Native American Religions

Native American religions, Native American faith or American Indian religions are the indigenous spiritual practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Ceremonial ways can vary widely and are based on the differing histories and beliefs of individual nations, tribes and bands. Early European explorers describe individual Native American tribes and even small bands as each having their own religious practices. Theology may be monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, shamanistic, pantheistic or any combination thereof, among others. Traditional beliefs are usually passed down in the oral tradition forms of myths, oral histories, stories, allegories, and principles. Nowadays, as scholars note, many American Natives are having a renewed interest in their own traditions.

Overview

Native American religions were prevalent in the pre-Columbian era, including state religions. Common concept is the supernatural world of deities, spirits and wonders, such as the Algonquian ''manitou'' or the Lakotaʼs ''wakan'', as well as Great Spirit, Fifth World, world tree, and the red road among many Indians.

Before the Christian influence, in most American religions was known High God—a supreme Creator and Teacher, such as the Inca god Viracocha in South America, or sky deity/Great Spirit who represents all other spiritual beings, for instance, the Pawnee god Tirawa in North America. The supreme beings closely associated with the World Tree, or world pole/pillar—the central cultic symbol in the great rites of the main regions especially of Northern America. Other traditional pre-Modern religious rites were hunting, gathering, planting, and war ceremonies.

During the 16th–21st centuries, Native American spirituality had numerous new indigenist revitalization movements that divided to fundamentalist and reform.

Generally fundamentalist movements favoured a return to traditional ways and rejected the changes brought by the modern states, in North America they include the Pueblo Revolt (1680s), the Shawnee Prophet Movement (1805–1811), the Cherokee Prophet Movement (1811–1813), the Red Stick War (1813–1814), White Path's Rebellion (1826), the Winnebago Prophet Movement (1830–1832), the first Ghost Dance (1869–1870) and the second Ghost Dance (1889–1890), and the Snake movements among the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Muscogee Creek Indians during the 1890s.

Generally syncretic reform movements include the Yaqui Religion (1500–present), the Longhouse Religion (1797–present), the Munsee Prophetess Movement (1804–1805), the Kickapoo Prophet Movement (1815–present), the Cherokee Keetoowah Society (1858–present), the Washat Dreamers Religion (1850–present), the Indian Shakers (1881–present), the Native American Church (1800s–present), the Shoshoni Sun Dance (1890–present), the New Tidings religion or '' Wocekiye'' of the Canadian Sioux (1900–present), and Ojibwe Drummer Movement (contemporary).

Beginning in the 1600s, European Christians, both Catholics and those of various Protestant denominations, sought to convert Native American tribes from their pre-existing beliefs to Christianity. After the United States gained independence in the late 1700s, its government continued to suppress Indigenous practices and promote forcible conversion. American and Canadian government agencies and religious organizations often cooperated in these forcible conversion efforts. In many cases, violence was used as a tool of suppression, as in the government's violent eradication of Ghost Dance and Sun Dance practitioners in 1890s. Thus, Canada lifted its prohibition against the practice of the Sun Dance full ceremony only in 1951.

By the turn of the 20th century, the American government began to turn to less violent means of suppressing Native American religious beliefs. A series of federal laws was passed banning traditional Indigenous practices such as feasts, Sun Dance ceremonies and the use of the sweat lodge, among others. This government persecution and prosecution officially continued until 1978 with the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), although it has been argued that the AIRFA had little real effect on the protection of Native religious beliefs.

Another significant system of religious suppression was the removal of Native American children from their families into a system of government-funded and church-operated American Indian boarding schools (also known as residential schools). In these schools, Native children were forced through violence and oppression to learn European Christian beliefs, the values of mainstream white culture, and the English language, while simultaneously being forbidden to speak their own languages and practice their own cultural beliefs. This system of forcible conversion and suppression of Indigenous languages and cultures continued through the 1970s.

Some non-Native anthropologists estimate membership in traditional Native American religions in the 21st century to be about 9000 people. Since Native Americans practicing traditional ceremonies do not usually have public organizations or membership rolls, these "members" estimates are likely substantially lower than the actual numbers of people who participate in traditional ceremonies. Native American spiritual leaders also note that these academic estimates substantially underestimate the numbers of participants because a century of US Federal government persecution and prosecutions of traditional ceremonies caused believers to practice their religions in secrecy. Many adherents of traditional spiritual ways also attend Christian services, at least some of the time, which can also affect statistics. Since the 80 years of those prior legal persecutions ended with AIRFA, some sacred sites in the United States are now protected areas under law.

Regional and pan-Native traditions

Alaska and Far North

The living in the North American Arctic and sub-Arctic Alaska Natives and many Indigenous peoples in Canada mainly practice hunter-gatherer religious cults. Traditional Alaskan shamanism involve mediation between people and spirits, souls, and other immortal beings.

Western North America

Western North America includes such cultural areas as Northwest Coast, Plateau, Great Basin, and a region of the Indigenous peoples of California.

Earth Lodge Religion

The Earth Lodge Religion was founded in northern California and southern Oregon tribes such as the Wintun

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