Native American Religions

B

2

Trickster Myths

It was common for creation myths to be intertwined with other mythic themes. For example, emergence stories often included an earth-diver sequence, and young women who married stars in myths in many cases later fell from the sky to give birth to their heroic offspring. Tricksters played a prominent role in this body of lore. These figures were often depicted as solitary coyotes, hares, or ravens, and almost invariably they were male. They represented the chaotic elements within the cosmos, the pleasure-seeking instincts within the moral order.

One famous trickster is the figure of Coyote. In the Navajo story of creation, the Holy Persons methodically placed stars in the sky and plants on the earth. Coyote came along and scattered these elements about, creating the world as it exists today. Coyote also kidnapped the Water Monster's baby and caused a great flood, which brought human beings to the surface world. He seduced a virtuous maiden and taught her witchcraft. He caused disagreements and fights, and for every act he performed, he had a partially plausible justification. Coyote is also widely credited with ensuring the finality of death.

Despite their creative energy, Native American tricksters such as Coyote were regarded as negative examples. They were viewed as antisocial braggarts, bungling imitators, troublemakers, and buffoons. For instance, although the Ojibwa trickster Winabojo functioned partially as a cultural hero—stealing fire for human use, taming the dangerous winds, perfecting the strategies that made successful hunting possible—he also brought about the great flood by killing too many animals and thereby angering the spirits who were their protectors. Frequently, his helpful creativity was seen as an accident, such as when he dashed madly through the brambles but made nutritious berries from his blood.

IV

After European Contact

With the coming of Europeans to North America, Native Americans experienced a series of dislocations from which they are still struggling to recover. Foreign invaders overran their territories and claimed sovereignty over their communities, diseases ravaged their populations, and their environments were drastically altered. In many cases, Native Americans were forcibly removed from their aboriginal homelands and livelihoods, with the result that indigenous cultures underwent rapid change. In the midst of these crises, as Native Americans turned to their own religious traditions to understand and ease their plight, missionaries attempted to convert them from their traditional religions to Christianity.

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A

Christianity

Tens of thousands of Native Americans now identify Christianity as their traditional religion. Their families have heard Christian stories, sung Christian hymns, seen Christian iconography, and received Christian sacraments for generations. In the mid-1990s, more than two-thirds of Native Americans characterized themselves at least nominally as Christians. Others have combined Christian beliefs and practices with their native religions or have practiced two faiths—Christian and native—side by side but separately. In many cases, Native Americans have reshaped Christianity, assimilating Jesus Christ as a cultural hero and interpreting Holy Communion as a medicine. In other cases, the forms of native religions have been retained while their contents have been thoroughly Christianized.

B

Native Movements

Contact with Christians proved traumatic for Native American religions, as both civil and religious authorities attempted to repress native spirituality and force conversion. Over the past three centuries, this attempt has provoked the rise of various native religious movements.

B

1

Prophets and Messiahs

Movements of nativism (the assertion of traditional values in the face of foreign encroachment) and revitalization (the revival of traditional culture, often involving explicit rejection of European civilization) have arisen, led by Native American prophets who claimed to have received revelation from the aboriginal deities, often in dreams and visions. These prophets have frequently shown evidence of Christian influence in their moral codes, their missionary zeal, and their concern for personal redemption and social improvement. Sometimes their teachings have led to military advances against European invaders. For example, in the early 1760s the Delaware prophet Neolin helped inspire the rebellion of Ottawa warrior Pontiac against the British. Similarly, the preaching of Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa bolstered the military efforts of his brother Tecumseh against the United States Army between 1808 and 1813. The revivals of preachers such as the Iroquois Handsome Lake in 1799 and the Salish John Slocum in 1882 spawned new religions—part native, part Christian—that have endured in their respective communities to the present day.

One of the most prolonged Native American uprisings took place in the Southwest under the leadership of a Tewa medicine man named Pop, who in 1680 led the various indigenous peoples of present-day New Mexico in a rebellion against Spanish missionaries and conquistadors. The Native Americans drove the Spanish out and kept them at bay for more than a decade. During the Spanish reconquest, the Hopi burned one of their own villages and killed its converted inhabitants rather than allow the reestablishment of Christianity as the official religion. To this day the Hopi pueblos, or villages, resist the influence of Christian religions, although some Hopi have been attracted to the Mormon faith. In hundreds of other cases, indigenous peoples of North America have defied Christian control or endured its presence with only apparent compliance.

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