Such religions, like the religion of the Lakota, may also teach chat all elements of creation, both animate and inanimate, contain the spiritual essence of the Great Spirit. Sometimes the Supreme Being is thought to be somewhat removed from the day-co-day lives of human beings. Spirits or lesser deities, however, may be more active in everyday human affairs. Many Native religions also share a belief in a supreme force or sacred power. It may be inherent in parts of the natural world, or it may be an important quality of go ds or other supernatural beings.
The Holy Wind enters living beings through their own breath and di rects thei r actions and thoughts. In this way, the Holy Wind connects all living things. The Aztecs of central Mexico recognized a sacred power that infused elements of everyd ay life and supernatural beings.
Some deities were associated with the power of creation and fertility, and others with the sun. The god Quetzalcoatl, who is often depicted as a feathered serpent, was thought to possess the sacred power of creation. Many mythic narratives surround Quetzalcoatl. One myth teaches that he assisted with creation by providing food and nourishment for the Aztec people.
As a result, he is regarded as an important cultural hero in Mexico. Human Origins and Human Ancestors The creation narratives of indigenous North American religions differ significantly from each other in their accounts of the origin of humans.
Some myths describe how humans were created, and others focus on how they came to live in a particular geographic locale. Despite such differences, Native myths often teach that human beings and human ancestors originated in the Americas. The Mayan people of Central America have complex creation narratives. Mayan cultural roots go back thousands of years. Although most myths of the Americas have been transmitted orally, the Maya have an ancient written language and texts char contain their mythic heritage.
The Quiche Maya, one of several Mayan ethnic groups, are from the highlands of Guatemala. The Quiche creation epic, known as the Popol Vuh, contains stories about creation, the exploits of the gods, and the first humans. The written text of Popol Vuh in the Quiche language daces back several centuries.
The Popol Vuh contains a dramatic account of the creation of the first humans. The Creator-Gods attempted to make humans several times but failed in their first three attempts. The first time, the gods succeeded in creating animals, but they could only squawk and chatter-they could not speak. This disappointed the gods, who wanted humans to be able to worship chem with spoken language.
The second time, the creators made humans out of mud, but the clumsy figures just melted away. The third time, the gods fashioned wooden manikins. The manikins looked human and could talk, but they were cruel and heartless.
Finally, the creators mixed cornmeal with water to fashion human beings. This attempt was successful, and the humans could talk, tl1ink, and worship the gods. The Zuni live in the southwestern and other religious United Scares. In Zuni mythology, a god called Awonawilona created the world from traditions. Do myths his own breath and body. At the time of creation, the ancestors of the Zuni lived play a similar or underground in dark and unpleasant conditions.
Eventually, two warrior gods were different role across created. They led the ancestors out from under the earth to live on its surface in the religions? How so? The Zuni regard the other Southwest peoples who followed them, like the Navajo and the Hopi, as their younger siblings. To escape the turmoil, the ancestors traveled through many subterranean worlds in search This seventh- or of one in which order would prevail.
They finally emerged on the surface of the eighth-century vase earth. The ancestors prepared the world for humans through specific rituals using special objects. The rituals established order and served as the foundation for Navajo religious practice, even as practiced today. In one ritual, the ancestors created a painting on the grow1d, in which they depicted all that was going to exist in the world. Then, through prayer and song, the real world came to be from this wonderful painting.
In stark contrast to the chaos underground, the world was perfectly balanced and ordered. Eventually, an important figure known as Changing Woman was born. She gave birth to heroic twins, who prepared the way for humanity by vanquishing monsters that roamed the earth. Then, Changing Woman created the first Navajo people from her own body. Among the Pueblo peoples, ancestral spirits are known as kachinas. The Hopi believe that in this life, humans are spiritually imperfect. But in the afterlife, the Hopi leave their human nature behind and become unsullied spirits.
This is because, in Hopi mythology, a clown led human beings as they emerged from the ground. In some of these ceremonies, masked dancers portraying the kachina spirits tell the clowns to mend their imperfect ways and strive to be better human beings. W hen the dancers don the masks, the kachina spirits inhabit and inspire them. Life Lessons in Myths Native mythologies contain teachings about how to live properly in the world.
From myths, people learn to live respectfully with ochers in society, to make a living off of the land, and to understand the meaning of life. In many Native myths, these lessons are taught through the exploits of a character known as a trickster. Therefore, chose hearing the myth are warned about the importance of proper behavior. One trickster tale featuring Coyote comes from the Pima of Arizona. In the past, Bluebird was an unattractive color. The bird decided to bathe in a special blue lake every morning for four days.
Coyote, who was green at the time, saw the beautiful color and asked Bluebird how he could become beautiful, too. Coyote was very proud, and he looked around arrogantly as he walked co make sure he was being admired.
Bue he did not watch where he was goin g, and he tripped and fell in the dirt. When he got up, he was the color of dire, and now all coyotes are dirt-colored. Myths of North America may also account for the origins of subsistence activities, such as hunting and farming. Often, the subsistence practices of a people are said to have been determined by the gods. This divine origin of daily activity casts everyday life and everyday activities, such as planting crops or preparing food, in a sacred dimension.
Corn, or maize, has been a staple crop of great importance throughout North America. Some myths explain that human beings have a special duty to raise corn. Myths may cell of a particular god who is responsible for providing the crop or for protecting the fertility of the earth. The Cherokee, historically of the southeastern United States, cell a myth in which the goddess Corn Woman produced corn through the treachery of her son and his playmate.
In the myth, Corn Woman rubbed her body to produce food. One day, the two boys saw her doing chis. They thought she was practicing witchcraft and so decided to kill her. After they attacked her, she instructed the boys to drag her injured body over the ground. Wherever her blood fell, corn grew. This myth teaches about the relationship between life and death: the blood chat causes death can also produce life.
The following passage from the Popol Vuh is a moving speech made by the heroic twin gods to the maiden Blood Moon. Ac chis point in the myth, the lords of the underworld have defeated the twins. The severed head of one of the twins has been placed in a tree, and his skull impregnates the maiden with his spitcle when she holds out her hand. Blood Moon will eventually bear the next generation of hero twins who avenge their fathers' deaths and prepare the world for the arrival of humans.
In cl1e twins' poignant speech to the maiden, we learn something about the Mayan view of the meaning of life: even after death, we live on in ou r children. And then the bone spit out its saliva, which landed squarely in the hand of the maiden This, my head, has nothing on it-just bone, nothing of meat. It's just the same with the head of a great lord: It's just the flesh that makes his face lo ok go od.
And when he dies, people get frightened by hi s bones. After that, his son is like his saliva, his spittle, in his being whether it be the son of a lord or the son of a craftsman, an orator. The father does n ot disappear, but goes on being fulfilled. Neither dimmed n or destr oyed is the face of a lord, a warri or, a craftsman, orator.
Rather, he will leave his daughters and sons. So it is that I have done likewise thr ough you. Now go up there on the face of the earth; you will not die. Keep the word. So be it. Stories of her oic twins are also common in ocher indigen ous American mythol ogies.
Mount Shasta, in This shows an important degree of continuity betwee n traditions throughout regions Northern California, of North America. As you recall, Navaj o myth ology includes a similar tale of heroic is regarded as sacred twins preparing the world for humanity. The Apache, also of the southwestern United by many tribes in Scates, share a similar tale. As we saw earlier, the elements of creation, humans included, are often thought to share a common spiritual energy or sacred power.
This idea is beautifully captured by the words of Black Elk , a famous Lakota religious leader. In a book citied Black Elk Speaks , he cells of his I ife and of a great vision.
He opens by saying: "le is the story of all life chat is holy and is good to tell, and of us cwo-leggeds sharing in it with the four-l eggeds and the wings of the air and all green things; for these are the children of one mother and their Father is one spiric. In ocher traditions, humans are thought to be descended from animal or animal-like ancestors. The Sky God created all creatures and also created Mount Shasta, a 14,foot volcanic peak, which served as the home for the Sky God's family.
One day, his daughter fell to eanh from the top of the mountain. She was adopted and raised by a family of grizzly bears, who could talk and walk on two feet. Eventually, she married one of the bears, and from this w1ion were born the first people. When the Sky God eventually found his daughter, he was angry that a new race was born that he had not created.
He then cursed the grizzly bears to forever go about on all fours. A critical part of religious practice is therefore forused on developing and preserving harmonious relationships between humans and ocher elements of the world.
As we have learned, Navajo myths cell that the ancestors learned to maintain chis balance as an example to lacer generations. The Immortals knew how co maintain balance, but humans did not. Thus, the lmmorcaJs caught the Yurok people ceremonies chat they could use to restore the balance of the earth.
Sacred Places and Spaces The focus on balance extends co che physical landscape. In many Native spiritual traditions, humanity is often thought co live in a reciprocal relationship with the land: each relies on and muse care for the ocher, and all are part of a sacred whole. Certain geographical features, like rivers, mountains, and rocks, may be permeated with sacred power.
Such places often feature prominently in mythology and are infused with power because of what happened there in the mythic past. One such place is Mount Shasta. Many tribes of the region regard the mountain as sacred because of its importance in mythology. Myths cell that the Creator made the mountain so that he could reach the earth from the heavens.
As we saw in the Modoc myth, the Creator resided in the mountain with his fu. Because of its sacred history, areas of Mount Shasta are powerful places where Native religious experts can make contact with the spirit world. To chis day, leaders from several tribes use the area for religious ceremonies.
Among the White Mountain Apache of Arizona, the significance of certain places comes alive in the stories people tell about them. The landscape is thus imbued with life lessons. The fighting awakened a sleeping old woman, but she thought the noise was simply her son-in-law cursing her daughter. She yelled at him and told him co stop picking on the young woman. The Pima heard her, rushed in, and killed her.
The tale illustrates the danger of disregarding appropriate behavior: in Apache culture, a woman should not criticize her son-in-law unless her daughter asks her to intervene. Thus, even architecture has a sacred dimension. Among the Navajo, the guidelines for building the sacred dwelling known as a hogan are found in myth. The Holy People taught that a hogan should be built as a representation of Navajo lands and the oosmos.
Four posts, which represent four sacred mountains that surround the Navajo homeland, support the hogan. Each tipi is an image of the universe. The tipi, a typical struc ture of the tribes of the Great Plains, Sacred Language and Sacred Time has a sacred blueprint.
In many Native cultures, time is regarded as circular, not linear. Beliefs about death further illustrate this concept. In many Native religions, death the universe. During old age, death may be welcomed and prepared for, and funeral rituals ease the transition of the deceased into the next stage in the afterlife.
In many cultures, the transition of a person from birth to death is thought to be comparable to the cyclical nature of the seasons of the year. Recall the Cherokee myth about the origins of corn, which emphasizes the necessity of death to produce life.
As you read the next passage, think about cyclical time and the nature of death. Joseph Epes Brown tells us how Black Elk explained this to him:. This cyclical reality was beautifully expressed He would get down on his hands and knees and pretend he was a horse, and the children would squeal with joy There obviously was no generation gap; he fully connected with children.
The words of Black Elk illustrate the important relationship between the elderly and chc very young. In many Native religions, ciders teach youngsters about their religious heritage through myths.
Often, the celling of myths is regarded as sacred speech. Because of the cyclical nature of time, the events related in myths arc not thought co be a Navajo hogans are built pare of a distant and irrecoverable past but rather arc representative of another place on to represent the Navajo the circle of time. Recounting a myth re-creates the events of the myth, transporting lands and the cosmos.
Eventually, peoples in the region like the Southern Paiuce began to hold cries for individuals. Earlier in chis chapter, we learned how the ancestors of the Navajo sang and painted the world into existence.
Thus, words and language were the building block s of creation. The rituals of the ancestors provide the foundation for Navajo ceremonial practice, which is focused on maintaining order in the world. This is primarily done through practices known as chantways. Chancways involve ritualized singing and chants and may cake place over several days. Like che cry ceremonies, the songs and chants retell the stories of creation and thus, through language, bring chc power of the time of creation into the present.
The chantways are used for healing by aiming co bring afflicted individuals into harmony with their surroundings. Normally, the ceremon ies take place in hogans. What is your background? I'm from three different Great Basin cultures. As a Great Basin person, I don't just have one isolated tribal identity. We lived together in modest tribal housing and often shared space with extended families. Times were very difficult back then. There was never a shortage of dysfunction in my com- Brian Melendez munity.
We had countless issues and collectively struggled. As a Tribe, we maintain three distinct languages and cultural mechanisms, happening all at the same time. Today, most young people, like me, are some combination of all three groups. In your view, what is the nature of the world? What is humanity's place in it? Tribal people embrace the art of storytelling and introspection, and much of our cultural identity is based on what is shared with us through stories. Our stories emphasize that we have a purpose to provide a certain balance within nature: I believe that our innate occupation is to protect family, community, and nature.
In my opinion, nature is the greatest equalizer, to address imbalances of humanity. I think that there is a justice in nature.
Today, we are not as ingenious as they once were, or as resourceful We understood that we would have to travel to where the food and water was-we had to move with nature, otherwise we wouldn't exist.
I think that modern people don't look at nature that way. Modern people want nature to be convenient. For us, we feel that we owe something to our environment, as stewards of the land. Moreover, we feel that that there is a need to preserve the integrity of the planet. Our cultural identities, belief systems, and complex languages are derived from our relationship with nature: everything we are as indigenous people is connected to the environments we've existed in. The justice of nature, and our role in nature, keeps my culture in harmony.
Could you describe your religious practice and your personal spirituality? My spiritual identity began as a young child.
I can recall participating in cry ceremonies [see page 42] associated with death. Even though some belief systems conflicted, almost everyone in my community would participate in burials: mourning is a universal part of our collective faith. As Great Basin people, our communal foundations and much of our spirituality are based on the cycles of life and death.
Ideally, the respect we have for life should be equal to the respect we have for death. In , my little brother died tragically. He was preparing to participate in the Sun Dance that summer with our family, and never made it.
Overpowered by grief, it was during the Sun Dance that I had the proverbial "coming to God" experience. It was at that moment I knew that I could not go back to living the way I had been. I said to myself, "I don't know what this ceremony is, but I know that my brother is here, and whatever I have to do to be with him in this circle, I'll do it. Over the years, I have become a practical-minimalist, I'm a pretty pragmatic guy. The fruits of these labors have been beautiful.
What opportunities and challenges do you face as a member of a Native community in the United States today? The federal government definitely had a plan when they taught our people to be carpenters and housemaids. They weren't giving us hard science and philosophy so that we could be equal to each other.
In terms of spiritual practices, parents are supposed to teach their children, but when they were separated during the boarding school era [see page 45], th ey weren't able to do this. This was especially devastating for my parents' generation. For my parents They couldn't teach what they didn't know. It created direct trauma for them, and indirect trauma for us.
My generation is currently working to heal this trauma. The upside is that, today, tribal people in this country have never been more mobile. We have more access to technology, to academics, to economic capital, to larger communities.
Tribes are able to stay up to speed with what other tribes are doing; this is forcing us to evolve. When it comes to spirituality, we are able to observe what neighboring tribes are doing to retain their cultures. Tribes are problem-solving to find something that works, for who they are today.
This is helping tribal people adapt and adopt new practices, which assist communities as they self-regulate.
We were at a spiritual ground zero-we were struggling to maintain customs and rituals, some more than others. Not all transitions are easy or even welcomed; sometimes these changes create tension with the older generation. Some people are wishing for a revival of old ways, some people are working towards a revolution of change: there's no one right way or wrong way.
This is all happening internally in Indian Country right now. Just as in other major world religions, these traditions have developed historically and have both resisted and accommodated cultural changes. In chis section of the chapter, we will look at how Native North American religions have responded to the social and political changes in the modern world.
As you read chis section, chink about how indigenous American religions have ad apted and endured despite colonialism, encroaching Christianity, and culcure change. Spanish, British, and French colonial powers sent Christian missionaries co their imperial holdings and beyond in North and Central America with the aim of"saving" indigenous peoples from what were viewed as their pagan ways.
Some colonizers, such as the Spanish, also beHeved that they could bring about the second coming of Christ by completing the work of taking the gospel co the ends of the earth. The Civilization Fund Ace, which aimed co educate native children in an effort to "civilize" them, led co the development of many of these boarding schools.
As another example, in the southwestern United States, Navajo children were adopted by white families and raised in Mormon or other Christian traditions. Indigenous religious traditions were never entirely eradicated, however, even when Native peoples identified as Christians.
Catholic saints may be equated with Mayan gods, and some Maya have equated Jesus and Mary with the sun and the moon in Mayan cosmology. American religion. Among che White Mountain Apache of Ariwna, some religious leaders claim chat they "have always had the Bible.
In Apache mythology, Changing Woman was distressed about the difficulty of life on earth and prayed co God co change it. Some Apache religious leaders interchange the names of Jesus and Mary for Changing Woman and her son.
Furthermore, at the girls' puberty ceremony, participants draw parallds between ocher sacred Apache narratives and the stories of Genesis. Resistance Movements Many resistance movements developed in Native communities in response co European American encroachment throughout In Chichicastenango, North America. Many take part in a religious movements had influence far and wide and can therefore be understo od as pan-Indian ceremony where sa ints rdigious movements.
In the mid-nineteenth century, a by members of religious brotherhoods. Versions of the Ghost Dance spread rapidly throughout the western Un iced Scates in because many Native people embraced che possibility chat the dance not only could allow chem to communicate with deceased ancestors but also could revive che Native culcures in che face of Euro pean domination.
In , Wovoka experienced a powerful vision in which the Creator cold him che ancestors would rise up. If people demonscraced their belief chrough dances, human misery and death would come to an end. The dances spread quickly across the Great Basin and co the Sioux of the northern Midwest and other Plains peoples.
Regrenably, many white Americans feared the dances, and the U. American troops killed hundreds of Lakota people, including women and children, who had gathered for a dance.
The Ghost Dance came at a critical time in the history of Native peoples and was seen by many participants as a final attempt to revive the ways of the past. Although the massacre at Wounded Knee is perhaps the most well-known U.
In , the Sun Dance was officially banned because it was considered chaotic and dangerous. In the early twentieth century, followers of peyote religion formed As you read through this this church to protect their religious practice. The hallucinogenic peyote cactus has and the next chapter, do you see similarities been used for thousands of years in indigenous religions of northern Mexico.
He had been introduced to p eyote use in the s when he was colonization and the treated with peyote for an injury, and he became an important defender of the use of efforts of missionaries? However, Christian missionaries and other activists in the United States preached against peyote use, and federal and state governments eventually outlawed its use.
Centuries earlier, the Spanish colonizers had also prohibited the use of peyote in religious practice as a result of a decree of the Spanish Inquisition. Amendment of the U. However, Native peoples have not always been able to protect their rights to religious freedom by referencing the acc. Since , however, the use of peyote has been leg ally permissible. In , a resistance movement drew the attention of the world co North Dakota and the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.
Although the movement began with members of the Standing Rock Sioux Nacion, it attracted thousands of supporters from around the United States and around the world, many of whom remained in camps during the cold winter of The Standing Rock Sioux argue that the pipeline construction violates an treaty between the U.
Furthermore, the pipeline crosses the Missouri River and could contaminate the water the Sioux depend on. She observed that water is not simply the sustainer of life, bur it purifies, and also hears and has a memory. The water, therefore, will remember what happened at Standing Rock and will cell future generations.
Campers were protesting this chapter. Although the resistance was peaceful, the state of North Dakota called in the National Guard and militarized the police force in an attempt to protect the pipeline construction.
In December , the Standing Rock Sioux seemed victorious, as the Army Corps of Engineers announced they would cease work on the pipeline. At the time of writing, the Standing Rock situation remains unresolved. For example, Palestinians showed support for the movement and argued that their concerns about land and displacement mirrored the the world.
It is fair to say that it truly became a global Sioux concerns in the United States. In September of movement. The organization Jewish Voices the world, and thousands of people traveled to the fur Peace also declared their support for Standing Rock. Standing Rock reservation in person to show support 1he Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, fur the Sioux people protesting the pipeline. Many supporters of social media like Facebook. One Maori man created the Standing Rock movement made connections to a Facebook page called "Haka for Standing Rock" to the challenges faced by ocher indigenous communities allow people to share images and videos of their hakas.
Maori women p erforming a traditional haka at Standing Rock. Today, people in the United States and elsewhere are attracted to what they view as the nature-centered focus of Native religions. Some were attracted to teachings about the interconnectedness of all things and fow1d what they thought to be an appealing lack of materialism in Native religions.
However, Native thinkers have also criticized non-Native interest in Native religious practices. These critics argue that selective adoption of certain practices, like peyote use, removes the activity fi-om the cultural and historical context in which it developed. Sometimes conflicts arise over the use of sacred places.
In recent years, for example, non-Native Americans have felt the pull of Mount Shasta. Their interest has not always been welcomed by Native peoples-primarily because of a perception that non-Natives are appropriating Native spirituality without proper understanding or proper training. Non-Native spiritual seekers, however, often bathe in sacred springs or play music in sacred groves and meadows without the advice or permission of religious leaders in the area, which offends some Native practitioners.
Native views of the sacred nature of the land often conflict with the aims and goals ofnon-Native Americans, many of whom see the potential for development on the very lands that Native people consider sacred.
Therefore, many actions have a religious dimension. Healing In Native American religions, healing the sick is often part of religious practice. Healers may use religious knowledge to cure physical and mental illnesses. As a result, the term medicine man has often been used for healers. Some healers undergo years of training to acquire great depths of religious knowledge. In many Native traditions, healers are also religious leaders.
In addition to the Navajo chantways we learned about earlier in this chapter, Navajo healing ceremonies also use an art form known as sand painting. The Holy People gave the paintings to the Navajo people. The paintings are created on the floors of hogans and treat illnesses by bringing individuals into alignment with nature. A healer, or singer, selects the subjects of the painting in consultation with the family of the person being treated; these may include animals, plants, and mythic figures.
During the ceremony, the afflicted person is seated in the center of the painting, which tells one of the creation stories. As sand is applied to his body, he identifies with the Holy People depicted in the painting. During the treatment, the painted figures are thought to come to life to aid in the healing of the patient. After the ceremony is complete, the painting is destroyed and the sand is removed.
In the past, Navajo people never kept permanent copies of the paintings because it was thought that it would diminish their healing power. Medicine bundles may also be an important part of healing in Navajo communities.
The bundles contain a variety of religiously significant objects, and some items may be very old. Navajo singers usually own their own bundles and use the powers of the items in the bundle in healing. Other Native communities use similar bundles in healing. As you have learned, the sacred narratives of Native American religions often include tales of important female spiritual beings, like Changing Woman.
Furthermore, women have often had prominent roles in certain aspects of religious practice, such as healing, and many Native religions mark the transition from girlhood to womanhood in a profow1d manner.
Women's songs are sung co accompany the planting of corn co encourage fercilicy. As a young woman, Mabel was called co be a liaison between her people and the spirit world. Spirit guides cold her chat she would develop a special gift of healing. The spirit talked to her constantly now Sometimes it felt as if her own tongue were moving, shaping the words she was hearing. This happened when she sang the songs that came loud and clear.
And what is happening is that you have an extra tongue. It's talking. It's me in you. You will have a basket to spit out the disease. All your baskets will come from me. Like I told you. Watch how things turn out. Two-Spirit Many Native Nor th American cultures have historically recognized the existence of a third gender-people who are regarded as being neither male nor female.
A two-spirit person might be biologically male but adopt the dress, occupations, and behaviors of a woman. Collectively, sud1 individuals are called "two-spirit" people, as they are regarded as having the spirits of both men and women. Invitation To This course is intended as an introduction to the major religions of the world Jeffrey Brodd et al.
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