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Native American religions
Native American religions, Native American faith or American Indian religions are the indigenous spiritual practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Ceremonial ways can vary widely and are based on the differing histories and beliefs of individual nations, tribes and bands. Early European explorers describe individual Native American tribes and even small bands as each having their own religious practices. Theology may be monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, shamanistic, pantheistic or any combination thereof, among others. Traditional beliefs are usually passed down in the oral tradition forms of myths, oral histories, stories, allegories, and principles. Nowadays, as scholars note, many American Natives are having a renewed interest in their own traditions.
Native American religions were prevalent in the pre-Columbian era, including state religions. A common concept is the supernatural world of deities, spirits and wonders, such as the Algonquian manitou or the Lakotaʼs wakan, as well as Great Spirit, Fifth World, world tree, and the red road among many Indians.
Before the Christian influence, in most American religions was known High God—a supreme Creator and Teacher, such as the Inca god Viracocha in South America, or sky deity/Great Spirit who represents all other spiritual beings, for instance, the Pawnee god Tirawa in North America. The supreme beings closely associated with the World Tree, or world pole/pillar—the central cultic symbol in the great rites of the main regions especially of Northern America. Other traditional pre-Modern religious rites were hunting, gathering, planting, and war ceremonies.
During the 16th–21st centuries, Native American spirituality had numerous new indigenist revitalization movements that divided to fundamentalist and reform.
Generally fundamentalist movements favoured a return to traditional ways and rejected the changes brought by the modern states, in North America they include the Pueblo Revolt (1680s), the Shawnee Prophet Movement (1805–1811), the Cherokee Prophet Movement (1811–1813), the Red Stick War (1813–1814), White Path's Rebellion (1826), the Winnebago Prophet Movement (1830–1832), the first Ghost Dance (1869–1870) and the second Ghost Dance (1889–1890), and the Snake movements among the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Muscogee Creek Indians during the 1890s.
Generally syncretic reform movements include the Yaqui Religion (1500–present), the Longhouse Religion (1797–present), the Munsee Prophetess Movement (1804–1805), the Kickapoo Prophet Movement (1815–present), the Cherokee Keetoowah Society (1858–present), the Washat Dreamers Religion (1850–present), the Indian Shakers (1881–present), the Native American Church (1800s–present), the Shoshoni Sun Dance (1890–present), the New Tidings religion or Wocekiye of the Canadian Sioux (1900–present), and Ojibwe Drummer Movement (contemporary).
Beginning in the 1600s, European Christians, both Catholics and those of various Protestant denominations, sought to convert Native American tribes from their pre-existing beliefs to Christianity. After the United States gained independence in the late 1700s, its government continued to suppress Indigenous practices and promote forcible conversion. American and Canadian government agencies and religious organizations often cooperated in these forcible conversion efforts. In many cases, violence was used as a tool of suppression, as in the government's violent eradication of Ghost Dance and Sun Dance practitioners in 1890s. Thus, Canada lifted its prohibition against the practice of the Sun Dance full ceremony only in 1951.
By the turn of the 20th century, the American government began to turn to less violent means of suppressing Native American religious beliefs. A series of federal laws was passed banning traditional Indigenous practices such as feasts, Sun Dance ceremonies and the use of the sweat lodge, among others. This government persecution and prosecution officially continued until 1978 with the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), although it has been argued that the AIRFA had little real effect on the protection of Native religious beliefs.
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Native American religions
Native American religions, Native American faith or American Indian religions are the indigenous spiritual practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Ceremonial ways can vary widely and are based on the differing histories and beliefs of individual nations, tribes and bands. Early European explorers describe individual Native American tribes and even small bands as each having their own religious practices. Theology may be monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, shamanistic, pantheistic or any combination thereof, among others. Traditional beliefs are usually passed down in the oral tradition forms of myths, oral histories, stories, allegories, and principles. Nowadays, as scholars note, many American Natives are having a renewed interest in their own traditions.
Native American religions were prevalent in the pre-Columbian era, including state religions. A common concept is the supernatural world of deities, spirits and wonders, such as the Algonquian manitou or the Lakotaʼs wakan, as well as Great Spirit, Fifth World, world tree, and the red road among many Indians.
Before the Christian influence, in most American religions was known High God—a supreme Creator and Teacher, such as the Inca god Viracocha in South America, or sky deity/Great Spirit who represents all other spiritual beings, for instance, the Pawnee god Tirawa in North America. The supreme beings closely associated with the World Tree, or world pole/pillar—the central cultic symbol in the great rites of the main regions especially of Northern America. Other traditional pre-Modern religious rites were hunting, gathering, planting, and war ceremonies.
During the 16th–21st centuries, Native American spirituality had numerous new indigenist revitalization movements that divided to fundamentalist and reform.
Generally fundamentalist movements favoured a return to traditional ways and rejected the changes brought by the modern states, in North America they include the Pueblo Revolt (1680s), the Shawnee Prophet Movement (1805–1811), the Cherokee Prophet Movement (1811–1813), the Red Stick War (1813–1814), White Path's Rebellion (1826), the Winnebago Prophet Movement (1830–1832), the first Ghost Dance (1869–1870) and the second Ghost Dance (1889–1890), and the Snake movements among the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Muscogee Creek Indians during the 1890s.
Generally syncretic reform movements include the Yaqui Religion (1500–present), the Longhouse Religion (1797–present), the Munsee Prophetess Movement (1804–1805), the Kickapoo Prophet Movement (1815–present), the Cherokee Keetoowah Society (1858–present), the Washat Dreamers Religion (1850–present), the Indian Shakers (1881–present), the Native American Church (1800s–present), the Shoshoni Sun Dance (1890–present), the New Tidings religion or Wocekiye of the Canadian Sioux (1900–present), and Ojibwe Drummer Movement (contemporary).
Beginning in the 1600s, European Christians, both Catholics and those of various Protestant denominations, sought to convert Native American tribes from their pre-existing beliefs to Christianity. After the United States gained independence in the late 1700s, its government continued to suppress Indigenous practices and promote forcible conversion. American and Canadian government agencies and religious organizations often cooperated in these forcible conversion efforts. In many cases, violence was used as a tool of suppression, as in the government's violent eradication of Ghost Dance and Sun Dance practitioners in 1890s. Thus, Canada lifted its prohibition against the practice of the Sun Dance full ceremony only in 1951.
By the turn of the 20th century, the American government began to turn to less violent means of suppressing Native American religious beliefs. A series of federal laws was passed banning traditional Indigenous practices such as feasts, Sun Dance ceremonies and the use of the sweat lodge, among others. This government persecution and prosecution officially continued until 1978 with the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), although it has been argued that the AIRFA had little real effect on the protection of Native religious beliefs.
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