Hey Natives: Get Informed About Cancer!

 

Out of Tune:  How it Leads to Health Problems

The world has health problems.  Problems, small and big, are always present in life; without them, life would not seem right.  However, knowledge and prevention have always limited the probability of problems becoming monumentally outstanding.  Fools Crow, a Teton Sioux holy man, was known to have said that “Prevention is more important than treatment where the community and individuals are concerned.  Getting ready in advance may not prevent our being hurt, but it keeps us from being destroyed.”*  

 

Fools Crow’s beliefs are part of many different Native American tribes’ principles.  In relation to our bodies, sickness and disease are just as preventable.  However, according to some tribes and their beliefs, diseases and sicknesses arise when the body is “out of tune” with the mind, spiritual and physical world.  Accordingly, there are many problems that Native Americans face in this millennial world. 

Behind the Frontrunner: Malignant Neoplasms

As of 1999, malignant neoplasms (cancer) are the second cause (behind heart diseases) of death among Native Americans.  Combined, all Indian Health Service (IHS) service area deaths due to cancer runs at 15.3%.  Basically, if 100 people died, about 15 would have died due to a form of cancer (Chart 1).  Native Americans succumb to cancer at a rate very near to the entire U.S. population.  

 

Within the Billings area (which includes the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and all Montana reservations except Salish Kootenai), 16.6% of all deaths among Native Americans are due to cancer.  In addition, Natives within the Billings IHS area have a higher cancer death rate (160.8 people per 100,000) than the general U.S. population!  Why is there such a wide margin?

 

 

 

 

Perceptions of Natives and Causes of Cancer

For many years, word-of-mouth, lack of good statistical data, and poor medical record keeping/reporting have made it seem as if Native Americans did not have a problem with cancer like other races in the U.S.  Perhaps it is true that there was a lower incidence of cancer throughout Indian country in the past.  Native Americans did not have to deal with environmental hazards (man-made chemicals, etc (LINK TO enviro factors??) and bodily and mental stresses due to our country’s fast-paced society.  We had a better understanding that to be healthy meant not only to be physically fit, but also mentally and spiritually sound.  Fools Crow also mentioned Native Americans’ loss of cultural identity.  “It is unfortunate, but our people have begun to forget this [cultural identity], and they are paying a tragic price for it.  They get knocked down, and they do not have the strength or the way to get up.”*

 

Today, Natives could point their collective finger at many different causes of cancer:

 

 

Considering what has happened to Native Americans, we have rebounded remarkably.  Today each tribe’s cultural traditions are being practiced by more individuals and that number is growing every day.  There is remarkable progress made towards regaining information and culture that at one time was thought to be lost. 

This website in focuses on educating the Native American public and youth of Montana and Wyoming about the twists and turns of cancer.  By reading this website, you, the reader, are enacting a form of prevention: becoming informed and prepared—so in the event that you get knocked down, you will have the advance awareness that will help you gain the strength to get back on your feet.

 

*Fools Crow excerpt from Fools Crow:  Wisdom and Power, by Thomas E. Mails