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How do traditional Native Americans explain
their beliefs?
Traditional Native Americans have had little interest in developing what is thought of
as religious doctrine. Their participation in nature and spirit
does not lend itself easily to standing apart and analyzing. Inherited
tradition, spiritual experiences of ordinary people and religious
specialists, judgment of the elders, and the welfare of the people all
interacted creatively in each generation to shape religious reality.
Spirituality was a fluid thing, responding to changes in a variety of
circumstances.
Significant dreams and visions played important roles in shaping beliefs.
The 19th century movement known as the Ghost Dance, culminating among the
Lakota in the massacre at Wounded Knee, originated in the west with one man's
vision of the white race's defeat and the buffalo's return. The 19th century
Iroquois prophet Handsome Lake almost singlehandedly halted the
disintegration of his people's religious traditions by his vision-led
institution of the Iroquois Longhouse religion. White Buffalo Calf Woman
appeared among the Lakota sometime after 1500 and reshaped their whole
approach to life.
Traditional Native American religion today has lost much of its fluidity.
Like many dispossessed peoples, Native Americans often look on what remains
of their original culture as infinitely precious -- too precious to risk
losing. In this way, tradition can harden into an inflexible shell of
traditionalism, no longer responsive to the people's experiences or to the
changes around them. However, as more Native Americans seek to recapture the
wisdom of past generations and apply it to their contemporary lives, their
traditions will have a greater chance of revival, as well as ongoing
transformation.
In academic terms, Native American spirituality may be described as
panentheism (deity/spirit present in, as well as beyond, everything). Such a
worldview assumes the existence of Spirit beyond the visible world, but also
dwelling in all that is. Words like animism (belief in spirits in natural
phenomena, such as trees, rocks, animals, fire) are commonly used to describe
Native American religion, but when one neglects to include the broader
presence of Spirit beyond physical nature, this explanation is incomplete.
The Lakota concept of Wakan Tanka (most frequently translated as Great
Spirit) illustrates panentheism well: Wakan Tanka is the Spirit over, under,
and throughout all of the physical world, its guiding principle, present in
individual phenomena yet not confined to it, not strictly singular nor
plural, neither truly personal nor impersonal. Manitou/manitos of the
Algonkians is a similar concept.
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Additional pages on doctrine
Buddhist Doctrine
Christian Doctrine
Islamic Doctrine
Judaic Doctrine
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