Probably a calque of Ojibwe mashkikiiwinini (“doctor”), from .

medicine man

1. A Native American shamanistic healer.

   Hypernyms: shaman

   Hyponym: (Navajos) hataalii

   • 1855, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha‎, section XIV:

     And the Jossakeeds, the Prophets,
     The Wabenos, the Magicians,
     And the Medicine-men, the Medas,
     Painted upon bark and deer-skin
     Figures for the songs they chanted

2. A traditional healer among other indigenous or ancient peoples.
   • 1958, Chinua Achebe, chapter 9, in Things Fall Apart, New York: Astor-Honor, published 1959:

     After the death of Ekwefi's second child, Okonkwo had gone to a medicine man, who was also a diviner of the Afa Oracle, to enquire what was amiss.

• folk medicine
• herbal medicine
• indigenous medicine
• medicinal
• traditional medicine

• French: homme-médecine, sorcier
• German: Medizinmann
• Italian: uomo di medicina
• Portuguese: curandeiro, curandeira
• Spanish: hombre medicina