Inuit Creation Myth Research Paper

Colonial America was a time of great change and discovery. The era was a time of conflict between people’s secular desires as innovation boomed and their spiritual growth as they discovered more about God and explored new religious ideas. In his essay, Worlds of Wonder in the Northern Colonies, David D. Hall accurately argues that despite the secular advances of the Colonial Era, religion was undoubtedly the most prevalent area of Americans’ focus because the power of God was being manifested into their lives in so many irrefutable ways.

Many colonists justify their colonization of America through religious beliefs. At first, they were there for their own religious freedom. When they came to the United States, they felt the urge of making and practicing their own religious beliefs and setting an example for the whole nation about how to make a better community. They all decided to help each other when one will be in a problem. All the colonists had their beliefs which they followed but I believe this particularly disturbed the life of native American Indians in terms of cultural practices, living/house situation, family life, trade, disease, and autonomy.

According to the text, culture refers to the ways of acting and thinking, as well as the material objects that in harmony form a people’s way of life *. The physical environment of the Artic strongly influences the culture surrounding the Inuit people, mirroring a hunter and gathers’ society, as shown in the film, Eskimo Fight for Life.

The article “the inuit paradox” starts off with an Inupiat woman describing the most common foods that she consumed growing up in an Inuit community in which foraging is necessary for survival. She describes that the traditional Inuit diet focused primarily on meat that was foraged from the environment.

Creation myths have similar aspects involving the importance of issues allowed by the gods, nature, duality, and creation songs that all relate to the beginning of life, that are expressed in different ways. The Iroquois cultures in “The World on the Turtle’s Back” and the Hopi cultures in“The Four Kingdoms” both explore these different aspects specifically. They show how life can be created and maintained in different ways.

Many Americans believed that God blessed the growth of the American nation and demanded them to work on it. “Since they were sure of their cultural and racial superiority, they felt that their destiny was to spread their rule around and enlighten the nations that were not so lucky. Many Americans also believed that it was up to them to further develop the lifestyles of Native Americans. They also believed that the other races were incapable of technologically and spiritually advancing into the near future.”

The Sioux creation story and the book of Genesis in the Bible both mirror an image of how the world along with human life was created. When forming their creations they were dissimilar in the way they produced water and land. In Genesis God created water by just a spoken word and it would appear. However, the Creating Power would form his creations with objects using his hands to form land from mud the story states “He sang all the while that he shaped the mud in his hands and spread it on the water to make a spot of dry land for himself.” Additionally, he completely covers everything with land by a command and using feathers from an eagle by waving them over the spot he had produced. Both of these stories reveal that in a previous time their God was unpleased with what he had created so he destroyed the world because of the people’s acts of immorality and unruliness. Also, this gives reflection on the role of the natural world being impure, failed and contaminated by sin and only the grace of “God” can save them. When God or the “Creating Power” recreated the world in their effort to maintain order people needed to understand how powerful and almighty they were by being able to create life or to end it.

Religion plays a major role in the day to day lives of the early settlers in America. So much so, that early colonial writers use it as a form of literary persuasion. John Smith and William Bradford were two such writers.

The Native American’s way of living was different from the Europeans. They believed that man is ruled by respect and reverence for nature and that nature is an

Religion had a big impact in shaping what America is today. Religion still has a big role in modern American society, even with the emergence of Scientific belief systems which would have been condemned in colonial America. Religion has the capability of shaping its follower’s entire lives, countless people lived and died to preserve their spot in the afterlife. One of the key reasons many chose to immigrate to America was for freedom of religion. Religion is the belief of something beyond what is scientifically proven. Many different religious sects moved to America for various reasons. In this essay, we will examine some of the major religious groups of Colonial America and their effect on shaping America.

In Colonial American culture, God is the lord of everything, and all people should follow his orders. God made everything in the world to human. He has plans for everything and he make people to suffer. Humans should pray to God and thank God for he created. In Mayan culture, humans were created to be the better version of animals.

It is a fairly well known fact that the colonization of the New World in general, and more specifically, what would become eventually become the United States of America, was heavily based upon commercial endeavors. However, it was also heavily influenced by the desire of people to possess and preserve religious independence. Placing the potential for commercial success aside and focusing on the religious aspects of colonization, the proliferation of various religions over the course of colonial history is quite extensive and, by proxy, its’ influence upon developing colonial societies was far-reaching. Because of the historical significance of many different religions throughout the colonies, it would also suggest that religious diversity was likely equally impactful in eliciting change. All of this leads this author to speculate about how much influence religion had upon colonial upheaval over time and whether or not the ensuing dissent was a major factor in the lead up to The French and Indian War and eventual revolution of the American colonies. To uncover the significance and role religion played in the American colonies, a number of different articles were reviewed, each representing different perspectives, points of view, and empirical evidence about religion in colonial America.

Garrouttee et al. (2009) discusses that even though the definition of Native American spirituality does not exist, there are several identifiable themes that emerge. The first thing that Garroutte et al. (2009) identifies is that spirits are often associated with animals, plants, and other things in the natural world. Another aspect is the Great Spirit, or father, which is equitable to God in the Judeo-Christian belief. The Great Spirit is more considered to be an omnipresent spirit or collectivity of spirits inhabiting the universe (Garroutte et al., 2009). To many Native American tribes, the material and spiritual realms are wound together and cannot be separated from the other (Limb & Hodge, 2008). To many Native American tribes, existence is spiritual (Limb & Hodge, 2008). Another area if commonality is ceremonies and rituals of the different tribes. Each tribe has a great variety of rituals, and ceremonies that are apart of each tribe’s culture, values, and beliefs. These spiritual practices reinforce the link between the individual, the creator, and the community (Limb & Hodge,

Native American tribes wove a complicated tapestry of creation myths because where they came from was important to them; the Puritans likewise spent time writing and speaking about their relationship to the God that brought them into the world but had serious demands about how to live life in return for His Grace. The existential questions of "How did we get here?" and "What should matter to us now that we are here?" were interpreted by the different tribes and Colonial Americans in very different ways as each had their own ideas about how to answer this question.

The Inuit People The word Eskimo is not a proper Eskimo word. It means "eaters of raw meat" and was used by the Algonquin Indians of eastern Canada for their neighbours who wore animal-skin clothing and were ruthless hunters. The name became commonly employed by European explorers and now is generally used, even by them. Their own term for themselves is Inuit which means the "real people."