The Spiritual Legacy Of The American Indian

This book offers fascinating insights into the world of the pre-reservation Indians. It is a collection of classic essays that examines the universal characteristics of American Indian culture and tradition. This new edition also offers a personal view of Dr. Brown's life and research through his private correspondence from his time on the reservation and sheds insights into his relationship with old time Indian leaders including the legendary Sioux Medicine Man Black Elk.

In this collection of essays, the chief components of Indian religions and our perceptions of them are treated in sensitive manner.

Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians by John Wesley Powell is about the various myths in Native American culture. Excerpt: "The wonders of the course of nature have ever challenged attention. In savagery, barbarism, and civilization alike, the mind of man has sought the explanation of things. The movements of the heavenly bodies, the change of seasons, the succession of night and day, the powers of the air, majestic mountains, ever-flowing rivers, perennial springs, the flight of birds, the gliding of serpents, the growth of trees, the blooming of flowers, the forms of storm-carved rocks, the mysteries of life and death, the institutions of society—many are the things to be explained."

Star Mounds is a full-color illustrated study of the precolonial monuments of the greater Ohio Valley, woven together with over fifty "medicine stories" inspired by Native American mythology that demonstrate the depth of the knowledge held by indigenous peoples about the universe they lived in. The earthworks of the region have long mystified and intrigued scholars, archeologists, and anthropologists with their impressive size and design. The landscape practices of pioneer families destroyed much of them in the 1700s, but, during the first half of the 1800s, some serious mapmaking expeditions were able to record their locations. Utilizing many nineteenth-century maps as a base—including those of the gentlemen explorers Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis—author Ross Hamilton reveals the meaning and purpose of these antique monuments. Together with these maps, Hamilton applies new theories and geometrical formulas to the earthworks to demonstrate that the Ohio Valley was the setting of a manitou system, an interactive organization of specially shaped villages that was home to a sophisticated society of architects and astronomers. The author retells over fifty ancient stories based on Native American myth such as "The One-Eyed Man" and "The Story of How Mischief Became Hare" that clearly indicate how knowledgeable the valley's inhabitants were about the constellations and the movement of the stars. Finally, Hamilton relates the spiritual culture of the valley's early inhabitants to a kind of golden age of humanity when people lived in harmony with the Earth and Sky, and looks forward to a time when our own culture can foster a similar "spiritual technology" and life-giving relationship with nature.

Teaching Spirits offers a thematic approach to Native American religious traditions. Through years of living with and learning about Native traditions across the continent, Joseph Epes Brown learned firsthand of the great diversity of the North American Indian cultures. Yet within this great multiplicity, he also noticed certain common themes that resonate within many Native traditions. These themes include a shared sense of time as cyclical rather than linear, a belief that landscapes are inhabited by spirits, a rich oral tradition, visual arts that emphasize the process of creation, a reciprocal relationship with the natural world, and the rituals that tie these themes together. Brown illustrates each of these themes with in-depth explorations of specific native cultures including Lakota, Navajo, Apache, Koyukon, and Ojibwe. Brown was one of the first scholars to recognize that Native religions-rather than being relics of the past-are vital traditions that tribal members shape and adapt to meet both timeless and contemporary needs. Teaching Spirits reflects this view, using examples from the present as well as the past. For instance, when writing about Plains rituals, he describes not only building an impromptu sweat lodge in a Denver hotel room with Black Elk in the 1940s, but also the struggles of present-day Crow tribal members to balance Sun Dances and vision quests with nine-to-five jobs. In this groundbreaking work, Brown suggests that Native American traditions demonstrate how all components of a culture can be interconnected-how the presence of the sacred can permeate all lifeways to such a degree that what we call religion is integrated into all of life's activities. Throughout the book, Brown draws on his extensive personal experience with Black Elk, who came to symbolize for many the richness of the imperiled native cultures. This volume brings to life the themes that resonate at the heart of Native American religious traditions.

This book tells the gripping story of New England's Natives' efforts to reshape their worlds between the 1670s and 1820 as they defended their land rights, welcomed educational opportunities for their children, joined local white churches during the First Great Awakening (1740s), and over time refashioned Christianity for their own purposes.

Fusing myriad primary and secondary sources, historian Larry Cebula offers a compelling master narrative of the impact of Christianity on the Columbian Plateau peoples in the Pacific Northwest from 1700 to 1850. ø For the Native peoples of the Columbian Plateau, the arrival of whites was understood primarily as a spiritual event, calling for religious explanations. Between 1700 and 1806, Native peoples of the Columbian Plateau experienced the presence of whites indirectly through the arrival of horses, some trade goods by long-distance exchange, and epidemic diseases that decimated their population and shook their faith in their religious beliefs. Many responded by participating in the Prophet Dance movement to restore their frayed links to the spirit world. ø When whites arrived in the early nineteenth century, the Native peoples of the Columbian Plateau were more concerned with learning about white people's religious beliefs and spiritual power than with acquiring their trade goods; trading posts were seen as windows into another world rather than sources of goods. The whites? strange appearance and seeming immunity to disease and the unique qualities of their goods and technologies suggested great spiritual power to the Native peoples. But disillusionment awaited: Catholic and Protestant missionaries came to teach the Native peoples about Christianity, yet these white spiritual practices failed to protect them from a new round of epidemic disease. By 1850, with their world devastatingly altered, most Plateau Indians had rejected Christianity

This is Charles Eastman's fascinating study of the religious and spiritual life of the Indian people. The book brings a reader 100 years back to the Dakota people. He explores the Dakota believes in God, the Great Mystery, ceremonies, symbolism, the moral code, and much more.

Writing from a Native American perspective, theologian Tinker probes American Indian culture, its vast religious and cultural legacy, and its ambiguous relationship to the tradition--historic Christianity--that colonized and converted it. He offers novel proposals about cultural survival and identity, sustainability, and the endangered health of Native Americans.