17 - American Indian Religions in America, 1790–1945

Summary

A history of American Indian religions in America must first acknowledge that Indian religious experience is different from the practices of the organized religions that are generally studied in American history. Indian religions are place based, drawing spiritual power from specific aspects of the landscape. Their senses of spirituality come from an intimate relationship between humans and forces in the environment – winds, storms, the movements of animals, the flow of rivers, and significant rock formations in the landscape, because rocks may represent events that occurred in the formation of their worlds. In this sense religion is a part of life, and environment is the source of spirituality.

Given the widely varying environments in which Indians lived throughout North America in 1790, however, ideas about spirituality took greatly varying forms. Among the hunting people of the Great Plains, men established their individual identities by seeking visions in isolated places and demonstrated their powers in warfare and hunting. Pueblo peoples in their agriculturally based societies believed that humans have a causal role in maintaining the world. Their ceremonial cycles promoted human fertility and growth of crops.

This sense of human agency, the ability of human beings to influence the forces of the natural world, is a defining characteristic of native religions and one of the causes of conflict in the encounters of Christian missionaries with native people in the new American nation. One manifestation of individual power that affects other humans is the practice of witchcraft.