nutritional are all interconnected in some way, and cannot be treated individually.

We can see that although there are subtle differences in the religious ceremonies or beliefs of most of these cultures, the similarities and shared experiences are shown again and again to be the key factor in the holistic health of these peoples.

For the Bwiti religion of West africa, the connection to the sacred is shared with the Ngoze, the sacred mass where Iboga roots are eaten as the sacramental spirit to connect the people to the divinity of the world. After a three day ceremony, the people share a concept called "one heart only" where they project and recieve love from their entire community. This "Iboga spirit" they revere as the sacred representation of nature, and it is with that connectedness in mind that they maintain their community health.

For the Huichol indians, it is the Peyote cactus which is the sacrament, allowing them to connect to a deeper feeling of fulfillment and divinity in the world. The peyote pilgrimages and bringing back of peyote to the families to be eaten in highly ritualized ceremonies shows a connection and unity in their cultures that is so firmly rooted it is shown in every aspect of their culture, from the food they eat to the clothes they wear, and so on.

With the Kogi people of the Sierra, in Columbia, the ceremonies are conducted differently, but the general concepts of unity and divinity are shared with the other religious cultures. The sense of reverence for the earth makes for a farming-based society where everyone in the community works under the religious priests or "mamas" to farm the various biozones they live in. The men are constantly eating powdered seashells and writing down their thoughts on sacred gourds, which connects them to the divine spirit or "aluna".

As you can see, though there are differences in the modes of actions of these tribal cultures, the shared aspects of holistic health combining spirituality, diet, exercise and mental health show that our "Western individualist" view on health cannot be maintained. The concept that one particular aspect of health can be treated while others can be ignored is simply unsustainable, and a fulfilled sense of purpose and community will be the driving force in the change of consciousness towards greater health.

To truly change the concepts of health, the northwestern ideology must be “cracked open” to accept that the individual experience of life varies, and that the individual must draw inspiration and fulfillment from various sources, each unique to them.



Please, feel free to rip this apart. Criticize anything, incorrect information, gramatical error, general bullshittery..Please offer any constructive criticism possible, this paper is in the interest of learning and teaching RELEVANT, TRUE information, so If I`m wrong, let me know.