Indigenous healing

Abstract

The term ‘indigenous’ means simply that the people, animals or plants referred to are native to a particular place, region or zone. In recent years it has been used to designate those peoples who constitute the original population in a nation. Thus in Australia, the Americas and Canada the indigenous or Aboriginal people are the descendants of those who inhabited the country prior to colonisation. Often the effects of invasion, conquest, land appropriation and depopulation by introduced diseases are such that the indigenous peoples become minorities within modern nations. In other parts of the world, such as Africa and the Pacific, the indigenous populations have continued as the dominant gr..