One might not understand what makes one keep moving forward day after day. Nobody gets it unless they have lived in the footsteps of another. Ask any Native American. They have lived a life of others judging and misunderstanding and if they haven't their ancestors have. The Native Americans pass stories down generation by generation so surely they have heard what it was like to be misunderstood. They believe differently than other cultures, yet not one is alike. They have a very complicated and hard to understand system when it comes to their views. The way they view, believe and run their system is never fully understood unless one has grown up with the Native American culture. The religious culture of these people is what holds their tribes and their lives together.
Historically Native American religions are very diverse between tribes. Most are unique to their individual tribe. Others are widely spread throughout many tribes but still encounter differences between them. Native religions, much like other religious groups have sacred sites. These sacred locations are considered sacred not only by the Natives themselves but by the American government who has now also named them protected.
The Native American Church is considered to be the most popular of all the Native American religions. This church teaches the Peyote religion. Originally the religion started in Mexico and was established in the tribes in the state of Oklahoma. The Peyote religion is the most widely spread of all the Native American religions. Although it does vary between the different tribes but the main teaching does stay consistent throughout them all. It is used to communicate with the spirit world and is also used as a medicine.
Native American religion...
... middle of paper ...
...ine Wheel can be interpreted in many ways, for example the stages of life, the seasons, and elements of nature.
Although the Native Americans have a complicated system it is sure an interesting one. With an in depth culture there is no end to the learning of it. It is one that no one but the Native American themselves can fully understand. Native Americans have a special connection with themselves, the world around them and the land under our feet. That is a very special value to have. They are strong people and they would not be that way without their culture and without their beliefs.
Works Cited
http://www.mormonteachings.com/ http://www.catholic.com/tracts/distinctive-beliefs-of-the-mormon-church http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=429652 http://carm.org/mormonism http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Cults/mormon.htm
http://www.mormonteachings.com/
People have been living in America for countless years, even before Europeans had discovered and populated it. These people, named Native Americans or American Indians, have a unique and singular culture and lifestyle unlike any other. Native Americans were divided into several groups or tribes. Each one tribe developed an own language, housing, clothing, and other cultural aspects. As we take a look into their society’s customs we can learn additional information about the lives of these indigenous people of the United States.
... nature of the Native American societies—many Native American communities are not open to outsiders.
It became apparent after an amount of time that both religions shared common ideological and moral views, helping to ease the transition from their unique religion to Christianity. The use of peyote among Native Americans was treated like a sacrament in itself, and over time, the hybridity of Christianity and Native American religion began to mix. The use of peyote as a central tenet of the Native American Church (NAC) is a clear example of an amalgamation and superimposition of two different religious practices (peyote being a distinctly Native American practice, and Catholicism being a distinctly European practice) and as a result clearly demonstrates a cultural blending which has incorporated both native and european practices
As the United States government realized early on, Native American spirituality differs from Christian religious doctrine. For Christians, there is a distinct separation between religious practice and everyday activity. For Native Americans, however, no such clear-cut distinction exists because religion cannot be separated from everyday life. Even using the word "religion" to describe Native American spirituality is misguided, because it fails to take into consideration the inseparable connection between spirituality and culture. One cannot exist without the other. Native American spiritual observances are "guided by cycles, seasons and other natural related occurrences,” and these spiritual aspects are inextricably woven into the culture itself (Dill).
Reservation life prior to the European exploration was spiritually fulfilling for the Native Americans. For example, children were seen as the sons and daughters of the whole tribe, not just of those who bore them. The children were taught multiple skills such skills included: herbal remedies, how to worship, how to live off land, their tribes native tongue, and much more. There was no set school curriculum or organized process set forth by the Native Americans, which the Americans found as a flaw or disadvantage for the children. Americans adopted their place in lending Native Americans a hand in the matters of order and civility. Americans used several methods to in attain that Native American assimilate into their culture or White society as they saw fit without regards to old culture practices.
Community, rituals, magical beliefs and practices are very important things to Native American people. Native American people live by these rituals and beliefs, they live around their community; their community isn’t just that, but their family as well. Parents don’t just raise their children but the whole community has a hand in raising all of the children. Family is a very important part of Native American people’s lives, they keep traditions going with their families, parents raise their children the same way that they were raised by their parents.
Over the history of our country Native Americas have long since been oppressed in trying to practice their Native Religions freely, and openly. It wasn’t until the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) of 1978, which “acknowledged the unique nature of Native spirituality” (Limb & Hodge, 2008, p. 618). This law stated that the policy of the United States would be to protect and preserve the right of Native Americans to believe and practice their traditional religions. This was the first major step in the United States history that sought to protect Native Americans and their rights to self-expression of spirituality.
Native People are either invisible, non-existent, misunderstood, or falsely represented in school, in media, in history, and in art. Progress has been exceeding slow. And that is a shame because the knowledge, the beauty, and the wisdom of a very old culture have a lot to offer, not just for those searching their heritage, but for anyone concerned with humanity as a whole.
Many Native families today have been devoted Christians for generations. Others, particularly in the Southwest have retained their aboriginal traditions more or less intact. The Native American Church is a continuation of the ancient Peyote Religion combined with some teachings of traditional Christianity. Native American Church practices centre around the religious use of peyote, a small cactus which when eaten gives people a fee...
These Indigenous people realized that the only way to heal the poverty, dysfunction, addiction, and violence that has plagued them since the ‘assimilation’ efforts was to turn back to their traditional spiritual practices and teach them to the young people (Robbins). Often, the return to Native traditions has meant taking on environmental concerns, opposing development activities, and becoming politically active to protect the nature that is so closely tied to indigenous spiritual practices. This is what makes indigenous spirituality different and hard to define and protect, it is closely tied to the land and environment, which is very different from religion (Fisher). The United Nations defines the situation perfectly in “The State of the World’s Indigenous People: Chapter 2”: “…spirituality defines the relationships of indigenous peoples with their environment as custodians of the land; it helps construct social relationships, gives meaning, purpose and hope to life.” (Kipuri,
Native Americans were hunter gatherers and lived off the land. They were very conservative people and would make sure absolutely nothing was put to waste. Native Americans were able to adapt to different environments due to their creativity of how to live off of Mother Nature. They were able to find ways to live in places ranging from deserts to forests to alongside oceans. They were unquestionably great hunters and effective farmers. The Indians unquestionably had much better diets than the Europeans and were far less likely to ever face starvation or hunger. It is recorded that the first Europeans to ever arrive at America often commented on the Indians massive size, which was probably due to their better diets. Each tribe built their own towns and traded over far distances with other
The Indigenous people of America are called Native Americans or often referred to as “Indians”. They make up about two percent of the population in the United States and some of them still live in reservations. They once lived freely in the wilderness without any sort of influence or exposure from the Europeans who later came in the year of 1492, and therefore their culture is very different from ours.. In the following essay we will discover some differences between the religious beliefs of the Native American Iroquois and Christianity to see if the culture and ways of living have an effect on the view of religion, but we will also get to know some similarities between them. I am going to be focusing on the Iroquois, which are the northeastern Native Americans who are historically important and powerful.
In this way the religion practiced by the Native Americans was taken as contradictions to Christianity. The natives were informed that Christianity was designed to be an eternal rule of significance and a means from which they could use to return to God from their religions that had deviated (Eliot par. 3). Through sermons given by Whitfield, the minds of the natives were engaged in religion and making religion the subject of most of their discussions. They embraced all the opportunities to hear what was been taught on Christianity. The Christian revivals were attended by the young and old alike (Edwards par.
Native spirituality and Catholics both have different sacred stories/ scriptures. Native spirituality tell all their stories by word of mouth that have been passed down from the elders over many
The American Indians Between 1609 To 1865. Native Americans or American Indians, once occupied the entire region of the United States. They were composed of many different groups, who spoke hundreds of languages and dialects. The Indians from the Southwest used to live in large, terraced communities and their way of sustain was from the agriculture where they planted squash, pumpkins, beans and corn crops. Trades between neighboring tribes were common, this brought in additional goods and also some raw materials such as gems, cooper.