04-Primal Native American.pptx

Primal Religion, Dann May, 2002 GENERAL FEATURES OF PRIMAL / PRE-LITERATE RELIGIONS 1. Interconnectedness / inter-relatedness of all things (To all my relations). 2. Religion as a way of life 3. Awe before the sacred 4. Veneration and worship of powers 5. Recognition of distant high god 6. Rites of passage – changes in social status 7. Purification rites 8. Importance of myths and sacred narratives 9. Animism: all living things have a soul The Circle of Right Relationships Children from the Elfe Pygmies of the Democratic Re-public of Congo play the “circle game” where one names a circular object and then explains an expres-sion of roundness like the family circle. (Fisher, p. 38) The Web of Relationships A Lac de Flambaeu dream-catcher meant for a child. Northern Wisconsin GENERAL FEATURES OF PRIMAL /OR PRE-LITERATE RELIGIONS 10. Mana: spiritual power 11. Divination 12. Totemism 13. Attitudes toward the dead 14. Collective Prayer 15. Shamanism: 1st religious specialists The Shaman or Medicine Man Aranda shaman of Central Australia; below a Tingiari ceremonial bark painting The Shaman or medicine man An Eastern Siberian Yakut shaman beating his single-headed drum as a preparation for passing into trance. The Shaman or medicine man The Yakut shaman Tulayev wearing his reindeer-leather swan outfit. Eagle-owl feathers on his shoulders are his “wings.” Photographed c. 1927, Eastern Siberia GENERAL FEATURES of NATIVE AMERICAN RELIGIONS Primary Rituals which form a circum-polar religious complex and were used to contact the spirit world. 1. Vision Quest (Lakota, hanbleceya) and other similar puberty rites of passage. 2. Sweat Lodge (Lakota, inipi, “stone-people- lodge”) 3. Offering tobacco: tobacco was grown and harvested only for religious purposes (1 of 4 sacred herbs). 4. Reverence, respect, and honor of the sacred or holy E.g., Wakan Tanka (Lakota, “Great mystery”): the creative and mysterious f