The indigenous American tribes were heterogeneous and lacked a universal concept of God. Each tribe had its unique way of maintaining order through different religious practices and cultural customs. These religious ceremonies taught the social rules of social life such as marriage, sharing of resources and good morality among the different tribes (Wright & Hill, 1986).
Common practices and beliefs
The indigenous religions did not believe in death, heaven or hell. It however maintained the sanctity of life and health through common traditional religious ceremonies and rites of passage such as birth, adulthood, marriage and death. A kinship relationship between nature and human life forms. For example, the naming ceremonies involved the passing down of names from ancestors to grandchildren. The indigenous American tribes believed that the naming rituals reincarnated the soul of the dead ancestor into the new born baby.
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Such belief systems also provided a connection between the ancestors and future generations. This gave more importance to sacred sites such as forests, burial sites and worship objects. Some of the protected indigenous religious sites recognized by United States include the Devils Tower National monument and the Northwest Indian Cemetery (Collins, 2002). These sacred sites and shrines acted as worship sites and were believed to contain spiritual energy, supernatural powers and ancestral spirits.
Culture and social glue
Traditional celebrations were important aspects of these indigenous religious ceremonies. Culture was greatly rooted in these religious rituals. This sort of information was considered sacred and passed from one generation to another through initiation ceremonies or rites of passage. For example, the shamans were consulted because of their spiritual powers in order to transcend the spirit world and find out why there was a failure in war or a poor harvesting season. The second most important status in the Theloel tribe was the leader of the warriors. He was considered deity and related to the god sun. He was considered to possess spiritual powers that enabled him deflect bullets during war.
These Cultural traditions were also passed from one generation to another through oral narratives, stories, riddles, songs and dance. The awareness of these cultural beliefs was taught through these religious ceremonies and initiation processes. For example, the age group initiation ceremonies involved teachings of social responsibility to boys on how to behave as adults. This included the ability to provide food for their families, win wars and become successful hunters.
Desirable relationships and behaviors
Some of the desirable traits propagated in these traditional rites of passage included loyalty, generosity and cooperation. They gave more importance to communal living, social responsibilities and kinship. For example, the traditional religious ceremonies called Potlatches ensured that everyone had equal access to food and natural resources such as water sheds. For example, the Kwakiutis tribe in North America organized each other depending on their kin or family relationships (Stebbins, 2015). Kin members honored each other by sharing the food and resources of war in their possession. This sharing of foods and resources ensured the survival of all tribe members.
The communities also worked together in the acquisition of resources and activities such as hunting, war or harvesting. While warriors hunted as a group, they also helped in the harvesting of crops and the building of houses. A successful hunting or warring period was characterized by rituals and traditional religious ceremonies.
The utilization of ritual, symbol, and myth
The oral stories carried spiritual and moral connotations to them thus providing guidelines for societal living and moral awareness. Myth stories were deeply spiritual because they involved supernatural powers and the communication between the deities and humans. For example, the Zuni, Hopi are some of the Native American tribes that utilized masks in their story telling process. These masks represented the ancestral spirits who attended their religious ceremonies. These mask wearers were believed to be possessed by the spirits of the ancestors or gods that they wore. Most of these indigenous religions believed that spiritual beings were able to animate themselves into animals and other natural life forms .
Children were given small idols in order to remind them of some of the moral lessons that guided these communities. Any deviations from these cultural norms were punishable by the great deity. For example, the false face mask of Flint was scarred and distorted in order to remind the community members of one of the sons of Sky Woman who attempted to trick his twin brother in a sapling contest (Stebbins, 2015).
References
Collins, R. B. (2002). Sacred sites and religious freedom on government land. U. Pa. J. Const. L. , 5 , 241.
Stebbins, S. (2015). Native Peoples of North America.
Wright, R. M., & Hill, J. D. (1986). History, ritual, and myth: Nineteenth century millenarian movements in the Northwest Amazon. Ethnohistory , 31-54.
