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An Elder's Thoughts on the Perception of Native American Spirituality
It's very difficult for me to even write the words "Indian religion" and the phrase 'Native American Spirituality'. There is so much bunk on the subject that I feel incapable of making an impact on the misperceptions, the untruths, the fabrications, the bottomless hole of garbage that is everywhere....EVERYWHERE...on the world wide web on this subject.
What terrifies me is that school children are asked to report on this topic. I can see in my web statistics that they Google words like Indian religion, Native American Spirituality, ojibwa beliefs, eastern woodland indian religion, native myths, and Indian legends. These children...they probably run in age from 8 to 18 years...are expected to come back with a more or less definitive answer on this weighty theme.
They are asked to research and either fill in the blanks or write a sentence or two on Indian Religion or Ojibwa spirituality or perhaps the significance of the corn ceremony. In essence these are questions about what an entire continent full of people thought was a reasonable explanation for the existance of the universe, the relationship between humankind and their "god", the devotional and ritual observances associated with this explanation and perhaps a comment on the moral code governing the conduct between all those Indian folks.
If you go looking you'll see that there are no shortage of "answers".
I just read that there were either 1.2 million or up to 12 million people (depends on who did the counting, I guess) scattered across this continent when Europeans first came ashore.
In that context, can you tell me about Indian religion and North American Indian Spirituality?
What the heck...what follows isn't an answer...it's just an old woman's re-telling of stories she heard as a child.
- Native Legends and Indian Myths
I've noticed that native legends and Indian myths generally show up in storybooks.
This is good.
Kids can handle this stuff. I learned the myths and legends of the Ojibwa when I was a kid and it made sense to me.
You, on the other hand, may have difficulty understanding the Anishnabe mind if you've unconsciously plunked the notion of manitous, visions and native spirituality into a box called "Children's Literature".
- The Ojibwa Creation Story
- The Story of Turtle Island
- Vision Quest
This is an ever so brief explanation of what a vision quest meant to Ojibwa people in my youth. There's a HUGE amount of misinformation about this subject on the internet. This is not all I have to say about it, but it is what I am offering you now.
