Native American Religions

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The following notes are based upon Native Religions of North America by Ake Hultkrantz (San Francisco: Harper, 1987).

In his first chapter Hultkrantz points out that there is a great variety and richness among the religious traditions of the American Indians. Consequently, it would be a mistake to describe an entity which one would refer to as the Native American Religion. Although we will go on to outline some of the features which are common to the various tribal groups, it is important to recognize that each tribe had its own myths, rituals and other traditions, thus, in a sense, its own religion. It is also helpful to realize that the diverse traditions can be roughly divided into two groups. The first is the group of tribes who lived primarily by hunting, such as the Plains Indians whose lives were centered around the buffalo. On the other hand, there were tribes like the Pueblo Indians of the Southwestern United States who practiced a settled, agricultural way of life which lent itself to religious patterns significantly different from those of the hunters.

Because tribally organized peoples such as the Native Americans possessed a less developed technology and exhibited social patterns with minimal specialization of function, older anthropologists referred to them as "primitive cultures." Today it is generally recognized that such condescending terminology is inappropriate. As Hultkrantz notes, "If by 'primitive' is meant crude cultural manifestations devoid of deeper feelings and subtle thoughts, American Indian religions are far from primitive (p. 10)." A more helpful terminology is to call these "primal religions." The latter term not only indicates that such religions are early in terms of the historical development of religions, but also that they exhibit some of the primary and indispensable attitudes which underlie all genuine manifestations of human religiousness.

Features Shared by all Native American Religions

Worldview refers to "a people's concept of existence and their view of the universe and its powers (p. 21)." One striking aspect of Native American thought is that it does not make the same sharp differentiations (or even oppositions) which are characteristic of Western Christian thought. For example, there is no big split between animals and humans. The four-leggeds, the two-leggeds and the winged beings are all seen as relatives. In fact, some of the myths about the origins of the world state that at the beginning all living beings were more or less human but that some changes took place turning some of these beings in birds and animals. Nonetheless, they continue to have a kinship relation among themselves. As a result, animals are often imitated in dress and action, especially for ceremonial purposes. In these rituals, participants often wear horns, skins or feathers and perform dances which imitate the movements of animals. Furthermore, beings from the spirit world are believed to manifest themselves in animal form. Conversely, some animals may be held to actually be spirits, and not real animals at all.

Although, according to Hultkrantz, Native American thought does often see a distinction between the ordinary world and the world of the spirits, such a difference is not as pronounced as the Judeo-Christian differentiation between the Creator and creatures, the natural and the

supernatural, Church and State, work and religion, etc. Hultkrantz writes:

In some ways, Indian thought sees the whole universe, especially the natural environment as sacred. On the other hand, they sometimes point to specific mountains, lakes, stones, etc. as especially sacred or holy. Also, certain objects can be set aside in order to be used only under special ceremonial conditions.

The Indians have always had a special regard for what we call "nature." They protected it, at least in part, because it could be a manifestation of the sacred. Trees gave evidence of the supernatural; animals could represent spirits; the vast lands might reveal God. It is mistaken, however, to over-idealize the Native Americans for being ecology-minded. There is unfortunately evidence of ways in which they too caused devastation to the natural environment.

The structure of the universe is usually thought of as divided into levels. The most common division is into three regions: heaven, earth and the underworld. The Pueblo peoples, on the other hand, believe in four underworlds and four upper worlds. The Navajo also have an idea of four subterranean layers, one over the other. These various levels are often thought of as connected by the world tree which has its roots in the lowest underworld, stretches through the world in which humans and animals live, and then has its top branches in the sky. In some of the myths of human origins, people are said to have originated in the lower realms and then climbed up this world tree (or a vine) to reach the world they presently inhabit. The world tree is often represented in rituals, e.g. the central post of the Sun Dance described below.

There is an interplay between unity and diversity in the Native American understanding of the spiritual world. On the one hand, they can speak of a great multiplicity of spirits such as the Thunder Beings manifested in storms, Mother Earth, etc. On the other hand there is the concept of the one God such as Wakan Tanka of the Lakota Sioux. Black Elk, for example, explicitly states that though he speaks of many spirits, he is aware that ultimately all the spirits are one. Whether one God or many spirits, the Indian understanding is that the source of spiritual power is close to human beings and interacts with people in a familiar and non-threatening way, especially in dreams and visions. In other words, just as their is no sharp differentiation between humans and animals, their is no gulf dividing the human and the divine.

It can be readily seen from the above description of the Native American worldview that it is one in which harmony prevails among the divine, the human and the animal worlds. The cosmos or universe is a balanced whole. This perspective underlies much of the relligious attitude of Native Americans even among the simplest hunter societies which may not have elaborated their "philosophical" thinking on these issues. But it is especially among the agricultural tribes that priest-thinkers had the leisure to work out rather elaborately their mythological and speculative elaborations on these matters. For example, the Tewa, a Pueblo tribe of New Mexico, are divided into two halves for certain ceremonial purposes. One division represents summer, is associated with the gathering of vegetation, stands primarily for femaleness and is protected by the Blue Corn Mother. The other half represents winter, is associated with hunting, stands primarily for maleness and is protected by the White Corn Mother. In rituals, the summer group represents the gods of the warm south and the winter group impersonates the gods of the cold north. At given times of the year, each division has its pareticular duties such as retreats and prayers connected with the specific season and its economic activities. "The intent of each work is to harmonize man's relations with the spirits and to insure that the desired cyclical changes will continue to come about in nature (Alfonso Ortiz, quoted in Hultkrantz, p. 29)."

Native American religions recognize the existence of spiritual power which the gods and spirits naturally possess by their very essence. This power, often called "medicine" (puha in the Shoshoni language) can be communicated to human beings by guardian spirits or divinities and thus empower the individual to be successful in hunting, safe in battle, able to heal the sick, etc. To have such power, one must somehow come into contact with the spirit world. This contact comes primarily through dreams and visions. That is to say, it is assumed that an individual must have a personal experience of supernatural power. Sometimes, especially in the case of dreams, these contacts with spiritual power happen spontaneously, such as the original vision of Black Elk when he was nine years old. At other times, revelatory experiences are deliberately sought out in a vision quest (compare Black Elk's "Dog Vision" in chapter 15).

Hultkrantz states that the vision quest "is the most characteristic feature of North American religions outside the Pueblo area (p. 30)." It often takes place in connection with puberty as a ritual through which the young boy (traditionally, girls do not participate in vision quests) becomes an adult. After a period of purification which may include fasting, sweat lodge, etc., the young man is sent out into a wilderness area where he has to face the hardships of cold, fasting, and threat of wild animals while waiting for a guardaian spirit to become manifest. From a psychological point of view, we suspect that the weakness caused by deprivation of food and sleep leads to an altered state of consciousness in which the person is more susceptible to dream-like experiences. If the quest is a success (and they do sometimes fail), the young man will have aquired a guardian spirit, perhaps in animal form, who will communicate power to him to give him luck in hunting, warfare, love, and perhaps healing.

Those individuals who are especially endowed with spirits which provide healing power become known as medicine men. But the difference between the ordinary recipient of a vision and the medicine man is more a question of degree than of a sharp specialization of roles. Among some tribes the medicine man may go into a trance during which time he claims to travel either to the heavenly realms or to the underworld in quest of healing knowledge or power. Sometimes this spirit journey involves retrieiving the sick person's soul from the realm of the dead and bringing it back into the ordinary world. A medicine man who has these trance experiences is sometimes called a shaman by anthropologists.

Though younger women do not usually have vision quests or become healers, it is possible for an older woman, past menopause, to become a medicine woman. Some of these medicine women have been very famous for their great power. It can also be noted that among some tribes, for example the Hopi, there are a number of rituals in which the women of the community are the leaders and chief participants.

The Indian understanding of time is not so much an abstract, linear projection from past to future but is heavily influenced by the cyclical processes found in the world of nature. The sun rises and sets each day, the moon goes through its monthly cycles and the seasons alternate on a yearly basis. Because they live close to these cycles in the natural world, they also tend to think of human life as a cycle. We are born as children, grow to adulthood, in old age we become dependent and childlike again, finally, we are gathered back to the earth. This cycle is taken as something completely natural from which one does not seek to escape.

Among the Native Americans there have been a number of different ways to speculate about what happens after death. One finds a variety of beliefs which are to some extent mutually inconsistent. There is a belief of a place where one goes after death to take up a pleasant life in happiness and abundance. But we also find the idea that one's spirit could come back in the form of another person or of an animal or bird. There is also a belief that the spirit of a deceased person can come back in the form of a ghost to haunt the living.

It is important to realize, however, that for the most part Native American thought did not place very much emphasis on death and what happens after it. As Hultkrantz says:

Some Important Rituals

The Sun Dance is one of the most important rituals of some of the Native American peoples, especially the Plains Indians. It takes place on a yearly basis at the time when the sun is at its highest and the daylight is longest. It is a time of thanksgiving for the past year as well as a prayer for happiness, health and a new year of plenty.

An example of a celebration of the Sun Dance is given in Black Elk Speaks. pages 95-99. Here, we review just the main features: In preparation for the celebration, a special tree is selected and cut down, then brought with great ceremony to the place where the Sun Dance will be held. This tree is then set upright in the middle of the sacred area and will be the central pole around which the dancing takes place. This pole can be understood as a representation of the World Tree, mentioned above.

The individuals who are going to dance purify themselves in preparation. Their participation involves a number of hardships and ordeals. Usually, they abstain from both food and water during the dancing and also go on little sleep. Sometimes they deliberately gaze at the sun and dance until they collapse in exhaustion. These practices create a psychological climate in which visions are experienced.

In some cases the flesh on the chest or back of the dancers is pierced and leather thongs are used to attach the individuals to the central pole. They show their courage and endurance of pain by leaning back and increasing the tension until the pain becomes unendurable. Sometimes they go to the point where the flesh is ripped and the attachment pulls out. The ceremony thus fosters some of the qualities which are required by the hardships of hunting and warfare.

The Sun dance lasts several days. In addition to the dancing itself are the many opportunities for healing to take place. Towards the end, there is a collection of money or goods to be distributed to the needy and the festal period ends with banquetting and merriment.

The Ghost Dance.

The Ghost Dance originated towards the end of the nineteenth century in response to the devastation brought on by the white man. This process is seen with special clarity in the case of the Plains Indians who depended totally on the roaming herds of millions of buffalo for their way of life: the bison was their principle source of food, lodging (the buffalo skins covered the poles of the teepees), clothing (buffalo robes were the main source of warmth in the winter) as well as a major source of their religious experience. One can therefore understand how devastating it was when the sacred buffalo was systematically and deliberately destroyed by white men who would set up their guns and literally spend whole days shooting the animals and letting their carcases rot where they fell to the ground. It became clear to many of the Indians that there were so many white men they could not be defeated and that the Indian way of life would be destroyed forever.

In this crisis situation, a new religious movement took place beginning around 1890. A Paiute Indian named Wovoka (his English name was Jack Wilson) in Mason Valley, Nevada, claimed that he had visions that a dramatic change was going to take place. The white man would go away for good, the buffalo would return, massacred Indians would come back to life and a new happy age would dawn in which all the values of the good old times would return. In order to prepare for this dramatic otutcome, which was believed would happen within just a few years, people engaged in a ritual called the Ghost Dance in which they established contact with the dead tribespeople who were about to return. Wovoka himself was spoken of in terms borrowed from Christianity: he was the son of God who had been sent to the white man many years earlier but had been killed by them. He was given the title Wanekia, "One who makes live," a title similar to "Christ," or "Messiah."

When Black Elk joined the Ghost Dance movement he had a vision in which he saw a certain kind of shirt. He then made shirts of this type which were worn during the dancing. It was also believed that these shirts would protect warriors from the white man's bullets when they engaged in battle.

The Peyote cult.

Peyote is a small spineless cactus from the Rio Grande area. It produces button-like tubercules which contain a hallucinatory substance. Some of the Indians of Mexico had an ancient practice of ceremonially gathering the Peyote buttons and ingesting them in a ritual situation. The altered states of conscious produced by the psychotropic substance promotes feelings of oneness with the spirit world as well as within the participating community. In a sense, therefore, it could be viewed as a kind of communion ritual. The drug also fosters dream-like visionary expereinces.

The ritual use of peyote spread to more northerly tribes as part of the growth of the "Native American Church" which claims the peyote ritual as its principle sacrament.