Vision Quest Analysis

All Native American cultures have strong beliefs in life after death, although the means of reaching the next life may vary from tribe to tribe. They traditionally believe that death is a part of a natural cycle in which their spirits are transported back and forth between this world and the spirit world so that they can bring renewal and new life when they return. Most consider this transition to be an honor or privilege since it will ensure the survival of their people. In Native American culture, it is believed that neglect of tribal rituals can result in death and sickness, because the spirit returns without blessings, having been unable to enter the other world. According

2. A gathering around a meal often represents an act of communion. People come together to share thought, ideas, and conflicts. In “The Poisonwood Bible”, a particular scene occurs when there is a dinner at the church. The feeling around the dinner table was a sense of belonging and agreement, which matches up well with “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” view of a meal. As the meal proceeds, Kingsolver notes “He is Congolese all right, But he has different kind of eyes that slant a little bit like a Siamese” (Kingsolver 125). This

In Native American religions a dance called the Sun Dance is used as the rite of passage for young men. You men would stick a rod though their peck and dance around a pole of three days as a way to become connected with the Spirit World. The pole is used to show strength and the boys would quickly have to get the rod out by dancing. Another rite of passage in Native Americans religions is the Vision Quest. Young boys and girls partake in this to find their spirit animals. They go into the woods mostly naked and sometimes covered in body paint and fast in the woods for days. Eventually a spirit comes to them, most of the time as an animal but it can be in human form, and is said to be their guardian

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

Native Americans lost their culture once the Spanish made them a part of the mission system. Before European arrival, they were predominantly pagan and had multiple gods or spirits which they worshipped as part of their rituals for successful harvest or hunt. Through the mission system, they underwent baptism through Catholicism and learned to worship only one supreme being and

For years, the Native Americans lived a very solitary life with their own unique way of living, that was until the European’s showed up with their very complex way of living. Harmony with nature was a very important aspect of Native American culture. The Native people embraced nature with no intention to modify it unlike the Europeans. They simply cared more about nature and what it had to offer. The spiritual connection between the land and these Natives were distinctive from the Europeans also due to the fact that to the settlers, land meant wealth. As a European, if you owned any land you were considered a wealthy upper class human being. As a Native, no one owned the land and anyone could benefit from the land.

Indigenous traditions represent the oldest cultures which associate the quest archetype with a search for real knowledge of the external world, which was otherwise unavailable to people with little technology to search the external environment empirically. Indigenous quest characteristics come through an active need to learn about a harsh world in order to survive adulthood. With such cultures having limited methods of acquiring knowledge of the external world, the quest then serves as a function to show the development of knowledge needed in order to survive in indigenous society

The lifestyle was fairly lax yet at the same time they knew when they needed to prepare for war or a new move. Some of the customs the Cheyenne had included the smoking of a peace pipe and the prayer made before each smoke. Another tradition was their story telling. Skilled story-telling Indians performed all stories told and these stories were about true-life situations. The Cheyenne tribe actually passed on these stories as well as their customs, religious ceremonies, and traditions orally from generation to generation. This could be the reason on why the Cheyenne were not actually discovered until the 1600s. One of the largest beliefs of the Cheyenne had to do with religion, though. They believed in two deities: the Wise One Above and a God who lived beneath the ground. Also, there were four spirits that lived at the points of the compass that they followed everywhere (Lewis). Because the culture of many Indian tribes differed greatly from the United States, there were conflicts between whites and Indians.

“One general truth that threads throughout the Native American spiritual beliefs is the belief of the Mother Earth spirituality” (Coll). They often called earth their mother and called father the air. The earth to the Natives is very sacred to them and is the most important thing to them. Most of the ceremonies were in some way revolving around the earth and they called earth “home.” Most of the ceremonies were practiced for many years and were passed down through generation to generation. The Native Americans didn’t have a book like the bible or any language that was written. One big thing they had was Totems. These were everywhere in their tribes and it was supposed to represent people and the animals that represented them. The Indians were supposed to have 7 spiritual animals and the many animals on the totems were supposed to represent all the person’s spiritual

Spirituality often can be classified to an ultimate or immaterial reality or inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of their being; or the deepest values and meanings by which people live. This can be true for the aboriginal people, whose concept of spirituality is derived from the concept of the Dreaming, where the roots lie in a variety of stories, ceremonies, values and structures. In the beginning many people held on to what ever they could, holding on to their idea of themselves a connection to the families that they left behind. However, in order to wipe away any thought or lingering feelings “many masks, regalia. And ritual artifacts were confiscated and burned as pagan works of the devil- or simply held and later sold for profit.”[7] This was devastating as many lost whatever connection they had to the outside world, their families and their spirituality. While in residential schools “Children were taught that the beliefs of their

While attempting to find a definition for spirituality that explained the native views, I came across a quote by Sachem Walkingfox, a Native American leader in the 1600’s. He said, "Spirituality is not religion to American Natives. Religion is not a Native concept, it is a non- Native word, with implications of things that often end badly, like holy wars in the name of individuals God's and so on. Native people do not ask what religion another Native is, because they already know the answer. To Native people, spirituality is about the Creator, period.” (Sachem Walkingfox). Natives see spirituality as a way of connecting with their creator or how they see their creator. It is a personal and indescribable experience that is based purely on the individual. Lisa is an ideal example of a younger generation Native American girl who because of current day norms, is frightened by her spiritual gift.

All humans are interested in their origins and trying to account for their existence through creation stories. Native Americans tribes are no different from the rest of humanity. The tribes’ stories explain how people came into existence, how they came to be live on the lands they do and the how people interact with nature and each other. These trends can be seen in the legends of three tribes hailing from New England to the Great Lakes Region.

Sacred power (pg 16): Native Americans believed in spiritual powers and the natural world. Spiritual power for men were hunting and war.

The world view of the Navajo who had lived for many centuries on the high Colorado Plateau was one of living in balance with all of nature, as the stewards of their vast homeland which covered parts of four modern states. They had no concept of religion as being something separate from living day to day and prayed to many spirits. It was also a matriarchal society and had no single powerful leader as their pastoral lifestyle living in scattered independent family groups require no such entity. This brought them repeatedly into conflict with Spanish, Mexicans and increasingly by the mid-nineteenth century, Americans as these practices were contrary to their male dominated religiously monolithic societal values. The long standing history

Throughout the film Image Before My Eyes, directed by Josh Waletzky, viewers are shown videos, pictures, and interviews regarding European Jewry from the late 1910’s to the 1930’s. Though this is a film explaining the events and upheavals that led up to the Holocaust, the word Holocaust is rarely ever mentioned. It is through the use of multimedia in this film that the devastating history of the Holocaust becomes illuminated. The film allows the viewer to begin to fathom the destructive events that occurred between the two World Wars as well as the secularization of daily life for Jews throughout this time period.