American History : Native American Religion

Identity in Native America is directly associated with culture and language. As a result, some of the issues today which are important in shaping the identity of modern Native Americans include: representations of native people by the media in sports and popular culture; how indigenous languages are being revitalized and maintained; and identity reclamation. The Native American lifestyle has changed significantly during the last half of the 20th century and that is because views on the Native people have drastically changed over time. They have had many hardships that have greatly impacted their culture over the past few centuries leading up to today.

The Native Americans of the Great Plains Religion was all about the Sundance and dreams they had. There were people dancing around a fire ,starting the Sundance with a lady cutting down a tree to start it off. During it they would make sacrifices with people and continually hurt themselves for their horse god. So the gods they worshipped were the horse and buffalo gods because they were the animals they saw the most ,they also had the most benefits from them too. They used pipes and other materials during the Sundance to show where they should go next on their journey and who should they become in the future of their lives like vishions . The Great plains indians were very different from other indians with their horse gods and such violence

Although oral religions were prevalent among Native American religions, it can still be proved that Native Americans had a complex belief system involving gods and rituals (indians.org). In fact, “Native American religion includes an adequate level of cultural traditions and ceremonies, some of which may be in honor of an special event, and these ceremonies, much like European ceremonies, often include feasts, music, and dances (indians.org). Although most Native American religions are believed to be polytheistic, contrary to European religions, Greek and Roman beliefs were polytheistic and still considered highly advanced to this date. Many staples of what makes Catholicism or Islam a religion can be applied to what is currently known about Native American religions as a whole. Both Catholicism and religions in South America contain creation stories, and there are events in both religions held to commemorate the creation story (britannica). Native Americans also had initiation into adulthood for their followers, much like the Catholic religion has in Confirmation, the Catholic sacrament. Finally, priests, diviners, and other religious authority are included in most religions of Native America, similar to the religious authority of the Catholic Church

The Indigenous Religions was almost completely wiped out due to the fact of Europeans immigrating the America’s. They were forced to adapt to a new ways of life by the government.

When Europeans first set foot upon the shores of what is now the United States they brought with them a social structure which was fundamentally based around their concept and understanding of Western European Christianity. That the indigenous peoples might already have a thriving civilization, including religious beliefs and practices, that closely paralleled the beliefs and practices of European civilization, was a concept not considered by these early explorers and settlers. This European lack of cultural understanding created tensions, between Native Americans and Europeans, and later between Native Americans and Euro-Americans, that eventually erupted into open warfare and resulted in great bloodshed between cultures. For the Lakota

Eighteenth century New England was a place of spiritual revival affecting more than just unevangelized colonists but people of all races and religions, including Native Americans. Between the years 1700 and 1820, there was a series of movements, known collectively as the Great Awakening, which consisted of localized religious resurgences that involved several denominations of Christianity. The objective of the Great Awakening was to spread the word of Christ to those who had not yet had a spiritual experience with Him. Native Americans were greatly exposed to the Great Awakening through a number of methods used by the colonists including sermons and the institution of Christian boarding schools for Native children. Each individual Indian responded to the revival in their own unique way, some denouncing Christianity, some embracing it, and some feeling indifferent towards it; however, throughout the course of the book, The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native Cultures in North America, author Linford Fisher reestablishes the idea that there was Indian conversion to Christianity, and explains that Native Americans at this time were more likely to affiliate themselves with the church rather than to fully convert.

Upon arriving in the land that later became the United States of America, primarily Christian settlers were appalled by the apparent heathenism exhibited by the Native Americans. The fear of the unknown created the idea that the Native Americans’ lack of Christian values contributed to their savagery. In order to assimilate the Native Americans to the white Christian standard, tribal sovereignty was undermined by several federal policies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; primarily the banning of several dances and ceremonies, the allocation of land to the male heads of house that were held in trust by the government, and the seizure and removal of the children on reservations to be placed in militaristic boarding schools.

The countless amounts of changes that Europeans brought to the Native American was to such a great extent that majority of them accepted to the changes that took place. Europeans came to the new world to gain prosperity, wealth, and to motivate the Native Americans to adapt to Christianity. Changes due to changes to religion and how advanced weapons such as guns had a profound impact in the lives of the Native Americans due to the Europeans. Sir Drake Voyage towards northern parts of America shows how the Native Americans had to approbate Christianity. In the text “We groaned in spirit to see the power of Satan so far prevail in seducing these harmless souls, and labored by all means both showing our great dislike, and when that served not,

The Native American people were a humble and self-sustaining race that was taken advantage of and exploited for their generosities. You will see that the Europeans will maneuver and essentially take a land inhabited by Native Americans by a series of actions that took place in the late 1400s to the late 1770s. Europeans will display acts of what seem to be kindness but is just a an act that in turn will weaken the Native American people.

In the native religion everyone in the family has a job to do, in the book it says “Each member of the family always has a duty to perform. Like visiting neighbors, for instance, spending time talking to them in any free moments.” In the native religion young girls don’t hang out with adult women and young girls don’t hang out with young boys. In the book it’s says “ We’re taught, for example, not to mix with girls of twenty-two if we’re only twelve, because they are adults and won’t understand what we’re talking about.” and “ Boys and girls have fun in almost the same ways. Mind you, our parents don’t allow us to mix with groups of boys”.

Over the century Native American religions have been repressed and misunderstood. There has been little room for them to actually be able to explain their rituals and why it is important to them as a society. This ignorance’s has resulted in the loss of land, false practices with sacred objects, and a lack of education within the rituals of indigenous religions. The indigenous population deserves support to preserve their practices and language. Since most of these religions have been repressed for so long many elders do not wish to teach their kin about their religion in fear of rejection from the modern society. The 21st century has started to transition to a more sympathetic society and I believe if there is more awareness directed

In my opinion, indigenous religions are not a primitive set of beliefs. When I looked up the meaning of word primitive it said that it is a preserving the character of an early stage in the evolutionary or historical development of something or a very basic unsophisticated in terms of comfort,convenience, or efficiency. On page 35,it said the indigenous religions are found in every climate, from the tropical forest to the arctic tundra, and some are far older than today’s dominated religions. So even though they are isolated and have different stories and belief overtime, I didn’t think it is primitive. Although some of the rituals and practices is continuously disappearing because of our modern society, I think the idea of what todays are

In today’s world, there are many religions and, they all practice and worship in different ways. They all have certain beliefs, certain rituals and, traditions that they carry. This paper will explain how religious traditions describe and encourage the relationship with the divine; the relationship with the sacred time; the relationship with sacred space or the natural world; and the relationship with each other. This paper will also identify key critical issues in the study of religion.

Throughout this semester we focused on numerous different religious practices and traditions. Focusing now on these new religious ideals and practices has provided many different suggestions towards spirituality: “”Spirituality” is personal, unique, self-validating, authentic, and authoritative, whereas “religion” is institutional, bureaucratic, social, inflexible hierarchical, and authoritarian” (Anderson and Young 295). Many of these new practices involve women, healing methods, and alternative divine figures. Overall, it is a common theme from many of these spiritual practices to not have a set textual religious book such as a Bible or Torah. In addition, they do not look up to a spiritual figure, or have set rituals or practices: “New Age

Native American populations in the 1490’s cary from 50 to 100 million people. Spread throughout the America’s, the natives adapted and shaped their ways of life according to their environment and their surroundings. For example, the southwest settlements such as the Pueblos depended on irrigation systems living in large numbers, where the settlements in the Great Plains region, lived a nomadic lifestyle being dependent on buffalo as their life source. In essence, the environment where the Native population settled led to diversity among the tribes because each tribe had to adapt to their unique environment in order to survive. The southwest settements lived a stationary life, where those in the Great Plains migrated as they followed their cattle. Additionally, not only did their environment vary, their language also differed. American Indian languages consisted of more then 20 language families including 400 distinct languages. Due to this, the ability to comminicate lacked leading to varied beliefs, customs, cultures and development of ways of life.