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Native american culture and spirituality
Native american culture and spirituality
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The Southeast Native Americans believed in Animism. Animism is a religion based on a spiritual or religious idea that the universe, all natural objects, and animals have souls or spirits. Animism was a commonly shared doctrine or belief. The term “Animism” is most commonly applied to hunter gatherer groups or tribes. It was important to the Southeast Native Americans because it represented a part of who they are. The church in which they worship in is usually in the center of the town. The church is made out of wood. Th
Inventing the Savage: The Social Construct of Native American Criminality. Luana Ross. Austin: University of Texas Press. 1998.
The rituals and traditions of the Indians evince their beliefs in spirits and afterlife. Indians believed that there would be a better life for them after they die, because many of them did not see a way out, but people were still fighting for their lives.
All things in nature; humans, plants, and animals were believed to be a spiritual being. Totemism, the belief that humans all humans have a spiritual connection with spirit beings (often in the form of an animal) was central to the Native American tribe’s spirituality. Health and wellbeing are closely linked to spirituality, requiring a spiritual and harmonious relationship with the environment.
In this way the religion practiced by the Native Americans was taken as contradictions to Christianity. The natives were informed that Christianity was designed to be an eternal rule of significance and a means from which they could use to return to God from their religions that had deviated (Eliot par. 3). Through sermons given by Whitfield, the minds of the natives were engaged in religion and making religion the subject of most of their discussions. They embraced all the opportunities to hear what was been taught on Christianity. The Christian revivals were attended by the young and old alike (Edwards par.
Duane Champagne in Social Change and Cultural Continuity Among Native Nations explains that there has never been one definitive world view that comprises any one Native American culture, as there is no such thing as one “Native community” (2007:10). However, there are certain commonalities in the ways of seeing and experiencing the world that many Native communities and their religions seem to share.
Throughout our country’s history there have been several groups who have fared less that great. Every minority group was treated unfairly, Indians were uprooted and had no control, I can’t imagine for a second being a soldier in combat, women struggled for basic rights, and many people fell victim to the changing ways of our economy, losing their jobs and fighting to survive. It seems wrong to pick one group over another, as if to say some people who were treated horribly or who faced mounting obstacles didn’t actually have it as bad as another group. But throughout all the years we’ve studied, one group that stood out to me who were dealt a horrible fate were Native Americans living in the west during the 19th century. When Americans began to expand westward, Indians unwillingly had their lives flipped upside down and changed drastically. After years of displacement, they were being forced to live in certain areas and follow certain rules, or risk their lives.
Considering historical evidence, the notion: Native –Americans was not the first inhabitant of America is a complete false. For centuries, history kept accurate and vivid accounts of the first set of people who domiciled the western hemisphere. Judging by those records, below are the first set of Native-American people who inhabited America before the arrival of another human race; the Iroquois: The Iroquois of Native Americans was one of the tribes that lived in America before other people came. Based on historical evidence, it is believed that the Native Americans came from Asia way back during the Ice Age through a land bridge of the Bering Strait. When the Europeans first set foot in America, there were about 10 million Native Americans
The Native Americans of the southeast live in a variety of environments. The environments range from the southern Appalachian Mountains, to the Mississippi River valley, to the Louisiana and Alabama swamps, and the Florida wetlands. These environments were bountiful with various species of plant and animal life, enabling the Native American peoples to flourish. “Most of the Native Americans adopted large-scale agriculture after 900 A.D, and some also developed large towns and highly centralized social and political structures.” In the first half of the 1600s Europeans encountered these native peoples. Both cultures encountered new plants, animals, and diseases. However, the Indians received more diseases compared to the few new diseases to the Europeans. The new diseases resulted in a massive loss of Native Americans, including the Southeast Indians which had never encountered the new diseases. Three of the main tribes in the southeast were the Cherokee and the Creek. They were part of a group of southeast tribes that were removed from their lands. These tribes later became known as “The Five Civilized Tribes because of their progress and achievements.”
Over the course of history, there have been many different views of Native Americans, or Indians, as many have referred to them. Some have written about them in a positive and respectful manner while others have seen them as pure evil that waged war and killed innocent men, women, and children. No matter what point of view one takes, though, one thing is clear and that is if it were not for these people the early settlers would not have survived their first year in the new land now called the United States of America. In short, it is my belief that the various authors’ viewpoints are simply a reflection of the circumstances of their particular situation. Nevertheless, one question remains: Were the Native Americans good or evil people?
Many races are unjustly victimized, but Native American cultures are more misunderstood and degraded than any other race. College and high school mascots sometimes depict images of Native Americans and have names loosely based on Native American descent, but these are often not based on actual Native American history, so instead of honoring Native Americans, they are being ridiculed. According to the article Warriors Survive Attack, by Cathy Murillo (2009) some “members of the Carpentaria community defended Native American mascot icons as honoring Chumash tradition and the spirit of American Indian Warriors in U.S. history and others claimed that the images were racist stereotypes” (Murillo, 2009). If people do not attempt to understand and respect Native American culture, then Native American stereotypes will become irreparable, discrimination will remain unresolved, and ethnocentrism will not be reprimanded.
When a person thinks of a “gang,” Native Americans are often not the first group of people that come to mind. Throughout the past 20 years however, Native American gangs have begun to draw attention to themselves. Though they often contrast their urban counterparts, Native gangs are a difficult force to be addressed by tribal leaders and authorities, as well as parents, and educators. Understanding such gangs is a difficult concept, using Native history and culture; this essay will provide insight into the emergence of Native gangs, as well as some prevention strategies taken on by the tribal communities.
Native American Relations During the numerous years of colonization, the relationship between the English settlers and the Native Americans of the area was usually the same. Native Americans would initially consider the settlers to be allies, then as time passed, they would be engaged in wars with them in a struggle for control of the land. This process of friendship to enemies seemed to be the basic pattern in the majority of the colonies. When the English landed in Jamestown in 1607, the dominant tribe of the area was the Powhatan (which the English settlers named after the leader of the tribe, Powhatan).
Over the history of our country Native Americas have long since been oppressed in trying to practice their Native Religions freely, and openly. It wasn’t until the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) of 1978, which “acknowledged the unique nature of Native spirituality” (Limb & Hodge, 2008, p. 618). This law stated that the policy of the United States would be to protect and preserve the right of Native Americans to believe and practice their traditional religions. This was the first major step in the United States history that sought to protect Native Americans and their rights to self-expression of spirituality.
Many people believe that Native Americans are a disadvantaged group of individuals in many ways. Culturally, in that many of the cultures of the various tribes across the Americas were taken from them by Europeans and their descendants. Socially, in that they are unlike other minorities in the United States because of their extra-constitutional status; and even medically, stemming from the general belief that Natives are at a higher risk for disease than other ethnicities due to tobacco and alcohol use, especially when used together (Falk, Hiller-Sturmhöfel, & Yi, 2006).
As Indians living in white culture, many problems and conflicts arise. Most Indians tend to suffer microaggressions, racism and most of all, danger to their culture. Their culture gets torn from them, and slowly, as if it was dream, many Indians become absorbed into white society, all the while trying to retain their Indian lifestyle. In Indian Father’s Plea by Robert Lake and Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, the idea that a dominant culture can pose many threats to a minority culture is shown by Wind-Wolf and Alexie.