The Medicine Man Figure in Native American Literature: A Cultural and Literary Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates the re-invention of medicine men in contemporary Native American literature, placing them as more than simply healers, with their linguistic competences reflecting their cultural resilience, political resistance, and spiritual continuity. This research, then, aims at analyzing how Indigenous authors reclaim and remodel the image of medicine men into symbols of struggles through their language in an ongoing effort towards survival in the face of colonial pressures. Through qualitative literary analysis employing Homi Bhabha's notion of hybridity and Gerald Vizenor's concept of survivance, a critical investigation into selected works by Sherman Alexie, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Louise Erdrich provides a reading of the narratives. A close reading of the sampled texts revealed the medicine men as complicated hybrid figures, straddling the worlds of tradition and modernity, dynamic symbols of identity, sovereignty, and survival. They are portrayed as resisting arbitrary or romanticized stereotypes, thereby opening up a new way to view them as political actors, culture-carriers, and spiritual leaders in contemporary life. This study has the implication that such literary reconstructions serve effectively to advance meaningful reclamation of Indigenous cultures and contest overarching colonial narratives that marginalize or erase Native presence. The study calls for multidisciplinary research that unites literary, anthropological, and historical examinations further into understanding Indigenous representation in literature.