GENDER, DISCORD, AND ILLNESS - NAVAJO PHILOSOPHY AND HEALING IN THE NATIVE-AMERICAN CHURCH

Many studies of different societies throughout the world have noted how discord in prominent social relationships manifests itself as specific illnesses. This paper explores how the discord characteristic of. male/female relations is related to illness in Navajo culture and how gender differences as conceptualized in Navajo cosmology are used to facilitate the healing of this discord. It will be shown that traditional Navajo philosophy recognizes discord between the sexes as a fundamental component of disease and that the reestablishment of health is accomplished through the manipulation of gendered symbolic media. rn addition, a discussion of a relatively new healing tradition on the Navajo Reservation-the Native American Church-demonstrates that many of the basic cosmological principles underlying traditional Navajo ideas regarding gender are incorporated by practitioners of this healing system. This study has implications for healing, social transformation, and gender