I have been quite interested in recent years in the use of teishin, enshin, zanshin and other non-insertive tools. This interest has been fueled by studies in Toyohari, with Dr. Bear (Iwashina Anryu sensei) and with Funamizu sensei. In past articles I have mentioned this interest of mine, but now I have to report a strange possible connection between Navajo and Japanese healing. I am uncertain what to think about this odd possible connection that I detail here. Read on.
The Navajo, also called the Dine, are one of the largest native tribes in the US. Their reservation occupies land in Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, some 27,00 square miles in all. They have done a better job than most other tribes in preserving their native language and keeping their culture intact, including their healing ceremonies. Many Dine are accomplished silversmiths. They picked up this profession in the late 1800s.
I work with two traditional Arizona Dine silversmiths in producing a line of teishin and other tools. We call this line The Gentle Spirit line of tools. I have been extremely happy with them. Ernie does not start with silver wire like most other teishin makers in the US (I am uncertain about the process in Japan); they actually starts with silver ore from which they forge silver ingot bars. Then they use a chisel to break off the right sized pieces to work with. Essentially they use only heat, rollers, chisels, and hammers to fashion amazing tools. It is a considerably longer process than starting with wire, but working the silver over and over with hammer and heat has a profound impact on the quality of the tool. “Spirit” is hammered into them. They use traditional prayer as they work. Everyone who holds these tools feels it.
The shapes these traditional silversmiths have developed are also different from other standard teishin. It is an expression of their artistic talents and also the influence of their prayers as they meditated on what to produce. It is curious that their main business is in producing custom bracelets for Japanese buyers. His custom pieces start at $4000 and reflect a beautiful combination of the wabi-sabi aesthetic and his own culture’s sensibilities. The Smithsonian Institute owns some of his pieces.
We had not been working together on this project for more than a few months when they sent me the photos below. His son had found them in a museum. I was amazed. Note how much these traditional Dine healing tools look like shonishin tools! It is astonishing. The informational note next to the display called them “witch sticks” and said they were used by Navajo medicine men to “exorcise evil spirits” from patients (sounds like jyaki to me). Below the photo with the originals you see the copies that they made made. I had them make the non-finger end more spatulate than in the originals, because I use them primarily on the face and neck of my patients in a gentle stroking fashion. The effect is marvelous.
One of these silversmiths himself is an active member of a Dine medicine society and participates regularly in healing ceremonies. His brother is a full-time Navajo healer. He asked around and no one any longer knows how these sticks were used. It is a total mystery. It is possible it was a practice on only a small part of the reservation. The reservation is geographically quite large and cuts across with many canyons that make travel a challenge. Certainly now in the modern era no Dine healers are using these tools. How curious though that they were ever developed and employed.
My own thinking wanders in the direction of a Japanese visitor to the area, perhaps 120-150 years ago, with a teishin or some other shonishin tools. The practice of shonishin in parts of Japan is at least that old. By that time many Dine were already working as silversmiths. Could it be that a Dine healer saw the use of these Japanese tools demonstrated by a Japanese practitioner traveling through the area—and then took the idea to a Dine silversmith who thought to add in some traditional design elements? Of course this is wild speculation, but one if hard pressed to come up with an alternate explanation.as to how Dine healers started to work with tools so similar to Japanese practitioners.
I continue to research this question by reaching out to anthropologists with experience studying the healing traditions of native tribes in the Southwest of the US. I will report in the future if I learn anything of interest.
Bob Quinn is a full-time Associate Professor at NUNM’s School of Classical Chinese Medicine. At the university he teaches Sotai, gentle needling techniques, and moxibustion, He has a private practice at the Onkodo Clinic in Portland, Oregon. On the clinic website the Gentle Spirit tools can be viewed.