The spiritual practices of Native Americans in the United States are known as Native American Religions. Different nations, tribes, and bands have varying histories and worldviews, which are reflected in their diverse ceremonial practices.
Individual Native American tribes and even small bands are described by early European explorers as having their own religious rituals.
There are many different types of theology, including monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, shamanistic, pantheistic, and combinations of these. Ordinarily, oral histories, myths, and guiding principles serve as the primary means of transmitting traditional beliefs.
Beginning in the 1600s, Catholic and Protestant European Christians began conversion efforts among Native American tribes.
After America gained its independence in the 1700s, its government continued to suppress racial practices and encourage forcible conversion.. Government officials and religious organizations often cooperated in these conversion efforts. In many cases, violence was used as a means of coercion.
This federal harassment and litigation, which passed federal laws prohibiting traditional native practices such as feasting, sun dance ceremonies, and the use of sweat lodges, officially continued until passage of the Religious Freedom Act of 1978.
Another important policy of religious suppression was the removal of Native American children from their families to government-funded and church-run American Indian schools (also known as boarding schools).
Through violence and bullying, native children in these schools were forced to learn European and Christian beliefs, mainstream white culture and English language values, and were forbidden to speak their language and practice their own cultural beliefs.
Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, an all-supreme being that is universally referred to as God. A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, in which the one God is a singular existence, and both inclusive and pluriform monotheism, in which multiple gods or godly forms are recognized, but each are postulated as extensions of the same God.
Polytheism is the belief in multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religious sects and rituals. The different gods and goddesses may be representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles which manifest in nature.
Polytheists do not always worship all the gods equally. They can be henotheists, specializing in the worship of one particular deity, or kathenotheists, worshiping different deities at different times.
Animism is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and in some cases words—as animated and alive. Animism focuses on the metaphysical universe; specifically, on the concept of the immaterial soul.
Shamanism or samanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman or saman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into the physical world for the purpose of healing, divination, or to aid human beings in some other way.
Pantheism is the philosophical religious belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical to divinity and a supreme being or entity. The physical universe is thus understood as an immanent deity, still expanding and creating, which has existed since the beginning of time.
All astronomical objects are thence viewed as parts of a sole deity.
The general characteristics and origins of Native American religion shed light upon the more contemporary sects. But the development of the numerous individual traditions, passed down orally, remains unclear. The sheer number of groups and the diversity of the nuances of belief complicates matters further.
Continue to Native American Indian gods, godesses and dieties index →
The Indian Shaker Church is a Christian denomination founded in 1881 by Squaxin shaman John Slocum and his wife Mary Slocum in Washington. The Indian Shaker Church is a unique blend of American Indian, Catholic, and Protestant beliefs and practices. The Indian Shakers are unrelated to the Shakers of New England (United Society of Believers) and are not to be confused with the Native American Church.
The Seven Drums Religion has many names. Called wáashat (Washat, meaning "dance") or waasaní (Washani, "dancers" or "worship") in the Sahaptin language of the Columbia Plateau, it is also known as the Sacred Dance Religion, the Longhouse Religion, or simply the Indian religion.
The story of the Native American Church is one of cultural survival, social adaptation, and moral revitalization. On October 10, 1918, an intertribal coalition of Peyotists achieved legal definition for their religion through the incorporation of the Native American Church of Oklahoma.
The Pawnee believe there are many powers in the world. At the creation of the world, lesser powers were made, because Tira’wa-tius, the Mighty Power, could not come near to man, or be seen or felt by him. These lesser powers dwell in the great circle of the sky.
Here is a list, hopefully reasonably complete, of known Mayan God-forms. The information here is necessarily brief; a full accounting of all these entities would be a massive book in its own right.Continue to Mayan Spiritual Mythology →