The Hollow Tree: Fighting Addiction With Traditional Native Healing

by Nabigon, Herb

• ISBN13: 9780773531321
• ISBN10: 0773531327
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-08-30
• Publisher: McGill Queens Univ Pr

Summary

Before discovering native healing methods, Herb Nabigon could not imagine a life without alcohol. His powerful autobiography, The Hollow Tree, tells the story of his struggle to overcome addiction with the help of the spiritual teachings and brotherly love of his elders. Nabigon had spent much of his life wrestling with self-destructive impulses, feelings of inferiority and resentment, and alcohol abuse when Eddie Bellerose, an Elder, introduced him to the ancient Cree teachings. With the help of healing methods drawn from the Four Sacred Directions, the refuge and revitalization offered by the sweat lodge, and native cultural practices such as the use of the pipe Nabigon was able to find sobriety.

Author Biography

Herb Nabigon is associate professor, Native human services, Laurentian University

Table of Contents

Foreword by Georges Sioui	ix
Foreword by Zorica Benkovic	xiii
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction	xvii
The Early Years	3	(16)
The Middle Years	19	(8)
The Long Road Home	27	(11)
A Meeting with the Sweetgrass	38	(5)
The Natural Cycle of Life	43	(15)
The Four Sacred Directions	58	(17)
The Struggle for Spiritual Strength	75	(8)
The Sweatlodge	83	(10)
The Struggle for Understanding	93	(8)
The Spiritual Path	101	(14)
Glossary	115