HEALTH and ILLNESS in the American Indian and Alaska Native Population ■ 219
and the third part is the spiritual aspect of a person. The physical is the tangible, the one we can see and touch and be with all the time. We go through acceptance of our physical being. This is what I have to walk the path of life with and I accept it for what it is. The intellectual aspect is the part that interprets things for you—dreams, visions, feelings, and what the spirit is saying to you. The spiritual aspect of a person of is the slowest and the last in most cases to mature. The spiritual aspect is kept in harmony and in balance by the awareness that it is part of everything else. We be- lieve that all life forms have a spirit and the relationship of man to all other beings that are alive is a spiritual one. When all three aspects are working together it is called balance and harmony, or the center of the earth.
• Let’s say a student, for example, puts a lot of emphasis on the intellect and neglects the physical and the spiritual aspect of him, we believe that there are natural forces which always try to seek a balance. For instance, if you get a cut, you heal because it is natural to try to seek balance. We believe that there are many subtle things the Great Spirit made and very obvious things that the Great Spirit made like creatures like elephants, whales, and the obvious. And then much more subtle creatures like what you call germs and viruses and when we believe that when the Great Spirit created life, he created laws to govern life, that the wolf wouldn’t eat the deer in one day, that there would be laws to govern these kinds of things. One of the laws was what we call a “skilly.” It is a being or a creature and it has no good or bad. When a person neglects the spiritual and physical part for the intellect, and does not seek balance, the skilly comes in and one of the effects of the skilly is sickness and disease