3/14 American Religious History

1. Albanese Chapter 1
Tradition and Change Among
Native Americans

2. Native American Religion(s)
• VERY diverse
• Pluralism - distinct, separate
religions
• Postpluralism - borrow, blend,
exchange between religions
• Localized and ecological
• “The land looks after us…”
• Cosmologies
• Creation myths
• Rituals
• Religious Specialists, Medicine
Men, Shamans

3. European Imagination
• Romantic vision
• Preadamites
• Demonization
• Brutalization
• Paternalism
• Missionizing
• Failure of slavery
• Cowboys and Indians?

4. Native Language Groups
• 1. Hokan
• 2. Uto-Aztecan
• 3. Sioux
• 4. Athabascan
• 5-6. Penutian
• 7-8. Eskimo-Aleut
• 9. Algonkian

5. World View Comparison
• Native American
• No word for “religion” - culture and
religion are one
• One natural world (Relationships)
• Past and present concurrent
• Material world is sacred (Ecological)
• Inner world reflects outer world
(dreams)
• European
• Religion separate from culture -
hence conversions, missionization,
proselytizing
• Three levels: God, Humans, Nature
(Control, authority)
• Time is linear
• Material world is profane (Natural
vs. Supernatural)
• Corruption of Human Nature (Sin)

6. Shamans and Shamanism
*Originally a Native Siberian Term
*Different from priests or ministers -
but still a religious specialist
generally.
*Altered States of Consciousness
*Working relationship(s) with and
working knowledge of spirits
*Soul-Loss and Soul-Retrieval
*Spiritual assault (witchcraft) and
Extraction
*Three Ways to become a Shaman

7. Other Commonalities
• Shamans
• Trickster figures
(transformation)
• Origination Stories
• Ideal of harmony
• Sacred circles,
directions
• Idea of
correspondence

8. Oglala Sioux: One example of
Many Differences
• Teton division of the Seven
Fireplaces of the Sioux
Family of Tribes
• Semi-horticultural from Mid-
West originally
• 1750’s: Horses change the
culture
• Buffalo hunting makes them
wealthy and famous

9. Origin Story
• Skan gives the world its movement -
then withdraws.
• Inktomi the Spider - trickster.
• Tokahe + 3 friends
• Old Chief and Old Woman
• Tokahe + 6 families
• Disappointment
• Learned how to hunt, build tipis,
make clothes
• Disappointment, but ‘we are people
of the earth, and we survive.’

10. Sioux Religion
• White Buffalo Calf Woman arrives to brings the Pipe and Stone.
• “You will walk on the Earth with this sacred pipe, for the Earth is your
Grandmother, and Mother, and She is sacred.”
• 7 circles on the stone symbolize the 7 Sioux rituals.

11. Seven Rituals of Sioux
Religion
• Ghost Keeping
Ceremony
• Sweat Lodge Ceremony
• Vision Quest
• Sun Dance
• Making Relatives
• Girl’s Puberty Ritual
• Sacred Ball Game

12. The Sacred Pipe
• Prayers for well-
being
• Unity of the people
• Symbolic process

13. Hopi as Contrasting Example
• Agrarian
• Permanent
Dwellings
• Water is central
• Seasonal Rituals
• Kiva
• Kachina(s) (250-
600)

14. Hopi Origins
• Vibrant culture from
900-1300 CE.
• Old Oraibi
• Emerge from the
underworld via a sipapu
with the help of animal
spirits
• Hard Being women
• Year-round ceremonies
• Matrilineal society

15. Challenges
• Water scarcity
• Contacts with
Whites
• Erosions of
Ceremonial life
• Witchcraft, sorcery
• Prophecy and
purification

16. Three Forms of Native
Adaptation to European
Culture
1) Keep old practices but add Christian elements
2) Convert and renounce old ways
3) Create new religion(s):
* Peyote Way - Jonathan Koshiway (est. 1915)
* Old Way of Handsome Lake (d. 1815) - Seneca
* Ghost Dance - Sioux, Jack Wilson (Wovoka),
Wounded Knee catastrophe
* Kateri Tekakwitha Conferences (Catholic)

17. Summary
• NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection
and Repatriation Act) of 1990
– “cultural affiliation”
– “lineal descent”
– “traditional religious leaders”
• American Indian Religious Freedom Act of
1978
• Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993
• Traditionalism and land sovereignty
increasingly supported
• But religious combination is more common.