Native American religion isn’t actually a unified religion They saw the world as filled with spiritual powers, and the Shaman was their spiritual leader. They all generally believed in a great spirit and the animal spirits were considered elders. They lived with the land versus living off the land, and their culture lives on today.
“Honor the sacred.
Honor the Earth, our Mother.
Honor the Elders.
Honor all with whom we share the Earth:
Four-leggeds, two-leggeds, winged ones,
Swimmers, crawlers, plant and rock people.
Walk in balance and beauty.”
Native American Elder
Native American religion isn’t actually a unified religion. In a sense, there both were and were not multiple faiths in the United States before the arrival of European culture. Many facets of it have been observed to parallel the now defunct Chinese religion of Bon, similar to Japanese Shintoism. It is basically Asian Shamanism. This is where they came from, Asia, and archaeological as well as anthropological studies support that. The split between Native American beliefs and Chinese paganism is sort of amazing in that its origin was prehistoric, but much was still maintained. There were multiple creation/advent stories across… Seek More
The Native American culture has differing origin/creation stories. They all generally believed in a great spirit and the animal spirits were considered elders. Humans were seen as young in the world, but to their view animals were spirits, not necessarily confined to looking as they seem to obviously, and the line between human and animal wasn’t drawn. So they might speak of Grandfather Coyote, and they would mean it believing that their people had descended from the time of creation from the spirit coyote. They perceived themselves as part of the natural order and not separate from it as is the… Seek More
Can you go into the origins of the tobacco and spirit offering in Native American culture? Tobacco was considered a powerful spirit. It was considered to have the power to enliven the one smoking it, and even modern research has shown that nicotine after it’s metabolized has an anti-psychotic effect. And cannabis? The Native Americans used that too. Plant spirits were show as much respect as animal. It was believed that if tobacco was shown respect in the smoking ceremony, or when left as an offering, it would be willing to give its power as an intercession with an offended… Seek More
