Native American Religion

The history of American religion is dominated by Christianity, first brought to our society by the early European settlers when they stumbled across the ‘New World. However, residents on the already discovered continent included millions of Native Americans who had completely opposite beliefs as the newcomers. Differences in customs were irrelevant when compared to the differences in denomination between the white Europeans and the Native Americans. A lack of tolerance for the Native American spirituality paired with the settler’s desire for land turned in to massacre nearly wiping Native American civilization off the face of the earth.

Native Americans relied greatly on natural resources for societal purposes. Agriculture, as well as hunting and gathering is what made the Native Americans so successful. Their environment provided them with rich fertile soil for farming, wildlife such as bison for game and streams and rivers with plentiful fish. More importantly, the Native Americans also had a greater fundamental understanding of the land that served as a sacred power; the belief that everything in the universe was interconnected and possessed a spiritual force that could affect the lives of the people and of all living things. It was vital to have spirits on your side lending aid for success in hunting and farming as well as childbearing and success in battle. Negligence could result in offending the spirits and in return being punished by lack of food or harm to your family.

Rituals and ceremonies were used to praise and contact sacred spirits. By performing rituals, they believed that because the entire world was interconnected, they could maintain their own relationship with the sacred beings as well as ensure a properly preserved natural order. In connecting with the benevolent spirits they gained success in necessities, such as hunting and gathering.

The religion of the Native Americans was very much based upon the fact that “seeing is believing”. They lived a cyclical lifestyle, thinking that even after your physical life on earth came to a demise you would return as a spirit and remain with your people. Their landscape around them had significant meaning to them as well. They lived out their entire life at the origin of their ancestors making certain that their relatives would forever be in their presence.

Native Americans, because they lacked a written language, used anecdotes and legends through oral tradition to explain the history of their universe and any other storied relation to the earth’s creation. Because they did not have script, Western scholars refer to the Native American stories as just myths. Ronald Wright best describes a myth as:

Myth is an arrangement of the past, whether real or imagined, in patterns that resonate with a cultures deepest values and aspirations. Myths create and reinforce archetypes so taken for granted, so seemingly axiomatic, that they go unchallenged. Myths are sp fraught with meaning that we live and die by them. They are the maps by which navigate through time.
[The Earth Shall Weep Pg. 4]

Accounts pertaining to origin vary from one Native American culture to another. Some societies have in depth descriptions of how their ancestors rose from the underground and migrated to the current location. Other civilizations believe that the first women fell through a hole in the sky. Numerous tribes have stories describing a time when animals and humans were the same and had the outstanding ability to communicate. Nearly all tribes refer to themselves in their own languages as ‘the real people’ and each group’s story locates themselves decisively in a place of special power and significance.

Furthermore, the Native Americans had no concern for the myths of their neighbors. They believed that their neighbors were created to be a part of an entirely different landscape and would understand their own accounts of origin through their own past and experiences. The contemporary writer Vine Deloria Jr. further explained this as:

People believed that each tribe had its own special relationship to the superior spiritual forces which governed the universe and that the job of each set of tribal beliefs was to fulfill its own tasks without worrying about what others were doing. Tribal knowledge was therefore not fragmented and was valid within the historical and geographical scope of the people’s experience. Black Elk [a prominent Lakota spiritual leader], talking to John Neihardt, explained the methodology well: ‘This they tell, and whatever it happened so or not, I do not know; but if you think about it, you can see that it is true.’
[The Earth Shall Weep Pg. 9]

The Native American culture and religion reached its end when Christopher Columbus discovered the continent and it was invaded with egger Europeans. The Native Americans were more than tolerant to the newcomers. The two cultures even engaged in the trading of goods. The Native Americans viewed trade as a ceremonial gift exchange that allowed them to connect with the Europeans in a world of mutual understanding. The relationship and understanding between the Europeans and Native Americans was well described by Nanepashemet:

The native world view was a lot different from the European world view, because native people did not believe there was finite knowledge. Knowledge was infinite. Any person could acquire new knowledge and introduce it to his community and it would be accepted if it was useful. So the idea of the Europeans and their material culture and their beliefs was alien to people, but their cultural make-up allowed then to accept new information… They were able to accept Europeans goods, although they used many things according to their own cultural dictates, like using brass kettles for producing arrowheads and spoons for ornaments, as well as using them for cooking. And using European cloth in native tailoring. Those things… were just adapted to their own cultural needs.
[The Earth Shall Weep Pg. 38]

However, Native Americans were not immune to diseases and infections that the foreigners carried and they were overtaken by illness mistakenly exchanged in the trading process. Some Europeans used the Natives lack of resistance to their advantage and purposely infected them to takeover their land. This defeated and killed much of the Native population.

The remaining Native Americans that had not been conquered by ailment were attacked by the Europeans who were ambitious for new land to form new larger colonies. In ‘The Battle at Wounded Knee’, European soldiers attacked Native Americans and overcame the, with horses and guns. On foot, using only bows and arrows, the Native Americans were not able to put up a fair fight and were wrongfully slaughtered. Taking no mercy on even women and children, the Europeans killed nearly the total Native American population. The war was later renamed ‘The Massacre at Wounded Knee’, to better describe the horrific events.

Today, it is hard for our modern society to believe the same way that the Native Americans did. What American culture believes concerning the origin of the universe is, for the most part, supported by early religious texts, such as the Bible, or can be proven by science. We live a linear life, rather than cyclical, as the Native Americans did, our time on earth will come to an end. According to the current most popular Christian religion, if time was cyclic Jesus Christ would have to be crucified again and again and therefore there would be no final sacrifice for the world’s sins.

In conclusion, because of the Europeans lack of tolerance for the Native Americans culture and religion, their civilization was conquered and virtually vanished from the face of the earth. Their religion and beliefs are still not accepted and are merely looked at as myths and legends that cannot be proven and therefore must not be true.