Native Religions of North America: The Power of Visions and Fertility

Náboženské tradice světa #8

by Åke Hultkrantz

The diversity and continuities in American Indian spirituality! The religious life of Native Americans is a panorama featuring an immense diversity of beliefs, ceremonies, and ways of life. Native Religions of North America reflects this rich tradition as it admirably distills a complex subject in a practical and engaging manner. Through concise expression and careful choice of examples, Hultkrantz identifies the diversity and continuities in American Indian spirituality. He introduces the hunters and farmers, the past and present, and the physical contexts and the sublime speculations of tribal religions, even the subtle shades of meaning within an Indian community.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Native American, History, Anthropology, Philosophy

144 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1988

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a problematic read for me. I'll put aside Ake Hultkrantz's use of such descriptive words as "peculiar", "bewildering", "simple", and "primitive" for the religions of North America. I'll pretend he didn't actually write that native religions are "wild and disorganized like birds" and that he didn't put quotation marks around "philosophy" when speaking of the philosophies of native North America. In addition, I'll try and stay open about how he was apparently regarded as one of the foremost experts on native american religions even though he's a Swedish man and only did field work with the Wind River Shoshone (whom he degrades in favor of the Zuni) to make this allegedly "groundbreaking" work.

To the meat of the issue.

On page 70 he says that the center pole of the Shoshone Sun Dance is "obviously a cultic replica of the World Tree." See, he's not even allowing the Shoshone their own human agency, instead equating the lodge pole with the World Tree. It's at about this time I looked up who he was and found out he's a Swede. This clued me in to why he holds some of the basic premises he does, such as equating whole religions to climate zones i.e. circumboreal and circumpolar religions, and the idea of a World Tree (the most famous world tree being Yggdrasil of the Norse/Icelandic myths). His European Christian interpretation of the symbolism is devoid of deeper meaning and hides the rich traditional cosmological symbolism according to which the Sun Dance lodge, with all its details, is a microcosmic representation of the world.

His main theme of the book is contrasting the "hunter culture" of the Shoshone and the "agrarian culture" of the Zuni. His argument being that hunters have primitive personal religions and agricultural/horticultural people have collectivist religions. He's basically assuming some sort of religious social Darwinism. Check it, so personal religions grant access to everyone. Collectivist religions create priesthoods which subvert the individual connection. Indeed, looking at the "world religions" that Hultkrantz can't help but incessantly glorify, individual connection is the trend. Latin being replaced by the colloquial languages, ordained females, literacy, the Ummah of Islam expanding from the Hejaz and then even beyond the Khorasan, imams instead of a priesthood. Fuck it. Fuck this book. It's such bullshit.

[booksofthedead]

"All religions tend to be conservative, because their sacred authority lies in the sanctity of the past... At the same time most religions remain open to the personal experiences of the spiritual world. The balance between faithfulness to tradition and openness to new experience is what constitutes the religious life."

I am so happy I've read this book. This is exactly the kind of book I was looking for: one that is informative, well-paced and objective. Oftentimes when reading about religions, it is easy to feel preached at. Many religion books portray said religion to be either absolutely horrible or without flaw. Most books in this realm have an agenda and that agenda involves putting down other beliefs. This book, however, did no such thing. Hultkrantz's only agenda was to inform the reader of Native American religions. And inform me, he did.

This is a fascinating trace through general Native American religions with a focus on two in particular: the Shoshoni - a hunting religion - and the Zuni - a horticultural religion. The author did a magnificent job of showing how both descended from a circumpolar hunting mindset, but branched off to become their own entities. The reader gets an in-depth view into the fluid religion of the Shoshoni and the complex religion of the Zuni and it is really a remarkable journey. I especially loved reading about how certain ceremonies have changed since the introduction of Catholicism and how they're still changing today, including new religions like Peyotism.

Hultkrantz is aware of his reader and never once tries to overwhelm you with too much information. Although this is a book centered around the religion of Native Americans, he also throws out some information on their culture and linguistics. I found this quote to be particularly fascinating:

"Some [Native American] languages lack terms for the past and the future; everything is resting in the present."

Hultkrantz presents the readers with the mythology of the religions focused on in this overview and then their ceremonies that either conflict with the mythology (like the Shoshoni) or use the mythology as justification for their ceremonies (like the Zuni). I really loved that he decided to single out two very different religions to focus on in this book to show the reader that through all of their differences, there is a lot of similarities as well.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in religion or anthropology.

[Min · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is rather painful collection of accounts from the colonial, and missionary period, along with conjectures that I believe are now considered out-dated regarding Land Bridge cultures. The examples are all old, and misinterpretations by outsiders that use terminology such as superstition, savage, and naive to describe the beliefs. Often discussing tribes that may no longer exist. Several times, the beliefs are examined with a very Monotheistic/ Christian lens which speaks of their beliefs as 'simple', or 'undeveloped' for "lacking" a creator god, creation story, afterlife stories, or a discernible cosmology. Much is spoken in the past tense, as if there are no longer any more Native Americans to tell their own story.

When discussing the tribes of Central, and South America, there is an improved treatment, quoting modern, primary sources, however, still making comparisons to Christianity.
The modern North American tribes are finally discussed in their modern form within the last chapter, at the very end.
The other works in this series were respectful of the subjects, and modern accounts.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two dominant strands of religion existed in North America. First was the religion of the hunting tribes. These emphasised the carnivore spirits and Father Sun which tended toward individual empowerment. Second was the agricultural religion which emphasized the plant and tree spirits along with Mother Earth. This tended toward a collective empowerment. There was thus, no ability to reconcile the one and the many. Neither maintained a written record of history because life was viewed as cyclical. The result of a cyclical view of life is the deninal of purpose as well as any hope of progress and direction for history. This left the Native American without hope, and the dominant religious trait became the Peyote Cult (drug cult) that abandoned life and meaning all together.

[Brianna Vasquez · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read this book for a class and enjoyed it (when I knew nothing). The use of degrading words such as “primitive” hurt even then, but now I know even more and fuck this book. It’s too general to understand much of anything. He doesn’t give you a good idea about what period in time he’s referring to so it’s a slurry of vague ideas about Native Americans from the POV of a white ass dude.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of two Native American religions, from an outsider's perspective, with emphasis on theories of these religions' historical development in context of other North American and world religions. The author was clearly tasked with summarizing all native North American religions in this one little booklet, as part of a series, and I like the way he resisted the temptation and instead focused on just two tribes' religions.

[Maxfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great overview, and some good tracing of the spread of religious ideas through migration and interaction.

[Allison6876 · Rating 4 out of 5]

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