posting #1
James Niggemann (jjn8780@silver.sdsmt.edu)
Thu, 30 Oct 1997 22:06:10 -0700 (MST)
The white doctors' diagnosis for Tayo's illness is battle fatigue
while the traditional Indian interpretation of his illness is that is
more spiritual.
On page 8 it talks about when, during the war, Tayo
experienced nausea and hallucinations while they were executing Japanese
prisoners. A medic attributed it to battle fatigue and said the
hallucinations were a common symptom of malarial fever. On page 31 it
says that the Army doctors told Robert and Auntie that the cause of Tayo's
illness was battle fatigue but it cause was a mystery to them. He was
treated with medication by the medic after the incident during the war and
afterwards in the hospital in Los Angeles.
The army doctors told them no Indian medicine for Tayo. Ku'oosh
seems to believe Tayo's illness more spiritual than physical and that it
is important to all of them that he is cured. On page 36, Tayo asks him
to help by performing the scalp ceremony. Ku'oosh says that he performed
this ceremony for others who returned from the war and they are not better
either. He says Indian medicine cannot cure things the way it used to,
before the white man came.
I am not really sure if a psychological illness like Tayo's is
really physical, even though today many mental diseases are thought to
have physiological causes. It has physical symptoms, but its cause must be
something deeper.
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