The first and most important is that s/he is an humble person. No one is a true medicine person who talks about what s/he does. Traditional native people know that all the people on the internet who are talking about shamanism and being a medicine person are not following the true traditions and will avoid them.

Next, it takes a long time to become a medicine person. In the traditional ways, training begins at the age of one or two years old. Children are chosen who demonstrate an ability to communicate with the entities of the spirit world as well as all their relations (stone people, plant people, creepy crawlers, winged ones, four leggeds and two leggeds) in the physical world.

In training, they learn about how to make medicine from plants, how to read people and many other things that cannot be spoken of. A medicine person is always learning. A medicine person makes all choices from his/her spiritual heart.

A medicine person will never say that s/he is a medicine person. This is a title that is given by the people who can see and have benefitted from the ceremonies that have been provided.

The majority of Americans identify as Christian, with various denominations such as Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox. There is also a growing number of Americans who identify as having no religious affiliation (often referred to as "nones"), as well as adherents of other religions including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and more.