Ethnohealth and ethnocaring practices among the Lakota

Understanding the health and caring practices of a cultural group is essential to the provision of nursing care that is both therapeutic and culturally sensitive. Investigation into the ethnohealth and ethnocaring practices of the northern Lakota Sioux bands has been lacking in nursing and anthropological research. Likewise, research about modern women in shamanistic training is limited to two studies, neither of which centers on healing practices. This study employed a blend of ethnonursing and phenomenological approaches to: (a) explore and explicate the cultural modes of health and caring among the Hunkpapa band of the Lakota Sioux who reside on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota and South Dakota and (b) to generate a description of medicine-women apprenticeship. Data collection entailed participant observation, dialogal interviews, and semistructured interviews guided by orienting theory. The results produced an ethnonursing account of health and caring practices of this particular cultural group. Conceptual categories of ethnohealth and ethnocaring were constructed using indigenous terms. The researcher's encounters as an adoptive member of the Hunkpapa kinship network and as an apprentice medicine woman yielded a descriptive, experiential account of traditional healing ways as experienced by a nurse practitioner. An account and analysis of the nurse's endeavors to incorporate ethnohealth and ethnocaring practices into her professional practice concluded the study. It was determined that the use of ethnohealing interventions initiated by the nurse must take into consideration kinship ties, client expectations, and the professional scope of nursing practice.