-Native American Indian Tribes - Over 2,000 articles on native american indians, their culture & traditions.

AAA Native Arts: Religion & Spirituality

[ Go to Home | Select a New Topic ]

R&S->Visions/Dreams: OTRR We must honor the buffalo! We are buffalo people
Posted on Friday, October 26 @ 18:29:02 PDT (946 reads)

AUTHOR and PHOTOGRAPHER: Shirley Bluejay Pierce

Many days passed before the joy of that day settled deeply into my heart and I could move forward to thinking on the realities of the present situation of the buffalo on our People.

The senseless slaughter of 60 million buffalo brought the herds to the point of extinction.

There was no reverence held for the sacred, life-giving buffalo. These creatures were nothing more than money in pockets and an insane "sport" to people who shot them for no purpose other than target practice. There was no honor and no thanks given for the taken life and the buffalo were left to rot beneath the sun.

(Read More... | 6502 bytes more | R&S->Visions/Dreams | Score: 5)

R&S->Sacred Places: OTRR We are all one family
Posted on Friday, October 26 @ 18:18:27 PDT (909 reads)

AUTHOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER: Shelley Bluejay Pierce

As we completed our prayers, we all sat there with the buffalo herd in silence. The buffalo had been making their low, gentle calls back and forth to each other during the entire time we had been praying and singing for and with them. Yet at the end of the prayers, we all, as one family, sat in peace and silence together.

Slowly the real world began to slip back into the moment and the sounds of bustling tourists and cars crept back into the present. And then, as is most often the case with our Native relatives, the laughter began. Gentle teasing and loving laughter went back and forth between us all and we slowly began our journey back to the parking area.

(Read More... | 3510 bytes more | R&S->Sacred Places | Score: 0)

R&S->Religion: OTRR What the buffalo mean to our people
Posted on Friday, October 26 @ 17:57:32 PDT (1037 reads)

AUTHOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER: Shelley Bluejay Pierce

Time never stops and is always moving us forward and through the changes of seasons. Time stands as an unforgiving taskmaster that regulates the passage through eternal tides.

One breath at a time and one second at a time adds together to a life well lived or one filled with sadness at missed opportunities to make the world a better place. On this September day there was peace, prayers, songs and the drum joining together with the buffalo and humans in a meadow where time seemed to stand still.

The winds calmed, there was no falling snow or rain, the birds called to each other, buffalo slept peacefully or dusted themselves in the soft dirt and simply lived at peace as a family unit.

As Scott began his prayers with the pipe and in praying with and for the buffalo, a door opened that linked our past, present and our future.

(Read More... | 4870 bytes more | R&S->Religion | Score: 5)

R&S->Prayers: OTRR Pray for the Buffalo
Posted on Friday, October 26 @ 17:47:18 PDT (1052 reads)

AUTHOR and PHOTOGRAPHER: Shelley Bluejay Pierce

In September 2007, there were six devoted people who did not forget the buffalo. Though the day was cold and the sky filled with snow, the journey began into the heart of Yellowstone in search of our beloved buffalo. Three men and three women began the day amidst the traffic, stopping at gas stations, passing through forest ranger stations and dealing with the congestion of Yellowstone Park visitors to arrive at the place where one of the buffalo herds was gathered.

(Read More... | 4111 bytes more | R&S->Prayers | Score: 0)

R&S->Prayers: OTRR A Day With the Buffalo and the Elders
Posted on Friday, October 26 @ 17:41:14 PDT (814 reads)

AUTHOR and PHOTOGRAPHER: Shelley Bluejay Pierce

On November 29, 2006, eight little buffalo calves forced their way out of a government enclosure where they, and many other wild buffalo, were being detained in holding pens and experimented on by scientists attempting to produce a "brucellosis-free buffalo herd" in the Yellowstone area.

Only a couple weeks after the escape of these determined young buffalo, the winter hunting season began and the buffalo of Yellowstone were beset with hunters chasing them from place to place trying to fill the state issued hunting tags.

During a very stressful time for the buffalo herd in the harsh winter and deep snows where forage is hard to come by, the buffalo run to escape the hunters and the wildlife “management” officials who haze them with helicopters and snowmobiles. The buffalo would not have chosen an insane place to dwell during the long winter season like the heart of Yellowstone Park. They would have followed their instincts and gone to lower prairie grounds where the food supplies were plentiful. Yet, to this very day, they are forced to abide within imaginary fences and made to comply with an illogical and man made system that each year leads many buffalo to their deaths.

This is the way of life for our sacred buffalo. In beginning this story though, let us all back up and take time to learn about them and why they are sacred to the Native people. As is our tradition, listening to the oral history from a trusted Elder is how we learn our history and deepen our respect for our culture and the legacy of those who have come before. I am honored to share this story as told by Scott Frazier, Santee/Crow, as told to him by his Grandfather.

(Read More... | 6261 bytes more | R&S->Prayers | Score: 0)

R&S->Prayers: Native americans offer prayers for Yellowstone bison
Posted on Tuesday, October 23 @ 18:22:00 PDT (1016 reads)

AUTHOR: Shelley Bluejay Pierce

Native Americans consider the buffalo sacred for the life giving relationship between the People and the herd. Elders lifted prayers on behalf of the buffalo herd in Yellowstone prior to the winter months when buffalo are hazed or killed for crossing imaginary park boundary lines.

(Read More... | 5449 bytes more | R&S->Prayers | Score: 5)

R&S->Medicine Men: Medicine man of the 21st century
Posted on Thursday, August 02 @ 02:10:39 PDT (1937 reads)

Albert Laughter is a fifth generation medicine man from the Navajo tribe. He has trained most of his life to treat the people of his tribe with traditional healing methods and natural herbs. But these days, he is employed by the Federal Government to treat military veterans suffering from the trauma of combat.

(Read More... | 1232 bytes more | R&S->Medicine Men | Score: 1)

R&S->Sacred Places: OTRR Gang Graffiti Sprayed on Petroglyph National Monument
Posted on Sunday, April 29 @ 02:20:43 PDT (2736 reads)

Tags on the rocks read "TSK," short for Too Sick Krew, an offshoot of another gang. They have been embroiled in a four-year war with rival gang TCK, or Thugs Causing Kaos, that has been blamed for homicides, drugs and stolen vehicles.

(Read More... | 2385 bytes more | R&S->Sacred Places | Score: 0)

Prophesy->Sioux: Sacred White Buffalo Calf Murdered
Posted on Saturday, February 24 @ 10:23:35 PST (3407 reads)

AUTHOR: Jodi Rave Lee, Lincoln Journal Star

When Joe Merrival was called to the scene of a buffalo shooting on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation recently, he stared in disbelief -- not far away lay his sacred buffalo, its throat slit, its hide tattered.

Medicine Wheel had been the first white buffalo born on Indian lands in more than a century.

(Read More... | 3540 bytes more | Prophesy->Sioux | Score: 0)

TNB->Navajo Nation: Navajo Marine given conscientious-objector status
Posted on Saturday, January 27 @ 00:48:19 PST (2827 reads)

AUTHOR: Electa Draper

The Marine commandant reversed his earlier decision Wednesday and granted conscientious-objector status to Pvt. Ronnie Tallman, a 19-year-old Navajo from Tuba City, Ariz.

Tallman believes his newfound calling as a medicine man makes it impossible for him to go to Iraq without spiritually harming himself and his community.

(Read More... | 2785 bytes more | TNB->Navajo Nation | Score: 0)

Prophesy->Sioux: Another white buffalo calf born on the Heider farm
Posted on Friday, September 15 @ 08:05:51 PDT (3920 reads)

AUTHOR: Stephanie M. Schwartz

Twelve years later, nearly to the day, another extraordinary miracle has occurred on the Heider family farm. During or shortly after a severe lightning storm, another white buffalo calf, this time a male, was born in the early morning hours to the Heider herd. Like Miracle, he is not an albino.

(Read More... | 8323 bytes more | Prophesy->Sioux | Score: 5)

R&S->Sacred Places: OTRR Symbol of Fortune
Posted on Monday, June 05 @ 06:44:52 PDT (6158 reads)

AUTHOR: Mina Vedder

The old-growth forest in Arlecho Creek is special to the Lummi tribe. It is a place of spiritual worship and a place to interact with Mother Nature.

(Read More... | 7413 bytes more | R&S->Sacred Places | Score: 3.5)

R&S->Sacred Places: OTRR Navajo Medicinemen's Association holds protection ceremony
Posted on Sunday, May 14 @ 13:22:37 PDT (3951 reads)

AUTHOR: Somana Yaiva, The Observer

Amidst the dust and set into the backdrop of the San Francisco Peaks, the Navajo Medicinemen's Association held a weekend long ceremony over April 21 through 23 for the safeguarding and continued protection of the sacred San Francisco Peaks.

(Read More... | 2630 bytes more | R&S->Sacred Places | Score: 0)

R&S->Sacred Places: OTRR Apaches say moving rocks 100 feet would destroy their spiritual significance
Posted on Wednesday, November 23 @ 15:30:16 PST (4220 reads)

AUTHOR: Erik Siemers, Tribune Reporter

To the American Indians who hold them sacred, the seven rocks in the way of Paseo del Norte's westward expansion aren't inanimate stones. They're alive. They're connections to their sacred earth that can't be replicated 100 feet away.

(Read More... | 4832 bytes more | R&S->Sacred Places | Score: 0)

R&S->Prayers: Earth Healing Prayer
Posted on Friday, August 19 @ 21:56:26 PDT (6026 reads)

Earth Healing Ceremony prayer.

(Read More... | 1111 bytes more | R&S->Prayers | Score: 3.33)

News ©

Over 2,000 articles about native americans of the US and Canada First Nations.