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World in America

An Introduction Fourth edition

Ja c o b Ne u s n e r Editor Contents

Preface to the Fourth Edition vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Jacob Neusner

PART ONE: IN THE BEGINNING 1. Native and Their Religions 11 Sam Gill

PART TWO: CHRISTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF AMERICAN RELIGIONS 2. Protestant in the World and in America 29 Martin E. Marty 3. The Religious World of 55 Peter J. Paris 4. The Catholics in the World and in America 73 Andrew M. Greeley and Paul Murray 5. The Religious World of Latino/a-Hispanic Americans 87 Justo L. González and Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi 6. Orthodox Christianity in the World and in America 105 Jaroslav Pelikan and John McGuckin

PART THREE: OTHER MONOTHEISTIC IN AMERICA 7. in the World and in America 123 Jacob Neusner 8. in the World and in America 143 John L. Esposito 9. The Bahá’í in the World and in America 159 Mike McMullen

PART FOUR: MORE RECENT ARRIVALS 10. in India and in America 179 Gerald James Larson 11. in the World and in America 199 Malcolm David Eckel 12. in Today’s America 213 Robert S. Ellwood and Mark A. Csikszentmihalyi vi / Contents

PART FIVE: MADE (OR RE-MADE) IN THE U.S.A. 13. World Religions Made in the U.S.A.: Apocalyptic Communities— Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses 233 Dell deChant 14. World Religions Made in the U.S.A.: Metaphysical Communities— Christian Science and 251 Dell deChant 15. : A Quintessentially American 271 Dell deChant 16. The Church of : A Very New American Religion 293 Dell deChant and Danny L. Jorgensen 17. Nature Religions: American Neopaganism and Witchcraft 313 Danny L. Jorgensen 18. The Latter-day Saint (Mormon) Religion in America and the World 333 Danny L. Jorgensen 19. The Unification Church 353 George D. Chryssides

PART SIX: ISSUES IN AMERICAN RELIGION 20. Religion and Women in America 375 Eleanor J. Stebner 21. Religion and Politics in America 399 Andrew M. Greeley and Fred Frohock with Esben Gerhauge 22. Religion and Society in America 413 William Scott Green Glossary 423 Index 433 Preface to the Fourth Edition

The publication of a fourth edition of this textbook responds to the acceptance of the first three editions and also to the passage of time. We realized that the story of what has happened to world religions in the USA has opened a new chapter and requires amplification. We are serving two audiences here, those interested in religion in America and those interested in world religions compared and contrasted. For this new edition we have commissioned three completely new chapters, which are on the Unification Church (popularly known as the Moonies), New Thought, and in America. In addition, all the existing chapters have been revised and updated to take account of recent developments and trends. The entire textbook has been reorganized to take account of a more logical sequence of topics. In addition we have added timelines of important events and persons, sidebars on key movements or controversies, sidebars with personal stories from members of various , and lists of suggested websites, books, and topics for further study. The editor thanks the contributors both old and new for their participation in what has become a long-term project, and also the following people at Westminster John Knox Press: editors Gavin Stephens and Jana Riess, who supervised the changes and additions for this edition; production profession- als Julie Tonini and Erika Lundbom; and marketing director Jennifer Cox.

Jacob Neusner Introduction

Jacob Neusner

This book introduces you to the world’s at least once a day. Most Christians go to religions in the today. Such an church every week; nearly all Jews observe introduction is important because to under- the Passover festival and most keep the Days stand America,* you have to know about of Awe (New Year, Day of Atonement) and religion. Most, though not all, Americans say other religious celebrations. Religiosity is a they are religious, and the world’s religions fundamental trait of the American people flourish in today’s America. Most Americans and has been from the very beginning. would agree that “in we trust.” But each does so in his or her quite special way, and Th e Re l i g i o n s o f t h e that is what makes religion in America inter- esting. This book does not advocate religion, Wo r l d Fl o u r i s h in or any particular religion. Its purpose is only To d a y ’s Am e r i c a to describe and explain religion as an impor- Americans are not only a religious people. tant factor in American society. We also are a people of many religions. Most of the religions of the world are prac- ticed in America, and the number of people Am e r i c a n s Ar e who profess to be Protestant is decreasing. a Re l i g i o u s Pe o p l e According to a study released in 2004 by Most Americans are religious. They believe the National Opinion Research Center at in God. They pray. They practice a religion. the University of Chicago, about 52 percent They explain what happens in their lives by of the American people are Protestants, appeal to God’s will and word and work, and down from 63 percent in 1993. Another 25 they form their ideal for the American nation percent are Roman Catholics, a figure that by reference to the teachings of religion: “one has held steady through the years. Slightly nation, under God.” This statement, from less than two percent are Jews. “Other” reli- the Pledge of Allegiance, describes how most gions—which the study defined as includ- Americans view our country. Americans act ing Islam, Buddhism, Eastern , on their religious beliefs. A 2008 Pew study and Hinduism, among others—clocked in found that nearly all Americans (92 percent) at seven percent, more than triple its 1972 profess in God. More than half pray share of 1.9 percent. Another growth area

*Although , , and of South America also are Americans, this work concentrates on the United States in particular, and in these pages we use “Americans” to mean residents of the United States. 2 / Introduction is nonbelief; nearly fourteen percent of the From colonial times onward, many groups American people profess no religion at all, that joined in the adventure of building the double what it was thirty years ago. American nation brought with them their One cannot understand America without religious hopes and founded in this country making some sense of its diverse religious a particularly American expression of reli- life. The marvel of America is its capacity to gions from all parts of the world: Africa, Asia, give a home to nearly every religion in the Europe, and Latin America. Entire American world, and the will of the American people states and regions took shape because of to get along with one another, with the rich religiously motivated groups—for example, mixture of religions that flourish here. This Utah and the intermountain West through the book presents not only the better-known ­Latter-day Saints (“Mormons”). So our coun- ­religions of America, Christianity and Juda- try is a fundamentally religious nation, and in ism, but also the religious world of Native our country today, nearly every living religion Americans, African Americans, and His- is now represented in a significant way. panic or Latin Americans, as well as the old religions newly arrived in this country, such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Is Am e r i c a a Ch r i s t i a n Co u n t r y ? America Began Because of Religion: Reli- Some people think America is basically a gion played a fundamental role in America’s Christian country because different forms of development by Europeans. The eastern part Christianity have predominated through its of this country was settled by people from history and have defined much of its culture Great Britain as an act of religion. The South- and society. The vast majority of Americans west was founded by people from Spain and who are religious—and that means most of Latin America as an act of religion. us—are Christians. But to be a true Ameri- New England was settled by British Puri- can, one can hold another religion or no reli- tans from the East Anglia; Virginia and the gion at all. The first religions of America were Chesapeake area, by British Anglicans (Epis- those of the Native Americans. And although copalians); Pennsylvania and New Jersey, by Protestant and Roman Catholic Christian- British ; and the Appalachian South, ity laid the foundations of American society, from West Virginia and western Pennsylva- America had a Jewish community from nearly nia south through Piedmont North and South the beginning; the first synagogues date back Carolina, by British Presbyterians from the to the mid-seventeenth century. Today this area around the Irish Sea, the border regions country has become the meeting place for of Scotland and Northern England, and the nearly all of the living religions of the world, Irish counties of Ulster, in particular. with the Zoroastrian, , Muslim, Bud- The first European settlements in Texas, dhist, and Hindu religions well represented. New , Arizona, and California were Various religious groups from the established by Roman Catholic missionar- and from Africa and Latin America likewise ies and soldiers coming north from Mexico, flourish. What you learn in this book is that who wanted to bring Christianity to the nearly every religion in the world is practiced native peoples. Many of the place-names in by some Americans. the American Southwest were given by His- panic pioneers, who acted in the name of Jesus Christ and the Roman Catholic faith. Am e r i c a Is Di f f e r e n t The earliest European explorers and settlers from Detroit to New Orleans were Roman Other countries have difficulty dealing with Catholic and traders from Que- more than a single skin color, or with more bec, in French Canada. than a single religion or ethnic group, and Introduction / 3 nations today break apart because of ethnic and religious difference. But America holds Wh at Yo u Wi l l Le a r n together because of the American ideal that in Th i s Bo o k anyone, of any race, creed, color, language, ab o u t Re l i g i o n s in Pa r t i c u l a r religion, gender, sexual preference, or coun- try of origin, can become a good American This book first examines religions one by under this nation’s Constitution and Bill of one, and then religion in America in general. Rights, its political institutions and social Part 1 starts with the first set of religions to ideals. And while religions separate people exist in America, the diverse faith of Native from one another, shared religious attitudes, Americans. We turn next to the Christian such as a belief in God, unite people as well. foundations of American religion in Part America is different because, except for 2. Protestant Christianity is addressed first, Native Americans, it has always been a land because the founders of the earliest Ameri- of immigrants. From the very beginning, can settlements, in Virginia and Massachu- but especially before World War I and after setts, were Protestants. Because Protestants World War II, people have come to this form the most complex and also the largest country from all parts of the world. Today single component of religious life in Amer- the great religious traditions of the world ica, Protestant Christianity is treated in a are practiced in America, where many of chapter twice as long as those devoted to the them have become distinctively American. other American representatives of the reli- This book presents the world’s religions gions of the world. African Americans have both as they flourish universally and also in formulated a distinctive religious expression their distinctively American forms. within Protestant Christianity, and they were among the earliest settlers, so we turn then to African American religious life. Wh y St u d y t h e Next we discuss Catholic Christian- Wo r l d ’s Re l i g i o n s in t h e ity, represented in the eastern part of the Am e r i c a n Se tt i n g ? United States nearly from the beginning, and also the foundation religion of the America is the right place in which to study great Southwest. Because Hispanic Ameri- the religions of the world because nearly all cans today comprise nearly half of all of them can be found here (and in nearby Roman Catholic Christians in the United Canada). But America is religiously more States, we take up Hispanic religious life interesting than most countries in another in America, both Roman Catholic and Prot- way. Not only do we have Judaism and the estant. We round out our section on Chris- various kinds of European Christianity, we tian foundations by addressing Orthodox also have Christian traditions deriving from Christianity, especially as it came to Amer- places besides Europe, for instance, from ica from Russia and Greece. Africa, China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, Part 3 explores the other major mono- and the Pacific islands. To give one exam- theistic traditions in America. We first turn ple, the Unification Church, which began in to Judaism, a most ancient religion that has Korea, flourishes in America today. Distinc- produced a strikingly contemporary and dis- tive forms of Christianity from Latin Amer- tinctively American statement of its own. We ica, both Pentecostal and Roman Catholic, learn much about America from how Juda- have also become part of the tapestry woven ism has evolved within this country’s open by world religions into the fabric of Ameri- society. Next, we encounter Islam, a fast- can society. All of these important compo- growing religion in America, and the Bahá’í nents of religion in America are described in Faith, an offshoot of Islam that emphasizes this book. unity and harmony of religion. 4 / Introduction

Part 4 takes up some American reli- not just particular faiths, that sheds light on gions that have achieved importance on these aspects of American life. We therefore the national scene in our own day—newer consider three questions that pertain to all religions of this country, but older religions religions. The first concerns how religion of humanity, including Buddhism, Hindu- is shaped in this country by women: What ism, and East Asian faiths like Confucian- do we learn about religion from the ways ism and Shinto. We pay particular attention in which women are religious? Next, we to the ­religious traditions brought to the turn to the immediate question of politics: United States by Japanese, Korean, and How does religion affect the political life of Chinese ­immigrants, many of whom are this country? Our political system carefully Christian but some of whom practice other distinguishes state from church, so that no religious traditions of the eastern shores governing body may favor or discriminate of Asia. against a particular religion or religion in Part 5 introduces some religions made general. But religious people—that is, nearly in the United States such as , all Americans—bring to politics important Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witnesses, religious beliefs and commitments. How and Scientology, as well as those that did religion comes to expression in American not begin here but have taken a remarkable political life teaches us much about reli- foothold, like the Unification Church. This gion. Finally, we undertake the relationship section also explores the growth of between religion and society: How does and nature religions in America. religion shape American life? Each chapter in Parts 1 through 5 treats its subject in accord with a single plan: How do we encounter this religion today? What Wh y Th i s Bo o k Di f f e r s is the definition and history? In what ways f r o m Ot h e r Bo o k s does the American expression of this reli- ab o u t t h e Wo r l d ’s Re l i g i o n s gion teach us about religion in America and in Am e r i c a n Li f e what being religious in America means? In answering these questions, the authors tell In general, up to the end of World War II you about world religions in general and people defined the three religions of the also about world religions in America in United States as Catholicism, , particular. Having mastered the contents of and Judaism. The other great world reli- these chapters, you should be able to make gions, such as Islam, Buddhism, and Hindu- sense out of the great religions of the world ism, were not broadly represented here. In as America knows them, and also the diverse addition, it was not widely recognized that meanings of religious life in America. African Americans had formed a power- ful and distinctive statement of Protestant Christianity, and that Latin Americans had Wh at Yo u Wi l l formed in this country an equally important l e a r n in Th i s Bo o k and distinctive expression of Catholic Chris- ab o u t Re l i g i o n tianity. Also, the importance of Pentecostal in Ge n e r a l Christianity in Latin America was just then emerging. So chapters on other world reli- To make sense of our country’s complex gions, besides Christianity and Judaism, or life—its politics, culture, society—we need on how other non-European formulations generalizations, which brings us to the final of great religions flourished in America, section of this book. Part 6 promotes an would not likely have been written just a understanding of religion in general, and few decades ago. Introduction / 5

And, if the truth be told, half a century believe something about God, how can ago chapters on Catholic Christianity and I imagine any other belief is valid? on Judaism might also have been left out, 2. Inclusivist: “My religion is true for me; since not a few people saw America as not your religion is true for you.” This posi- only Christian, but also—and exclusively— tion is common in a tolerant society, Protestant. According to this school of such as, in general, America. It is some- thought, “others”—not white, not Prot- times called “relativism,” meaning that estant, not Christian, not European, not truth is relative to the person who holds English-speaking, or not from the north- it; if you think up and I think down, for eastern part of Europe (Britain, excluding you it’s up and for me it’s down. Reli- Ireland, Germany, or Scandinavia)—really gious beliefs can be true only for those were not authentic Americans at all. That who hold them. is what made them different and somehow 3. Pluralist: “Every religion has something abnormal, just as in that time people thought true to tell us.” God works in ways we do it was “normal” to be a man and not “nor- not always understand. We had best try mal” to be a woman. But that narrow concep- to make sense of each of those ways. One tion of what it means to be an American—and way of doing so is to realize that different normal—is no longer taken seriously. We religions ask different questions, so you now accept that Americans come in all colors, really cannot compare the statements of shapes, and sizes, in both genders, and from one religion with those of another. every corner of the world. We now know that anyone can become a real American. And 4. Empathetic Interest in Other People: America has the power to make its own all The way taken in the pages of this book the religions of the world. In America, there is concerns not whether religions are true no “other.” Everyone is one of us. That is the (which in the end is for God to decide) message of this book: we all belong. There- but how all religions are interesting and fore, all of us bear the same tasks and respon- important. We maintain here that every sibilities to make this a better country. religion has something to teach us about what it means to be a human being. Here we take a different path from the one that Ho w t o St u d y leads us to questions about religious truth. ab o u t Ot h e r Re l i g i o n s It is a path that carries us to a position of empathy for our fellow Americans, in all The future of America depends on the their rich diversity. answer to the question, How are religions going to relate to one another in this coun- We are trying to understand others and to try? Shall we refight in our own country the explain ourselves in terms others can under- world’s religious wars, Protestant against stand. That is the American way: to learn Catholic, Christian against Jew, Muslim to live happily with difference, and not only against Hindu, and so on? to respect but to value the other. We teach Religions think about outsiders, that is, the lesson that religion is a powerful force other religions, in four ways. in shaping society, making history, and defining the life and purpose of individuals 1. Exclusivist: “My religion is not only and entire groups. That is why we want to true, but it is the only truth.” This view understand religion—and, among the many of religious truth is natural to many true and valuable things about religion that believers, whether or not their religion there are to comprehend, that is what we in officially takes such a position. IfI particular want in these pages. 6 / Introduction

live in, which means understanding the peo- ple you meet. America is a huge and ­diverse Ho w Wi l l Yo u Kn o w country, and the secret of its national unity Wh e t h e r Th i s Bo o k lies in its power to teach people to respect Ha s Su c c e e d e d ? one another, not despite difference but If, when you meet someone of another reli- in full regard for difference. We like one gion, you find yourself able to understand another as we are, or, at least, we try to. what is important to that person about And when we do not succeed, we know we the religion he or she in, then the have failed our country. A good American course in which this book has been used is a is a person who cares for the other with all success for you. The goal of this course is to due regard for the way in which the other help you better understand the world you is different. Introduction / 7

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Do you believe that most Americans are religious persons? If yes, explain why you think so, and give specific examples of persons “being religious” or “acting out” their religion to support your answer. If no, explain why you think so, and give specific examples. 2. Why do you think that America has such religious diversity? Is this a positive and/or negative feature of American society? 3. Why would Christians tend to describe America as a Christian nation? Why should persons be careful in defining America in this way? Should we/Can we talk about “being religious” in America and include everyone, Christian and non-Christian? Part One

In the Beginning 1

Native Americans and Their Religions

SAM GILL

When Americans are asked to say what dis- dition has its distinguishing character and tinguishes our country from all other nations history, but we find some common traits in the world, it isn’t long before we begin to and attributes among them. For example, talk about Native Americans. When talking all of these traditions have a strong attach- about Native Americans it isn’t long before ment to the specific landscape they desig- we say something about dances, , nate as their place of origin and where they ceremonies, , and stories. Today continue to flourish. people the world over, but especially Ameri- 2. Missionaries were often successful cans, look to Native Americans to find inspi- in introducing various forms of Christian- ration, a spiritual centeredness, a religious ity to Native Americans. Today Christian- connectedness to the land and to nature. ity is their most widely practiced religion. Native American religions frequently play a Native American Christianity has taken on role in film, television, and literature. Native characteristics distinctive to specific Native American religions are important to the American communities. There are fascinat- way we think about America. Significantly, ing surprises here. Native American dancers represented the 3. Native Americans have developed new United States in the festivals that opened the religious forms that extend beyond specific 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Ange- tribes, yet are distinct from European Amer- les, as well as the 2002 Winter Games in Salt ican religions. The most common of these is Lake City. The Vancouver Olympics in 2010 religion, practiced in a variety of tra- have designated three mascots based on First ditions and institutionalized as the Native Nations culture and heritage. American Church. There are four predominant categories of 4. When Native Americans of differ- Native American religions in today’s Amer- ent cultures talk to one another they often ica, categories that native practitioners emphasize how they and their cultures dif- may or may not recognize. Each category fer. But when Native Americans of different is distinguished not only by its form but cultures talk about their histories, or find also by its history. 1. Today many Native themselves joined together to deal with the American religions are identified with U.S. government or with Christian mission- specific cultures. We will call them tribal aries, they talk about an identity they hold traditions. These religious cultures have in common, whatever their tribal identities. distinctive histories running for hundreds, This “Indian” identity is often expressed as often thousands, of years. Each tribal tra- an alternative to the modern, technologically 12 / Sam Gill based, capitalistic, and materialistic charac- stantly changing. Today in ter of much of America. Though this identity there are still more than one hundred Native is political, it is also religious in that it strives American tribal traditions. Most Native to recover ancient sensitivities, particularly Americans now speak English, but many those that connect people religiously to the also speak their native languages. Many land, to nature, and to all living things. This Native American communities understand Native American religiousness, called Indian that keeping alive their own native language spirituality, is at once old and new. It is the is important to the survival of their culture. form of Native American religion publicly most observable in today’s America. Oral Traditions The following presentation of Native American religions in today’s America will While there are many Native American lan- explore each of these four categories more guages, none of them are written. You may fully. Most Native Americans inhabit more have heard about a man named than one of these categories either serially or Sequoya who developed a way to write the simultaneously. Cherokee language, but this is an exception and is not even much used by . Native American tribal religious traditions Tr i ba l Tr a d i t i o n s are shaped by the fact that these languages Since a time thousands of years before are not written. Just think about how impor- Columbus, hundreds of relatively small tant scriptures, written histories, and inter- groups of people have lived on the lands we pretive writings are to Christianity, Judaism, now know as the Americas. Many of these Islam, and other religions in America. Native groups continue to exist today. It is dif- American tribal traditions are composed of ficult to know in much detail the religions stories told orally by one person to others of these peoples before Europeans began to and of rituals passed from one generation to write descriptions of them, and even these the next. records are rather sketchy. There are some Though the lack of a written may clear defining traits, however, that are pres- involve some shortcomings, it also ensures ent today as in the past. that the religious lives of Native Americans The peoples of these cultures self- have a sense of immediacy, urgency, and ­consciously distinguish themselves from relevance. Native American traditions are their neighbors. They speak different lan- always on the edge of extinction because guages than other tribes around them. They what is not remembered, kept vital, or seen have distinctive houses and styles of clothes. as important enough to pass on to the next Every tribe or nation has rules defining mar- generation is irrevocably lost. The wisdom, riages. Some tribes are patrilineal—that is, experience, knowledge, and achievement they transmit lineage through the father as of a people gained throughout their history we do when we receive our father’s family must be borne in the memories of the living name. Many other tribes are matrilineal— members of the culture. Story and narrative that is, a woman and her daughters and are essential vehhicles for exclusively oral granddaughters are the lineage of the fam- culture. Every person bears some responsi- ily. All of these many cultures tell their own bility for the history and wisdom of her or stories, perform their own rituals, and have his culture. leaders or medicine societies. These America is obsessed with the development various factors, and many other things, of literacy, the very emblem of civilization make each of these cultures distinctive. So and the measure of superiority in the world. we must always think of Native American The verbal SAT score is a primary measure tribal traditions as many and varied and con- of our secondary educational system. Native Native American Religion / 13

Americans are not unaware of literacy. Some Yellow, the color of morning and evening have even suggested reasons for resisting it. A light in winter, is associated with northern member of the Carrier tribe in British Colum- clans. One’s clan determines the range of bia told anthropologist Diamond Jenness, occupations and religious activities one has. “The white man writes everything down in Because the north correlates with war and a book so that it might not be forgotten; but destruction, a person in the Evergreen-oak our ancestors married the animals, learned clan would be encouraged to engage in war- their ways, and passed on the knowledge related occupations and religious activities. from one generation to another.”1 An old One must always marry outside of one’s (Eskimo) woman told the Danish eth- own clan. nologist Knud Rasmussen, “Our forefathers The Zuni priesthoods stand at the pivot talked much of the making of the world. . . . and meeting place of all these divisions. For They did not understand how to hide words the Zuni the center represents totality and in strokes, like you do; they only told things summation. The Zuni annual calendar is by word of mouth, . . . they told many things divided at the solstices into two halves, each . . . which we have heard repeated time after containing six lunar months. Around the time, ever since we were children. Old women time of the solstices are twenty-day periods do not fling their words about without mean- of intense religious activities, known as iti- ing, and we believe them. There are no lies wana, marking the center or turning places with age.”2 within the yearly cycle. The Zuni in New Mexico tell stories of The Zuni village, known also as itiwana, their origins. In the earliest era the ancestors bears the prestige and power of a center of the Zuni people lived in dark, crowded place, of being at the conjunction of all caves deep within the earth. The Sun Father places in the universe. sent his two warrior sons to lead the people The Seneca, who live in upper out. When they emerged as “sunlight peo- State, tell stories about a woman who fell ple” the Sun Father told them to travel in from the sky into this world. A flock of search of their home, “the middle place of birds caught this woman. The world was the world.” During their travels the people then covered by water, so the only support found a rain priest. Their own rain priest they could find for her was on the back of a prayed with him, and together they made it turtle swimming in the water. One by one, rain. A water strider, an insect that skates many animals tried to dive to the bottom of on the surface of the water, came along and the water to get a bit of earth from which stretched its legs out to the edges of the earth. to make the world. After many failed, one Where its heart touched the earth marked the finally succeeded, and the Earth Maker, a middle. The Zuni had finally found itiwana, creator, expanded this bit of soil into the the middle place of the world. present earth, which is supported on the Today, as in the past, the Zuni see the back of the turtle. world as divided into sections correspond- The woman who fell from the sky gave ing mainly with the four cardinal directions, birth to a daughter. The daughter was the but they also consider the regions above and mother of corn as well as of twin boys who below as important. The Zuni are matrilineal. represent the negative and positive forces Each person is born into her or his mother’s constantly at struggle in life. family and receives her clan, a named social We may think that no one could really designation. Each clan is associated with believe such a fanciful story, and we might one of these directions. For example, if your even be a little suspicious of anyone who mother’s clan is Evergreen-oak, this is your claimed they believed it. These stories are, clan. Evergreen-oak, green even in winter, is however, quite interesting, and they are associated with the north and with winter. among the ways Native American people 14 / Sam Gill express such important things as what they were well versed in the law and government understand to be good and bad, how the policy. Each, when it was his time to speak, world came to be, what makes life meaning- told the story of the creation of the world. ful, and how to relate to one another. These Each showed how the particular landscape stories tell how members of a particular in question is essential to the identity of the Native American culture strive to under- people in his tribe. stand the world. The Hopi tribal chairperson described This kind of story, which we call a myth, how the Hopi people were led out of the can be used in very serious ways. For exam- lower worlds onto this surface of the earth ple, for decades the and Hopi peoples through an emergence hole (sipapuni) in the have been in conflict over lands declared for canyon of the Little Colorado River. From their joint use by a U.S. government treaty. there they migrated in clan groupings to Though there have been many court battles their present homes atop the mesas in north- eastern Arizona. The Navajo tribal chairperson told Mother Earth the story of how, before the Navajo world was created, the Navajo ancestors Contemporary Indians refer often to the fig- traveled through worlds below this one. ure “Mother Earth” (sometimes connected with Eventually they emerged at a location Father Sky). The frequency of this story across somewhere in the four corners region, native cultures is remarkable. Comparative aca- where present-day Arizona, Utah, Col- demic studies of the ideology, symbology, the- orado, and New Mexico meet. The ology, mythology, language, ritual, and history Navajo world was then created, bound of the hundreds of cultures that comprise native by four mountains, one in each of the North America show that the differences among four cardinal directions, each identified the cultures are so vast as to exclude almost any- with a mountain that can see in thing held in common that is not also common to their land today. all human beings (one might think of archetypes). While expressed in a political and Yet Native Americans have increasingly identified legal setting, these stories are no less Mother Earth as distinctive to Indian belief and religiously significant today, for they identity, particularly as opposed to Americans continue to perform the cultural work with European ancestry. Studies of the histori- of defining people to themselves and to cal record of the emergence of these references others around them, including the fed- indicate that the figure known by the English eral government and the broader public. term “Mother Earth” emerged from the discourse Both cultures depend for their very lives of Native Americans attempting to defend their on the land they occupy. Each culture’s ancestral lands against claims made by those identity depends on its creation story and of European heritage. Today, in broad terms, on living in the landscape created for it. Mother Earth has become a powerful figure that These stories are the basis for a meaning- is actively used to demonstrate Native American ful life for individuals and cultures. distinctiveness.

Art and Architecture and efforts made by the federal government Native Americans’ homes are commonly to resolve the situation, the peoples them- models of the universe. This makes homes selves remain unsatisfied. Several years ago religiously important. Every architectural the Hopi and Navajo tribal chairpersons feature, every way a house is used, reflects met in public to discuss this conflict. Both something meaningful. The way Native appeared dressed in business suits. Both Americans build, divide up, and use parts of Native American Religion / 15 their houses correlates with their way of life. attention on the creation process and the use Many Native Americans perform ceremoni- of the objects produced. In Eskimo carving, als in the home. Yet there is also specialized the carver picks up the raw material, a piece religious architecture. Sweat lodges, found in of ivory or stone. Turning it about, the carver many styles throughout North America, are tries to see the shape contained within. To small houses in which people go to purify assert one’s will upon the material is not the themselves, to learn religious information, goal of carving. Rather the carver serves as and to talk about serious things. Pueblo peo- an agent to reveal or release a shape already ple use kivas, partly underground rooms, for in the material—a seal, a bear, a whale. performing rituals. Large Eskimo ceremonial Navajo sandpainting, so commonly houses called qasgiq are entered through a known in the craft or fine art form, is always tunnel and a hole in the floor. These houses a part of a ritual process in traditional contain marionettes; for use in dramatic per- Navajo culture. Sandpainting is a ritual act formances there are screens, behind which of curing performed as a part of healing cer- the performer can dress or otherwise pre- emonials that often last many days. These pare; even the entry tunnel and the skylight pictures are associated with stories about window are used to dramatic effect. Enor- heroes or heroines who are cured of some mous clan houses of the illness they suffer. Sandpaintings are made have elaborately painted fronts and door- on smooth, clean sand bases on the floors ways that represent an orifice of the body of of Navajo hogans (houses). They are often a mythic ancestor. Just imagine that every ten feet or larger in diameter. The elaborate time you enter your house you step through designs must be produced accurately, but the mouth or vagina of a mythic ancestor! none of the hundreds of paintings that can The designs on clothing, pottery, baskets, be prepared exists anywhere in permanent and tools frequently correspond with images form. Their every detail must be remembered from stories, features of the landscape, and by the medicine people who know these cer- clan symbols. By wearing clothing and emonials. When the painting is finished, the using pottery and baskets, Native Ameri- person to be treated walks on and sits in the cans are reminded of their stories; they are middle of the painting. The medicine per- surrounded by the patterns that they associ- son or a masked spirit being known as ye’ii ate with what makes their life and culture begins to treat the person. The medicine per- meaningful. For example, Navajos believe son’s or the ye’ii’s hands are moistened with that closed circles constrict movement and an herbal medicine lotion and placed on the thereby life. To bring harm to another, one story figures in the picture. Particles of sand need only draw a closed circle around her or are transferred from the body parts of each his house. Navajos insist on openings in all figure in the sandpainting to the correspond- encircling designs. The characteristic design ing body parts of the suffering person. This woven into Navajo wedding baskets is identifies the person with story. The paint- always open, and the opening corresponds ing is smeared in this process. After the with the beginning and ending coil at the ritual is performed upon the sandpainting, center and perimeter of the basket. The the medicine person destroys and removes it border designs in Navajo weavings always from the hogan. For Navajos, a sandpaint- have a thread carried from the interior to ing functions less as a work of art than as the outside signifying the opening for the a tool to make a healthy human being and movement of life. A personified rainbow world. What a sandpainting helps create is surrounds sandpaintings (discussed below) beauty of the highest order. on three sides, being open on the east. For Native Americans, art and arting It is more appropriate to think of Native have a religious aspect. By making and American art as a verb, as “arting,” to focus ­using art, Native Americans continue the 16 / Sam Gill creation process begun so long ago by offers using a pipe and pointing its and ­ancestors. stem in each of the four directions—north, south, east, and west. He humbles himself before the powers of the world; he cries for Rituals a vision. Visions are described by visionar- The rituals of Native American tribal tra- ies as sequences of images strong in their ditions are rarely performed simply to cel- potential for meaning. After a vision, the ebrate or commemorate some event or time. visionary consults with medicine men who Native American rituals are performed to help him discover the possible meanings of bring something about—a stage of life, a the vision. These images serve as a guide to successful hunt, a change in season. In other be consulted throughout life. When a man words, rituals do more than celebrate some- must make decisions at the crossroads of thing already done. life, he will look to his vision for help. The Girls’ puberty rites are performed through- vision thus serves as a guardian spirit or a out the region west of the Rocky Mountains. spiritual helper available in times of need. The Apache people call their girls’ puberty A fascinating example of the transforma- rite the Sunrise Dance. After an Apache girl tive powers of ritual is the Hopi begins menstruation, her family may spon- of eight- to ten-year-old children, who thus sor a Sunrise Dance involving not only the begin their formal religious lives. Much of extended family but the whole community. Hopi religion involves the frequent appear- After days of preparation accompanied by ance of masked dancers, known as kachinas, social dances in the evenings, the formal representing spiritual messengers. For more ceremonial begins. In an elaborate buckskin than half of every year dancing and perform- dress, the initiate dances to songs that tell ing kachinas are common in Hopi villages. the stories of creation. The girl is identified Before their initiation, children do not see with White Shell Woman, and through her either unmasked kachinas or unoccupied dance she reenacts the events that created the masks. When they undergo their initiation world, when White Shell Woman had sex- rites, the children hear stories about the ual union with the Sun. During this rite the kachinas, especially about their origins. They pubescent girl is identified with the powers go to a nighttime kiva dance from which that created the whole world. Contact with they have always been excluded. The kachi- her, even being present at the ceremony, pro- nas enter the kiva where the children await. motes health and life. Near the end of the What is important is that these kachinas do ceremonial, baskets of fruit and candies are not wear masks. When the children see that poured over the girl’s head. Everyone pres- what they thought were spirits are actually ent scrambles for the goodies, made power- their uncles and fathers, they are shocked, ful by their contact with the girl. angered, and disenchanted. They wonder if The Apache, and similarly the Navajo, they will ever be able to trust adults again. are exceptional in their approach to female This seems harsh treatment for children, coming-of-age. Many cultures, in contrast, and it is. But the children learn something consider menstrual blood a pollutant, and very important through this experience. menstruating females are isolated from the They have until now seen the world naively, community. believing that the world is exactly as it Among tribes throughout the northern appears to be. This disenchantment gives Plains and Northwest, males come of age by them the experience that there is more to the fasting for a vision. A Lakota () male world than meets the eye. As they begin to wishing to complete his passage to manhood participate in their religious lives, they listen seeks a vision through a period of ritual and to the stories with greater care. This initia- fasting. Isolated on a hilltop, he fasts and tion by disenchantment opens the children Native American Religion / 17 to the world of mystery, beauty, and power tribes. Corn, in a personified form, plays a that can only be known through devoted major role in ritual and story. The Cherokee participation and can only be experienced tell a story of Selu, a woman who is corn, with a sensitivity attuned to the reality that who provides food for her family by rub- surpasses the merely physical. bing epidermal waste from her skin or by The was prohibited in the defecating. When her children discover how late nineteenth century by U.S. government she produces food, they consider it witch- regulation. It returned in the mid-­twentieth craft and decide to kill her. Knowing of their century, especially among tribes in the plans, Selu instructs them to plow an area of northern Plains. The Sun Dance is an annual ground and to drag her bleeding body over ritual involving many in the community. the upturned soil after they kill her. They do The world is re-created and renewed in this as she asks, and where her blood touches the new year’s rite. All the people are released soil corn plants grow. Many Native Ameri- from grievances and social strife. Everyone can cultures tell stories of a corn woman is rededicated to his or her role as woman, who magically provides corn to feed her man, leader, hunter, warrior, or child. The people. When mistreated she leaves, and her Sun Dance provides an opportunity to per- departure marks the beginning of the human form vows made in return for favors asked cultivation of corn. In some southwestern of spirit beings. These vows often take the tribes, at initiation a child is given an ear of form of physical suffering. After the ritual corn, known as a corn mother, as a guide construction of a Sun Dance lodge, dances and protector. Pollen or cornmeal strewn or are performed by individuals attached to the sprinkled is a blessing and an act of . center pole of the lodge by leather thongs Even though the horse was introduced and skewers, which are inserted through the to North America only with the coming of flesh above the dancer’s pectoral muscles. the Spanish in the sixteenth century, it has These dances are central to the Sun Dance become central to many tribal traditions. The ceremonial. The dancer’s suffering fulfills most respected of Navajo songs are the horse a vow made in promise for some spiritual songs, which depict its cosmic dimensions: favor and serves to humble the dancer before the spiritual powers. Its feet are made of mirage The Sun Dance innovatively combines Its gait is a rainbow features from old fertility rites of corn- Its bridle of sun strings ­growing peoples who lived along the rivers Its heart is made of red stone in the central and eastern Plains with the Its intestines are made of water of all hunting rituals of cultures that hunted buf- kinds falo and other game on the Plains. For thou- Its tail of black rain sands of years physical survival of Native Its mane is a cloud with a little rain.3 American peoples depended on some com- bination of successful hunting, gathering, From the circumpolar region southward agriculture, and fishing. It is little surprise throughout much of North America, bears that animals and plants are central to the have played a religious role for thousands religions of tribal traditions. Not only are of years. Along the Pacific Northwest Coast, such animals and plants used as powerful Raven is a creator and major culture hero ritual objects, they express central religious who brings light to the world and shapes concepts. The buffalo, whose head adorns culture. Tobacco is widely used in the ritu- the center pole in the Sun Dance lodge, des- als of Native American tribal traditions as ignates the source and power of life itself. a potent spiritual “medicine.” The list of Corn, corn pollen, and cornmeal are used plants and animals with religious signifi- ritually by agricultural Native American cance could go on and on. 18 / Sam Gill

Here is what must be remembered to this enters the shaman’s body, there is a notice- point: Native American tribal traditions, able convulsion. The shaman spits the object though different from one another, are none- in the fire or in a bowl of water to destroy theless similar in some respects. These tradi- it. In some cultures the Shaman actually dis- tions are directed toward the creation of a plays for all to see the object that has been meaningful life for the people within a spe- removed. cific landscape that has been sanctioned by a Another form of illness treated by sha- tradition based on primordial events recorded mans is conceived as the loss of the life form, in stories. Native American tribal traditions sometimes called the soul. The Salish people foster a closeness to and respectful interde- of the Pacific Northwest engage troupes pendence with the natural world. of shamans who ritually paddle canoes in search of the lost life form; that is, they dra- matize this journey by sitting in a canoe in the healing lodge. They recover the life form Health and healing are common concerns of in dramatized ritual battles and then paddle tribal traditions. Some of these traditions, back to return it to the sufferer. such as the Navajo, use health and heal- Ecstatic techniques are used in North ing to address almost all concerns. Some America to find lost objects or relatives, to traditions, especially those in the Arctic learn of the future, to ensure success in hunt- and down the Pacific Northwest Coast into ing, and to conduct the deceased to the land California, practice shamanism. Caution is of the dead. Shamanism always involves the needed when using the term shaman. Many use of ecstatic techniques by an individual have used it to name any religious or spiri- to call upon forces in the spiritual world to tual specialist. The term comes from tribal intervene in human affairs. cultures in Siberia and refers to individuals An individual is often called by a pow- who use ecstatic techniques—that is, it des- erful vision or dream to enter a shamanic ignates those who know how to enter into career. A persistent theme in these dreams, a trance. Through trances shamans enter as well as in the initiatory rituals, is the aspir- the spiritual world to seek help in resolving ing shaman being stripped to a skeleton and human problems, most often illness. reconstituted as a shaman. This theme sug- The , a California tribe, is one gests that a shaman gains power through a group that continues to use shamans. These death and rebirth experience. Still, shamans individuals, often women for the Pomo, require extensive training beyond these ini- sing and shake long rattle staffs in prepara- tiatory experiences. tion for entering a trance. Kneeling beside Perhaps because Native American tribal the sick person, the shaman then breathes traditions are shaped by an essential con- rapidly while blowing incessantly on a bird- nection with a specific landscape and by an bone whistle. Eventually the shaman’s body authority structure based on telling stories of begins to quiver and convulse, showing that primordial events, it may appear that these she or he has entered into trance. traditions do not change, that they do not After entering a trance the shaman exam- have histories. But extensive changes often ines the body of the sufferer by passing a take place in these tribal traditions. Native quivering hand over it. This locates the ill- Americans are not helpless recipients of ness, believed to be a malevolent object— changes brought on by others. Because many a bone, a worm, an arrow, an insect—that of their traditions bear the responsibility for has intruded into the body. These objects the ongoing creation of the world, Native are often thought to be “shot” by witches. Americans often creatively manage their The shaman sucks out this evil object. As it own histories. There is no greater evidence Native American Religion / 19 of this than the fact that so many tribal tra- ings in most pueblo villages. The church in ditions not only have survived but continue the village of Acoma, which sits high atop a to thrive in the face of half a millennium of mesa, required the forced labor of hundreds almost constant onslaught by powerful visi- of pueblo people to hand-carry the build- tors from other lands. ing materials to the mesa top, including many enormous roof support beams from trees cut as far away as a hundred miles. Nat i v e Am e r i c a n Pueblo peoples were forced, sometimes on Ch r i s t i a n i t y punishment of beatings or even death, to be When Columbus met Native Americans, all baptized and to practice Christianity pub- their religions were tribal traditions. One licly. Missionaries­ discouraged the practice of his first observations of these new peo- of the tribal traditions and even destroyed ples was that he believed they could be eas- pueblo ceremonial paraphernalia such as ily Christianized. Missionaries soon began altars, costumes, and masks. Little wonder their work in this new land. Today not a this treatment did not endear Christians and single tribal tradition has escaped the influ- Christianity to pueblo peoples. ence of Christianity. Many Native American Although the people were forced to communities today are primarily Christian. practice Christianity, the tribal traditions Many other communities have extensively of these pueblos survived and persisted by incorporated Christian elements into tribal going underground. These practices became traditions. Others, particularly those forced so secret that almost nothing is known about to become Christian, secretly continued their the religions of several pueblos still appar- own tribal traditions while publicly practic- ently quite vital today. This public practice ing Christianity. The discussion of several of Christianity complemented by the secret cultures will exemplify these several types of and private practice of tribal traditions is Native American Christianity. sometimes called “compartmentalization.” As the centuries have passed, missionar- ies have become far less oppressive of Native The Pueblo Peoples American tribal traditions. Although the of the Southwest compartments remain, with less pressure Though it is often thought that American the pueblo antagonism toward Christian- history moved across the continent from ity has diminished. Christianity has earned east to west and that American religious his- a meaningful place in the lives of many tory began with the founding of Jamestown pueblo people today, complementing their in 1607, one of the first meetings between tribal traditions. Native Americans and Europeans was at Zuni in present-day New Mexico. The con- The Yaqui quest of Mexico led to explorations north into the American Southwest. The first Among the most creative interactions between Franciscan missionaries attempted to estab- tribal traditions and Christianity are those of lish themselves among the pueblo peoples the Yaqui, who currently live in several Arizona by 1580. Santa Fe was a provincial capital communities. The Yaqui lived in ­present-day city in 1610, a decade before the Mayflower Sonora at the time of the conquest of Mexico. sailed. Franciscan missionaries accompa- For a long time they effectively resisted Span- nied Spanish explorers, and by the early ish influence. Finally, in 1617, they invited seventeenth century, mission churches had Christian missionaries (who were Spanish) been built in pueblos throughout the South- to live among them. Almost overnight the west. These churches are the largest build- Yaqui willingly transformed their culture and 20 / Sam Gill religion, taking on many Christian forms. In Native American 1767, after more than a century, under pres- Christian Communities sure from the Mexican government, which was demanding economic and social change Throughout America today there are Native and rejecting everything Spanish, the Yaqui American communities that are primar- asked the missionaries to leave. In the cen- ily Christian, peoples who have little or no tury that followed, however, even without practice of tribal traditions. These Christian the presence of missionaries, they continued communities often have distinctive tribal des- to practice and develop traditions that had ignations. Others are identified generically as distinctive Christian forms. Indian, without tribal designation, especially The Mexican government finally conquered in the large Native American communities in the Yaqui in fierce military engagements and many cities. Although Americans of Euro- dispersed the culture. Some formed commu- pean ancestry introduced Christianity to nities in southern Arizona. By the beginning Native Americans, Native American of the twentieth century they began once and leaders have increasingly taken over the again to practice their traditions. Central leadership of churches in these communities. among these is the elaborate ritual process Many young Native Americans have trained that unfolds during the forty days of Lent. for Indian ministry in institutions such as Elements of the Christian Passion can be rec- Cook Christian Training School in Phoenix. ognized in this ritual, but they are interpreted Native American Christian communities as representing the universal struggle between are frequently fundamentalist in their theol- good and evil. The evil forces are portrayed ogy, conservative in their practice, and often by soldiers dressed in black known as Pilates revivalistic and evangelical. and by groups of masked figures known as As Native Americans became Christian, Chapayekas. Holy Week, the climax of this they gained a certain freedom from being the ritual season, includes the capture of the objects not only of missionization, but also church by the evil forces, the crucifixion of of academic scrutiny. As Christians they no Jesus (represented as an icon), and the return longer seemed unknown or exotic. As a result to the church of the good. The final struggle very little is known about most of these com- between good and evil occurs on Easter Sat- munities. What are these religions? How are urday. An effigy figure of Judas is placed in they related to tribal traditions? A scholar the center of the plaza that extends in front named Thomas McElwain did a study that of the Yaqui church. Midmorning the Pilates gives us some hints. He studied Christian and Chapayekas march into the plaza in two hymns that had been translated from ­English long lines, prepared to assault the church into Seneca for the 1834 publication of a Sen- and return to power. At the signal of the eca Christian hymnal. He simply translated ringing church bell, the evil forces rush the the Seneca back to English, examining espe- church, which is defended by children and old cially the words in Seneca used for God. He women armed with flower petals and green found that the hymns express the religious leaves representing the transformed blood of ideas of Seneca tribal traditions much more Christ. These prove to be stronger weapons, than those of Christian .4 and evil is repelled. The masked figures leave Many Native American Christian com- their swords, daggers, and masks at the foot munities have responded innovatively to the of the Judas effigy and rush to the church to pressures of Christianization, being able at rededicate themselves to Christ and the good. once to continue older tribal traditions or Judas is torched, and as he, along with all ideas in new forms (and forms that have little the masks and swords, explodes into fire, the compatibility with their own), to incorporate whole Yaqui village erupts into fiesta. some aspects of the invading traditions, and Native American Religion / 21 coincidentally to diffuse the pressures of con- and the Native American response often quest and the intrusion of academic studies. took the religious form of crisis move- ments. These movements, led by a visionary or prophet, helped strengthen threatened Ne w Re l i g i o u s v e m e n t s cultures. They commonly required Native For Native Americans, religion is essential clothing, language, hunting, and cultivation, to life and cultural identity. In performing while consciously rejecting American cloth- rituals and telling stories, Native Americans ing, English language, schooled education, discover and create the meaning of life in the Christianity and missionaries, the use of world. Religion provides some of the tools alcohol, metal tools, and firearms. Finding needed to go through the cycle of life, to hunt themselves living in strange territories, with and grow food, and to deal with life’s crises. no way to continue practicing the ways of Throughout American history Native life that distinguish them, Native Americans Americans have suffered wars, epidemic have followed visions of those who saw the diseases, and forced displacements. They cataclysmic end of this world and the return changed their way of life when horses, sheep, of a former world, a world before European and new weapons were available from Amer- influences. icans. A never-ending progression of tech- By the beginning of the nineteenth cen- nologies, from electric appliances to pickup tury, Seneca culture was facing a major trucks, has introduced irreversible change to crisis. had been drawn away Native American cultures. The way Native from Seneca ways through Christianiza- Americans govern themselves has changed tion, education in schools, employment for too. When they were forced as nations to wages, and the use of alcohol. A Seneca man negotiate with U.S. federal and state govern- named typified the people ments, Native Americans were compelled to at the time. He was an alcoholic and no lon- develop new political and legal organizations, ger knew how to be Seneca in a traditional tribal councils, and governments that have sense. He fell ill, and many thought he had little resemblance to former tribally distinct died. As he lay motionless in his bed he had methods of governance. Literacy, schooled a vision in which he received good news education, missionization, and the ceaseless about the future. He brought new life to the treatment of Native Americans as objects of Seneca by introducing a new religion based academic study, often motivated by the belief on his vision. Though there were difficult that these cultures were soon to become times ahead for Handsome Lake and for extinct, have forced many changes. Often out- the Seneca, this religious movement, born siders invented images of Native Americans of crisis, eventually became established and that served as standards by which the lives of continues to serve the Seneca people. actual individuals have been measured. These During the nineteenth century many images, whether negative (the bloody savage) Native American cultures were pushed to or positive (the noble savage) were always the limits of their abilities to survive. The inventions. Notably, Native Americans have transcontinental railroad was completed. often consumed and reproduced these dis- The great herds of buffalo were destroyed. courses, shaping Native American cultures to Native Americans were confined to reserva- correspond with what others expect of them. tion lands on which they could not hunt or farm. Many Native American cultures began to face the possibility of extinction. Crisis Movements Throughout the northwestern United Sometimes the cumulative pressure of these States during the last half of the nineteenth intruding forces reached crisis proportions, century, many crisis movements arose. 22 / Sam Gill

Among the most widespread was the Ghost ­altar carved from tip to tip with a design of Dance movement of 1890. A Paiute man the peyote road. This road represents the life named Wovoka had a vision that foretold lived according to the direction of the pey­ the cataclysmic end of the world as it had ote spirit. A large peyote button, represent- become, followed by a return of the world ing Chief Peyote or the peyote spirit, rests that existed before the Europeans came. on the center of the altar. A water drum pro- Those Native Americans who practiced the vides the rhythmic accompaniment for the rituals of the movement and lived according singing. A beaded staff, feather fans with to its tenets believed they would survive the beaded handles, and gourd rattles are other cataclysm, that the dead humans and ani- ritual implements used in the meetings. mals would return, and that the land would The meetings begin at sundown and end be renewed. The ritual was at dawn. Meetings are called for specific pur- a circular dance in which dancers fell into poses: the illness of a member of the commu- trances and often saw visions of the dead nity, the celebration of a special event, even journeying back to the world of the living. the preparation of a student for school exam- The Ghost Dance movement ended in inations. A leader, known as the road chief, the tragic massacre by U.S. troops of hun- begins by stating the purpose of the meeting dreds, including many women and children, and inviting everyone to direct prayers to this at Wounded Knee at the end of December need. Throughout the night peyote songs are 1890. sung—often in a Plains language, regard- less of what tribe is singing the songs—to the accompaniment of rattle and drum. The The beaded staff is passed around the meeting, and Peyote, a small hallucinogenic cactus, has the person holding it becomes the singer. The long been used in ritual in Native Ameri- drum, fan, and rattle are also passed. Periodi- can cultures in Mexico, especially in the cally peyote is passed and eaten by the mem- area where the cactus grows. Late in the bers. While members may experience visions, nineteenth century, a new religion with dis- particularly increased intensity of colors and tinct ritual forms involving the ingestion of other sensations, the primary purpose is to the cactus began to spread northward into increase concentration and the sense of com- Texas and through the Plains. Early in the munity. It should be noted that peyote is not twentieth century, in an effort to use this eaten to induce intense individual hallucino- hallucinogen legally, the religion was for- genic experiences. Native American Church mally constituted as the Native American communities are often very conservative. The Church. Comparing the use of peyote to Native American Church is effective in the the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist, treatment of drug and alcohol abuse. Native Americans, though not at the time The Native American Church is distinct considered U.S. citizens, mounted a legal from tribal traditions in that it is practiced defense based on protection under the law by Native Americans from many tribes. It of the free practice of religion. Though the can incorporate elements of Christianity; for legal battles continue, the Native American example, the peyote spirit may be identified as Church has thrived and by mid-twentieth Jesus. Passages from the Christian Bible may century was widely practiced not only by be incorporated in the ritual. Unlike Native Plains tribes, but also by many others. American Christianity, however, peyote reli- Native American Church meetings are gion was not introduced by Europeans. Like all-night singing and prayer meetings. They tribal traditions, the Native American Church may be held in any form of lodge, although is distinctly Native American. The Native the Plains tipi is the most popular. Built on American Church need not threaten individ- the floor of the lodge is a crescent-shaped ual cultural identities. Indeed, there are often Native American Religion / 23 tribal variations in the ritual practice. The culture (whose primary access to other cul- Native American Church links Native Ameri- tures is through print) and tribal cultures cans together, forging a common identity out (which remain exclusively oral). No single of their shared history of oppression. book has been more important to the rise of Native American spirituality than Speaks, recorded and developed by the non- Nat i v e Am e r i c a n Indian author John Neihardt. The extent of Sp i r i t u a l i t y Neihardt’s contribution has given rise to con- Early in the nineteenth century, faced with siderable controversy (see sidebar), yet many the displacement from ancestral lands by the Native Americans see this book as equivalent American westward expansion, a Shaw- nee man named and his brother Black Elk fought for Native American survival. They believed that cooperation The Lakota man called Black Elk became a Chris- among the various native cultures would tian after a traditional childhood that included provide more effective resistance than the visionary experiences. John Neihardt, a poet, separate efforts of many tribes. Military traveled the northern plains looking for material and political strength was the foremost to enrich his epic poem “A Cycle of the West.” In concern, but there was also a vision of a 1930 he met Black Elk and they talked. Based on common Indian religion. This perspective those conversations, yet heavily shaped by his marks a shift from trying to accommodate own view of Native Americans as tragic figures the European American presence to the willingly sacrificing themselves to the progress acknowledgment that Native Americans, of U.S. expansion, Neihardt wrote Black Elk Speaks despite significant cultural differences, (1932). While scholars have shown that much of held more in common among themselves this work is Neihardt’s construction and the book than they did with those who were threat- conveniently omits mention of Black Elk’s life and ening their existence. work as a Christian, many Native Americans have Especially since the middle of the embraced it as a sacred narrative. The late Vine twentieth cen­tury leaders have described Deloria Jr. referred to it as the Native American what distinguishes all Native American holy book. Hundreds of college classes through- peoples. These distinctive traits are reli- out the United States use this book to teach tradi- gious in character, but the term spiritu- tional Native American religions. ality will be used here to emphasize that the view is self-consciously anti-Western. The term religion denotes Christianity to to a holy book. Black Elk Speaks is comple- many Native Americans; the term spiritual- mented by The Sacred Pipe, in which Black ity avoids this connection while suggesting Elk tells Joseph Epes Brown about the seven an attitude of respect and reverence toward rites of the Oglala Sioux. Many other Native every aspect of life. Americans have participated in the develop- Notably, the rise of Native American ment of Native American spirituality. Vine spirituality has been associated with the print Deloria Jr., schooled in Christian theology medium. Those who have shaped it are those and the law, has written books widely read who have written, or at least whose words by Native Americans and other Americans have been written and published. There is alike. The fiction of Leslie Silko, N. Scott perhaps some irony in this, but it has also Momaday, and Sherman Alexie has shown made Native American spirituality the most that one of the spiritual centers of Native known and accessible of all forms of Native American traditions is storytelling. American religions. The movement has served Those Native Americans most influential to mediate between mainstream American in developing Native American spirituality 24 / Sam Gill have retained close contact with their spe- Americans, but that it also holds the prom- cific tribal traditions. In describing their ise for saving the whole of America from a own tribally based spirituality, they have course of destruction. seen themes, images, and concerns common Native American spirituality encourages among all Native American peoples. the continuity and revitalization of the sto- Native American spirituality encourages ries and rituals of tribal traditions. It has the continuity of tribal traditions, but more virtually no distinctive mythology apart so the embracing of a common Indian iden- from tribal traditions, though in its place is tity. Native American spirituality exists in an an extensive body of anecdotes, stories, and arena of intense awareness of the crises and literature about Native American oppres- difficulties Native Americans face. Native sion and mistreatment by European Ameri- Americans share a history of oppression and cans, and about the apparently foolish and a pride and confidence in their heritage that destructive ways of these oppressors. Native has given them the strength to survive. American spirituality has embraced pipe cer- Understandably, the tenets of Native emonies and rites. The dancing, American spirituality are expressed largely singing, drumming, and ceremony of pow- in opposition to majority American culture. wows have become the principal form of Native American spirituality condemns the expression for many Native Americans. very things its proponents identify as distinc- Native American spirituality is widely tive of most Americans: capitalism and the popular among non-Native American peo- accompanying materialism, rational thought ples. This popularity is at once a backlash and literacy, political and economic policies against what are considered negative aspects that encourage the exploitation of the land of our American heritage and a sign of and peoples, and Christianity. Native Amer- respect for Native American religions. ican spirituality builds upon its ancient roots Though it may seem that Native Ameri- in the American soil and a spiritual way of cans are largely gone, a people of movies life that reveres the land as a mother, often and books, it must be remembered that formalized as Mother Earth, and respects today millions of people identify themselves as kin all plants and animals, indeed, all of as Native Americans. Further, as we have nature. This perspective strongly holds that learned in this chapter, Native Americans ­Native American spirituality not only is have rich and diverse cultures, including superior to the religion and culture of most many forms of religious practice.

Notes 1. Diamond Jenness, “The Carrier Indians 4. Thomas McElwain, “‘The Rainbow of Bulkley River,” Bureau of American Will Carry Me’: The Language of Sen- Ethnology Bulletin, no. 133 (Washington, eca Christianity as Reflected in Hymns,” D.C., 1943): 540. in Religion in Native North America, ed. 2. Knud Rasmussen, The People of the Polar Christopher Vecsey (Moscow: University North: A Record (London: Kegan Paul, of Press, 1990): 83–103. See also Trench, Trubner & Co., 1908), 99–100. James Treat, Native and Christian: Indig- 3. Adapted from Pliney E. Goddard, Navajo enous Voices on Religious Identity (New Texts, Papers, vol. 34 (New York: Routledge, 1996). York: American Museum of Natural His- tory, 1933), 164. Native American Religion / 25

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Discuss the stereotypes often associated with Native American religious traditions. How has reading this chapter changed your understanding of Native American religious traditions? 2. What are the four predominant categories of Native American religions in today’s Amer- ica? How do they function? What do you see as the important characteristics distin- guishing these categories? How are they similar? 3. Native American languages are not written languages, at least not in their original forms. What do you see as the implications, positive and negative, of an oral tradition versus a written tradition? What would you gain from your religious tradition if your language were only oral? What would you lose from your religious tradition? 4. What is a story? Why is “story” important for any religious tradition? The Native Amer- ican tradition? Describe or create a religious story from your religious tradition that functions like a story in the Native American religious tradition. 5. Explain how Native American art can be described as having a religious function. Give examples of Native American art and describe its role in the religious lives of its people. 6. Religious ritual plays a significant role in the lives of Native Americans. Define ritual. How would you distinguish ritual from habit? Describe at least two rituals from Native American religious traditions and discuss their functions.

ESSAY TOPICS

The Role and Function of the Shaman in Native American Religious Traditions Native American Art: Exploring a Religious Tradition through Images Native American Religious Traditions and Christianity: Conflict and Compromise

WORD EXPLORATION

The following words play significant roles in any discussion of Native American religious traditions and are worth careful reflection and discussion.

Tribe Native American Peyote Oral Tradition Medicine Person Shaman Sacred Ritual Crisis Movement

FOR FURTHER READING

Beck, Peggy V., and Anno L. Waiters. The Sacred: Ways of Knowledge, Sources of Life. Tsaile, Ariz.: Navajo Community College Press, 1977. Capps, Walter H., ed. Seeing with a Native Eye. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1976. Gill, Sam. Native American Religions: An Introduction. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub- lishing Co., 1982; rev. ed., 2004. Silko, Leslie. Ceremony [a novel]. New York: Viking, 1977. Talayesva, Don C. Sun Chief. The Autobiography of a Hopi Indian. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1942. 26 / Sam Gill

Web Sites http://www.hanksville.org/NAresources Index of Native American resources on the Internet http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/NAINRES.HTM The Native American Anthology: Internet Resources http://www.sacred-texts.com The Internet Sacred Texts Archive