Chapter Seven, Spiritual Surgery Summary and Analysis

Chapter Seven opens with Dr. Alvord visiting a clinic in Crownpoint and seeing a patient named Dezbah Tsosie. She needed to have her gall bladder removed, but the medicine man had told her this, as Navajos often get large gallstones. Ancestrally, the Navajo ate lots of grains, beans and limited meat. Modern American diets are hard on the Navajo as a result. Alvord had performed many gall bladder surgeries; people can live well without gall bladders.

Alvord had come to treat the whole person, not just the organs, to focus on the harmony of their being. At Gallup, Alvord was becoming more intent on gaining the trust of her Navajo patients. Her patients felt like she worked magic on them. In her, the healer and doctor were merged. Alvord noted that the medicine men taught...