Magical Thinking In North America

Throughout human civilization, each unique civilization has its unique origins and the Native Americans are no exception. While the origins and history of many Asian and European countries are well known, the origins of Native Americans are not. Many theories exist about how the Native Americans’ ancestors arrived in North America but the widely accepted theory is the one I will discuss.

Magical realism also functions ideologically but…less hegemonically, for its program is not centralizing but eccentric: it creates space for interactions of diversity. In magical realist texts, ontological disruption serves the purpose of political and cultural disruption: magic is often given as a cultural corrective, requiring readers to scrutinize accepted realistic conventions of causality, materiality, motivation. (3)

Before 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, there were many tribes living in North America. Two equally similar and different ones were the Iroquois tribe and the Cherokee tribe. On one hand, they are similar because of their geographies and their economies. On the other hand, they are different because of their cultures and religious beliefs.

The Eastern Woodland Farmers and Hunters both live near the Five lakes between U.S.A. and Canada, they both use snowshoes during the winter, and they both lived near south, southwest of Ontario. The Eastern Woodland Hunters and The Inuit both fish as one of their ways to get food, both were also nomadic people, and they also were both peaceful people(they rarely fight in war). The Eastern Woodland Farmers and The Inuit both used boats to get around in the water, they both

Before the 1500s, prosecution of witches was rare. Trials were conducted against those who were seen as suspects of “practicing harmful magic and occasional mass trials" (Bever, 2009, p. 263). These accusations were often made by children and that of their imagination. The decline; however, occurred not through the prosecutions but through its “suppressing roles” and the overall “decline in witch beliefs” (Bever, 2009, p. 285). The title of the article is “Witchcraft Prosecutions and the Decline of Magic” and it is written by Edward Bever. Bever is the Associate Professor of History, SUNY College at Old Westbury.

Native American culture originated in some parts North America. These countries are known as the United States of America and some parts of Canada. In the United States, there are 6.6 million Native Americans, which form about 2.0 percent of the population (Bureau, 2016). Europe had realized there were about 50 million people already living the “new world” and these people were called Native Americans. Native Americans were originally called Indians, but later through history they formed a new name. These people were called this because of them being native to the “new world” and the American part came after the colonist named the United States. Throughout history, Native Americans believed that using raw material in nature was the best way to provide for their people. Their culture thought no part of an animal should go to waste. They would eat the meat, use the skin for clothing, and make jewelry from the bones. Over the years a lot of their culture and customs were lost due to conforming with society. Their languages were referred to as “Indigenous Languages” because of them being extremely complicated and diverse. Some important factors that help understand the foundation of Native American culture are their rituals/practices, death ceremonies, holidays, family, and stereotypes.

Witchcraft is a religion. Wicca is one type of Witchcraft, but the term "Wicca" is occasionally applied to Witchcraft in overall. In the United States, most people who practice this religion call themselves Witches or Wiccans. It is an earth-based religion and in some ways is similar to Native American spirituality. Wicca (sometimes called Wicce, The Craft, or The Old Religion) is based on an ancient religion of love for life and nature. The religion of Witchcraft or Wicca is recognized by most state governments, the federal government, and the United States Armed Forces. The courts have recognized the right of even prisoners to practice this religion on an equal basis with other religions. In ancient times, people appreciated the great forces of Nature and celebrated the seasons’ cycles and the moon. They saw spirituality in the sun and moon and in the Earth Herself. Basically, in all life.

Anthropological theories concerning the peopling of North America is a topic that is widely debated. By far, Western scientists seem to agree that: “As a result of the vast amount of water that was locked up in glacial ice toward the end of the Pleistocene era, there was a worldwide drop in sea level of as much as 400 feet” (Sutton 19), creating a land link, known as the Beringia, between Asia and Alaska. Starting from this point about the land link, we find that Elias’s article “First Americans Lived on Bering Land Bridge for Thousands of Years,” is the most agreeable theory about the peopling of North America.

The initial inhabitants of North and South America, known as Paleo-Indians, arrived here over thousands of years ago. It is believed that the Native American forefathers reached this country via a piece of land that linked Asia to North America. Upon arrival, the Paleo-Indians split into numerous tribes. They broke off into a number of tribes, including but not limited to, the Paiutes, the Shoshonis, the Algonquians, the Aztecs, and the Mayans. The Paiutes and the Shoshonis tended to migrate seasonally. They are both tribes that settled in Nevada and Utah. The Algonquian tribe inhabited present-day northeastern United States and eastern Canada. They preferred to remain in their territories, they rarely migrated. The Aztecs, a bellicose nation, colonized what is now Mexico and Guatemala. The Aztecs had gained power over central Mexico before the Spanish accessed the new world. The Mayans also settled in Mexico and Guatemala. They were a very intelligent nation that already had writing and mathematics systems in place by the time the Spanish arrived. The various indigenous tribes then settled in a variety of places across the Americas and formed their own religious and cultural practices.

How the first Native people arrived has always been shrouded with mystery, yet there have been theorists to suggest they came in one way or another. “Heavily glaciated during the Pleistocene epoch (Ice Age), the early prehistory of Canada mirrors the withdrawal of the Ice” (Lightfoot 2009: 249). The Laurentide sheet and the smaller Cordilleran ice sheet had created floors of the Chukchi and the Bering Sea, creating a bridge between Asia and Alaska. This bridge has been presumed to be the route in which our long ago ancestors first entered the New World. It was then though Beringa, humans then begun to create settlements all over

The assigned readings present multiple occult beliefs, and describe potential causes and reinforcers. Alcock (1995) held the view that the brain and nervous system worked together to create beliefs targeting survival, while Singer and Benassi (1981) believed social, environmental, and cognitive factors acted in separate ways to reinforce occult beliefs. Parallels exist between contributing factors desccrive by Singer and Benassi (1981) and the seven units listed by Alcock (1995); however, Alcock (1995) described them as causes of the belief engine, while Singer and Benassi (1981) described them as factors contributing to the support and growth of occult beliefs.

Humans are born from and return to earth at death; human beings and nature are bound up each other. Yet, the technological modern world has shaped humans to be oblivious of nature and the ethnocentrism has positioned human beings above all other things. Nature has become resources for people and nothing more than that. David Abram, the author of the Ecology of magic, travels into the wild, traditional land in search of the relation between magic and nature; the meaning nature holds in the traditional cultures. Abram intends to communicate his realization of the magical awareness of the countless nonhuman entities and the necessity of the balance between the human communities and the nature to the readers, hoping the Western technologized

When analyzing all of the information provided in the two books, Witchcraft in Europe by Alan Charles Kors and Edward Peters and Magic and Superstition in Europe by Michael D. Bailey, there are a multitude of common themes that appear repeatedly in both pieces of work on the topic of witchcraft. These common themes vary in topic with some relating to the stereotypical appearance of witches, the actions witches performed, or even the legal procedures involving the conviction of witches. These themes do not only show themselves in those two pieces of work, but also in The Trial of Tempel Anneke by Peter A. Morton. While common themes can be seen in reference to Tempel Anneke’s trial, there are also many

Indians arrived in America some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. Archeological findings and Radiocarbon testing suggested that the prehistoric people who populated the Americas were hunters following the herds of wooly mammoths. They walked from Siberia across a land bridge into Alaska. They headed south toward warmer climates, slaughtering the mammoths as they went. As the glaciers melted, the oceans rose and covered this land bridge, creating the present-day Bering Strait and separating Alaska from Russia. By the time Christopher Columbus arrived, they were millions of what might be called First Americans or Amerindians occupying the two continents of Americas. The first noted documentation of the Beringia theory of the peopling of North America was by Jose de

Before Christopher Columbus came and found the Americas. About 14,000 years ago there was a land bridge connected by Siberia and Alaska. But due to the last ice age water levels had been increasing. This led to the land bridge going under water. Now fast forward 14,000 years later Christopher Columbus had reached as what was known as the New World in 1492. When they discovered there were many native people on this land. Native American tribes were all over the place. Well two of the biggest tribes were the Incas and the Aztec people who each had over 25 million people in their tribe.