Native North American Religious Traditions: Dancing for Life Book

Prologue     xiii
General Considerations     1
Introduction     3
Prelude     3
Dancing for Life     3
Native North American Religious Traditions     5
Common Features     7
The Number Four     7
Reciprocity     9
Tobacco and Other Sacred Herbs     10
Experiential Religion     12
Western Perceptions     14
No Religion: The Heathen Savage     15
Animism, Totemism, and Other Nineteenth-Century Fallacies     16
The Noble Savage     19
New Age Hucksters     19
Further Considerations     21
Esotericism     21
Suppression and Secrecy     23
"Stealing Religion"     24
Avoidance of Photographs and Recordings     25
From Past to Present     27
Native Traditions before Contact     28
North and Northeast     29
Great Lakes and Midwest     30
Southeast and Mississippi and Ohio River Basins     31
Mississippi and Ohio River Basins     33
Plains and Plateau     35
Northwest Coast     36
Southwest, GreatBasin, and Southern California     37
Far South and Caribbean     41
From Contact to Reservations     42
Reservations and Enforced Christian Conversion     46
Revitalization of Native Traditions     51
Theology     57
Cosmogony and the Influence of Christianity     58
The Environment as Numinous     67
Ancestral and Other Spirits of the Dead     72
Culture Heroes and "Tricksters"     75
Ceremonies from a Variety of Traditions     79
Great Lakes and Northeast     81
Anishnabe Religion: Modernization of Gathering-Hunting Spiritualit     81
The Haudenausaunee: From Horticulture-Hunting to Agriculture     87
Southwest and Southeast     93
Dine Menarche Rituals: Celebrating Female Spiritual Power     93
Navajo Kinaalda     95
Apache Sunset Dance     97
Muskogee Green Corn Ceremony: Continuing an Agricultural Tradition     100
Plains     105
Missouri Basin Horticulture-Hunting Complex: Twinning Corn and Bison     105
Nitsitapi Bundle Ceremonies: The Effects of Horse Nomadism     109
Northwest Coast     117
Potlatch: Religious Heart of Coastal Traditions      117
Makah Whale Hunt: Continuing Persecution of Native Religion     123
Pan-Indian Rituals     131
Circumpolar Rituals     131
Spirit ("Sweat") Lodge     132
Binding Rituals: "Shaking Tent" and Yuwipi     139
Regional Pan-Indian Rituals     144
Thirst ("Sun") Dance     144
Dance Drums and the Powwow     148
The Sacred Pipe: Ritual of Adoption     152
Native American Church (Peyote Religion)     158
Epilogue     163
Notes     167
Further Reading     173
References     181
Index     183
About the Author     191