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.
Angak, sometimes called Angak’china, is one of the most important and widely recognized kachinas in Hopi ceremonial life. He is considered a Rain Kachina, revered for his ability to bring life-giving rains that nourish crops and sustain the community.
The Ahöla Kachina, also known as Ahul, is a spirit being, embodied by a man, in Hopi religion. Ahöla is one of the important chief katsinam for First and Second Mesas because he opens the mid-winter Powamu ceremony, sometimes called the Bean…
Native American sacred places are where Native Peoples who practice their traditional religions go to pray for the good day, the precious earth, the blessing waters, the sweet air and peaceful life for all living beings the world over.
Great Spirit, Teach us to walk the soft earth as relatives to all that live.
James Mooney, an ethnologist with the Bureau of American Ethnology, was sent to investigate the Ghost Dance movement in 1891. He obtained a copy of Wovoka’s message from a Cheyenne named Black Short Nose, who had been part of a…
Written for a Wedding at Chamberlain – May, 1974
Yurok myths ascribed creation to Wohpekumew, “widower across the ocean.” Their world was thought to float on water, and, as Kroeber related, “at the head of the river in the sky, where the Deerskin dance is danced nightly, are a…
Cungagnaq (date of birth unknown – d. 1815) is venerated as a martyr and saint and is known as Saint Peter the Aleut by some jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was allegedly a native of Kodiak Island (Alutiiq or Sugpiaq), and is said to have received the Christian name of Peter when…
As a Native American scholar of environmental history and religious studies, I am often asked what Native American leaders mean when they say that certain landscapes are “sacred places” or “sacred sites.”
Superstitions of a ridiculous, and most extravagant nature, were found associated with these Indians, and even now, in almost every town, or hamlet, the child's first education is a belief in their authenticity; and they grow up from infancy familiar with all their fabulous traditions. The effect tends to enervate their physical faculties, and weaken their mental, so that they naturally become a pusillanimous race of people, liable to be deceived, imposed upon, and of course easily influenced by the puplem, and old men, who are their sole instructors.