A chapter from a new book by Gary R. Varner, "The Mysteries of Native American Myth & Religion."

Religion cannot be defined in simple terms. Religion is a complex set of beliefs, traditions, oral myths and history. It also is composed of ritual, attitudes, laws, lifestyles and one’s own undying curiosity of the origins of life and the events surrounding death.

The word “religion” comes from the Latin “religare” meaning, “to bind.” Religion then is the binding of man to nature and thusly to the Creator—however it is that we picture such a being. To live with this binding is to be in harmony. To disrupt this harmony is to create confusion and chaos.
All people have a concept of what, to them, constitutes the “holy.”

This “holy” is a personal and higher power that is beyond man and his understanding. The religion of the Native American is a non-verbal harmonization between man and nature. The Indian experienced the supernatural daily and this experience was a practical and functional one. Native Americans learned to live with time instead of against it.

This said, even indigenous people did not agree on religion or what it specifically meant to them. Some Native Americans abhorred farming since to them it was comparable to cutting one’s own mother open. The cosmos was not only a personal universe but a tribal one which compassed the essential concepts of renewal through the seasons. The seasons exemplified the sacred beginning and ending cycles of life.

The use of language in cultures where oral communication was paramount was often regulated by religion. Words are powerful and every word, every name, every phrase had its own power and had to be used sparingly and with responsibility. The usage of language drew upon the individuals own power.

The Cosmos

“Cosmos” is an all encompassing term to describe the universe—both the physical and the unseen. To Native Americans cosmos was a private universe, an area where one could enter life, live it and finally die. The circumference of this universe may have only been a few miles from the individual’s home.

Cosmos is an awareness of time, location and season. Combined it is an awareness of what can be considered God. In religion, Cosmos plays an important role in that it establishes definitions tangible to one’s lifestyle. It also gives a foundation to the broader view of religion. Everything must work within the cosmological order or chaos results. Native Americans believed that every individual must have and know his place in this order, which would enable him or her to communicate with nature. Cosmology, then, is an attempt to systematize the world. To this extent, the Native American succeeded.
Belief in the Soul and the Afterlife.

Nearly all indigenous people believe in the soul, or some variation, and most also developed concepts of the afterlife. The soul was regarded as the essence of a creature and the belief that all things in the world have life and a soul. Animism was a fairly universal concept that is still much in existence today.

The Luiseño Indians in Southern California, according to Moriarty, “recognize that there was something within the body that did not die with the flesh.” (1)

The Luiseño believed that when one died the soul went to a heavenly place ruled by Chinigchinix, the god. The Luiseño conceived of this heaven as a place similar to the terrestrial world that they lived in but with a sense that sadness and work were no longer evident. Another belief was that the soul would travel to heaven and become a new star in the night sky. In those cases where an individual died away from their traditional lands it was felt that Chinigchinix would decide if the soul was worthy to live on in heaven or not.

A broader view of the soul was held by the Algonquin. This northeastern people believed that every animal possessed a soul, which enabled even the birds and bears to have reasoning ability similar to man. The Creator imposed and limited this ability but the birds were thought to be able to see within the future and in this way they were aware of the inner workings of the universe.

The Dakota believed that an individual possessed four souls. According to J.W. Lynd, a 19th century ethnologist, these four souls included “a spirit of the body, which dies with the body. The second is a spirit which always remains with or near the body. Another is the soul which accounts for the deeds of the body, and is supposed by some to go to the south, by others west, after the death of the body. The fourth always lingers with the small bundle of the hair of the deceased, kept by the relatives until thrown into the enemies country, where it becomes a roving spirit, bringing death and disease.” (2)

According to Dakota tradition, the third soul was immortal, however this tribe did not have a defined idea as to where the soul eventually went to after death. Or perhaps it was not important.

The Mandan Indians of the plains believed that the soul returned to the subterranean world that was, according to mythology, the place of origin for the Mandan people.

The Assinniboin and Athapascan tribes believed that upon death the soul migrated toward the south where the climate was warm and the game abundant. The Assinniboin concept of hell was, naturally, the reverse of this. Hell was a land of perpetual ice and snow and a lack of everything desirable.

Hidatsa concepts of the afterlife were quite developed and are similar to the mythological concepts of the Greeks. Washington Matthews, a 19th century ethnologist, wrote in an 1877 study:

“When a Hidatsa dies his shade (soul) lingers four nights around the camp or village in which he died, and then goes to the lodge of his departed kindred in the village of the dead. When he arrives there he is rewarded for his valor, self denial, and ambition on earth by receiving the same regard in the one place as in the other; for there, as here, the brave man is honored and the coward despised.” (3)

Individuals who committed suicide also went to this afterworld but had to remain separated from the others—in a form of purgatory.

The Hidatsa concept of heaven is probably similar to the conceptions of other religions—life continues although somewhat altered. The souls of humans hunted and fed off the “shades” or souls of animals that had died on earth. A lifestyle exactly the same as the earthly one was maintained. This new world of the afterlife appeared little different except that the four seasons were reversed in their order.

In Virginia, the Sapona Indians believed in a supreme god and believed that upon death all souls were taken under guard to the “great road” where the good and evil souls traveled together until they reached a fork in the road. One lane of the road was level and clean, the other strewn with rocks, and mountainous. The good and bad souls eventually were separated by strikes of lightning. (4)

According to legend, the level road, the path on the right taken by the good souls lead to a “charming warm country” where time did not exist and the weather perpetually like May. The souls, upon reaching this land, lived much as they had on the earth with one exception: everything that was attempted was successfully accomplished. The animals were plentiful and fat. At the entryway to this land of plenty sat an old man who, like St. Peter, determined if the soul was worthy to enter.

The left path, covered with debris, lead to a land of perpetual hunger. A “bitter kind of potato” was the only source of food which gave the soul-body great ulcers. The land was covered with another miserable thing—an eternal blanket of snow. According to Sapona legend, the women who resided in this hell were all ugly and attacked the men constantly with their unbridled passions. To make things worse they could only communicate in shrill tones. The ruler of this afterworld was an ancient, ugly woman with serpent-like hair. It was her only duty to determine the various degrees and period of torture with the type and amount of torture given out depending on the amount of sins accumulated by the soul. If, after the period of torture was completed, the soul had repented of its crimes it was allowed to travel on to “the regions of bliss.”

Like the Sapona, the Natchez also had a very defined concept of the afterlife. They believed so strongly in a heaven with abundant feasting, dancing women and pleasure that the men willingly went to their deaths in battle so that they would enter this afterworld sooner. The Natchez also believed in a hell in which the soul was left naked and exposed to mosquitoes in a world water covered and food limited to spoiled fish.

The Chippewa (5) and many other tribes believed in the duality of the soul. This, they thought, accounted for the actions of the mind in the dream world. They denoted the duality with the terms “inaindum” for the mind and “otchichuag” for the soul. The ghost or apparition sometimes seen after an individual dies is called the “jebi”. These parts of the self were separate and functioned individually. Some Indians, however, believed that an individual was composed of two souls, one which remained with the body as the other roamed freely in the dream world.

The belief in animal souls was fairly common in both north and south American cultures. Because animals were believed to possess a soul certain proscribed steps had to be taken prior to hunting commencing. If an animal was killed in an “indecent manner,” it could report its death to other animals both living and dead since they shared a “common mind.” If the hunter had wronged the animal, no other animal would permit itself to be taken in this or the next world.

To the Aztecs all beasts and birds possessed souls. The souls of men killed in battle and those of women who died in childbirth were believed to ascend to heaven, to the House of the Sun, to reside with the Lord of Glory, living in happiness and ease. After four years, however, the souls returned to the earth in the forms of beautiful birds or as clouds. Those Aztecs not cremated, and thusly not receiving the final purification, had their souls confined to a “terrestrial paradise” (6) which was blissful but still separate from that in the House of the Sun.

The Tlascallan people had similar concepts of the souls survival except only the noble class would ever return to the earth in the form of beautiful, plumed birds. According to Tlascallan tradition, the common people could only return to the earth as insects. Tlascallan’s who died in disasters, of illness or accident were assured of an afterlife of “peace and pleasure” in the home of the god Haloc.

American Plains Indian concepts were a bit simpler. While an immortal soul was a given, concepts of awards or punishments in an afterworld were not entertained. The most common belief was that the soul would continue to exist in a world parallel to the earthly world.

The Pawnee’s belief system of an afterlife was included in their cosmological views. The Pawnee believed that some souls traveled to the heavens to become stars while other souls belong to those who died of illness or cowardice forever traveled the Milky Way from end to end. Of course, the chiefs, shamans and priests all ascended to a distant heavenly village.

To the Navajo the individual had both good and bad spirits that inhabited the body. (7) Both spirits were said to leave the body at death but neither was considered the true “essence” of the personality. After death, the good spirit was thought to go to a replica of its earthly existence in a subterranean world in the far north. While this existence was not particularly “heavenly”, it did provide for a continued existence in a comfortable environment.

Similar beliefs were held by the Hopi Indians of the American Southwest. This tribe believed in the immortality of the soul and that an afterlife was lived in a parallel world to that experienced on the earth during their lives. The soul was believed to live, work and play in the same manner as the individual had on earth. However, the soul was also thought to have the ability to float in the clouds and to bring rain to the physical world.

Animism

Animism is another conceptualization of the soul although one which is more general in its meaning. Many indigenous cultures, the Native Americans included, believed that every object on earth possesses a soul, a spirit or a life force. This is animism. Animism is the belief in the soul as independent of matter. Because of this belief in the many spirits on the earth, all objects took on personality traits, which played important roles in mythology.

The belief in animism appears to have been universal in scope among Native Americans and cultures elsewhere. The concept of the animistic soul was defined by Washington Matthews as the “shade” of the object, a spirit inhabiting every non-man made object.

The Hidatsa, like other tribes, viewed everything that was of natural origin such as rocks, trees, rivers, etc. as sacred and containing the spirit of divinity. They had a reverence for all things of nature and respected the importance that these objects played in their universe. The Hidatsa believed that these objects had a portion of the cosmological power and, because of this, everything was part of a common intelligence which could be called upon to assist the Indian at times of need in some aspects of their lives.

Recent studies in this field have indicated that a primordial form of life may, in fact, exist in every non-animate object including stones. Anthropologist Lyall Watson’s book The Nature of Things: The Secret Life of Inanimate Objects (8) is an excellent analysis of such phenomena. Watson speaks of an “organic bridge” which links mind and matter—even inanimate matter. The word “animism” is used disparagingly by many as a “primitive” notion, however this biased assumption may be far from the truth and indigenous people may have been right all along.

Shamanism

The word “shaman” is derived from the Tungus language of Siberia. The concept is fairly universal throughout the world. The shaman is a magi-priest, medicine man, sorcerer, prophet, jack-of-all supernatural trades. The shaman developed from a driving need for guidance and knowledge of the supernatural. The shaman, for all practical purposes, developed into the first psychiatric practitioner.

Religious historian Mircea Eliade makes a distinction between shamanism and other native religious practitioners. “Generally,” he wrote, “shamanism coexists with other forms of magic and religion. …Magic and magicians are to be found more or less all over the world, whereas shamanism exhibits a particular magical specialty…’mastery over fire,’ ‘magical flight,’ and so on. By virtue of this fact, though the shaman is, among other things, a magician, not every magician can properly be termed a shaman…every medicine man is a healer, but the shaman employs a method that is his and his alone.” (9)

Eliade further noted, “the practice of witchcraft may be as important a part of shamanism as the curing of disease or the charming of game in a communal hunt. We will designate the term of shamanism, then, all the practices by which supernatural power may be acquired by mortals, the exercise of that power either for good or evil, and all the concepts and beliefs associated with these practices.” (10)
In most tribes, the shaman was a highly respected individual who could shape the political structure of the society to his own liking by using his, or her, influence. The shaman was the sole authority on things which people could not understand. In many cases, the shaman was the sole force that held village society together.

After death, the shaman was responsible for conducting the soul to the afterworld through a set pattern of ritual. The cosmological concepts utilized for this task included the knowledge of the cosmos, the power of the universe and the power’s sacredness. These items became the structure in which the shaman worked.

While also venerated as a priest there is a definite distinction between a priest and a shaman. Priests were considered apart from the common people while shamans were considered equals until sought out for their particular power. Priests also held a specialized religious office which the shaman did not. Another distinction between the two was that the priest was concerned mostly with the rituals and items that affected the well-being of the total tribe or village while the shaman acted on a one-to-one basis with the individual tribal member.

A shaman was usually chosen because of dreams that he had which indicated specific divine favors or influences. Other factors which might have indicated the appropriateness of shamanic ability included neurotic tendencies or epileptic seizures—both being signs of divine choice.

The life expectancy of a shaman was fairly short, no more than thirty years for most, due perhaps to the tremendous psychological stress that became the shamans burden. In addition, the failure to cure an illness or to find a lost item could result in death at the hands of a dissatisfied customer.

Occasionally feuds would develop in tribes between the priests and the shamans who were considered “free lance” priests. In the Natchez tribe this was handled by the priests delegating certain small duties to the shaman with the places of worship, rituals and religious paraphernalia remaining in the priests control. The training involved in becoming a priest in Natchez society took many years and the shaman was not allowed to threaten the priests’ position in Natchez society. The position of the shaman was often hereditary, passed down in certain families. In some circumstances, the shaman could foreshadow the priesthood in influencing tribal society.

Eliade noted that in Asian societies “the chief methods of recruiting shamans are: (1) hereditary transmission of the shamanic profession and (2) spontaneous vocation (‘call’ or ‘election’). There are also cases of individuals who become shamans of their own free will…or by the will of the clan… But these ‘self-made’ shamans are considered less powerful than those who inherited the profession or who obeyed the ‘call’ of the gods and spirits.” (11) This was also true for Native American shamans.

The North West coast shamans shared a dual leadership with the village chief and, in some cases, both shaman and chief were of the same family or one individual held both positions.
The Wahpeton Dakota believed that shamans existed prior to their earthly existence. They lived alongside the “Thunderers” and had knowledge of future events and their own future, mortal lives. (12)

The shaman in Dakota society began their duties at an early age. It was believed that if they disobeyed their divine orders the Thunder Beings would punish or kill them. The shaman had to continuously exhibit their power to keep the respect and to hold on to their office. This was done through periodic and competitive “magic” exhibits before the whole village. These exhibitions varied in content with firewalking practiced by the Arapaho and Cheyenne, burning corn husks and boiling water handled by the Pawnee, and materialization of animals performed by the Crow, Mandan and Hidatsa. (13)

The most important aspect of the shaman’s powers was that of medicine. Under divine direction, one shaman might treat only pregnancy, another was gifted in the treatment of poisons, etc. Their curing powers were usually quite successful considering what they had to work with. The shaman’s ability to manipulate the power of suggestion undoubtedly accounted for much of their success.

Schoolcraft wrote in 1857 that the Dakota shamans were “always treated with the greatest respect, and generally furnished with the best of everything…there are from five to twenty-five of these men and women at each of the villages, most of whom have a fair and considerable employment…” (14)

Schoolcraft went on to say, “I do not believe that an individual Dakota can be found, who does not believe that [the shamans] can heal disease without the help of vegetable or mineral medicines.” (15)

The Dakota believed that the shamans were reincarnated four times, each time as a more powerful shaman until they were returned to the cosmos. After each death, the shaman’s spirit sought out a suitable expectant mother to enter and to be reborn among the people to continue with its divine purpose.

Contrary to Weston La Barre who believed that shamans were usually deviant to the extent of being “criminally insane”, or at least being “naïve believers to conscious manipulators,” (16) Schoolcraft wrote that the shaman’s power was “assumed by persons possessing more than ordinary mental capacity” although he acknowledged the shaman’s “art in practicing and concealing glaring deceptions.” (17)

Schoolcraft believed that no Indian hero ever reached that distinction without the aid of a shaman.


Notes

1. Moriarty, James Robert. Chinigchinix: An Indigenous California Indian Religion. Los Angeles: Southwest Museum 1969, 50.
2. Lynd, J.W. Religion of the Dakotas. Minn. Hist. Soc. Collection., ca. 1857, vol. 2, pt. 2., 68, 80.
3. Matthews, Washington. Ethnological and Philol. Of Hidatsa Indians. Washington: U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey, Misc. Publications #7, 1877, 49.
4. Byrd, William. History of the Dividing Line, Vol. 1, 1792 (reprinted 1866), 106-108.
5. Schoolcraft, Henry R. History of the Indian Tribes of the United States. New York: J.B. Lippincott & Co. 1857, 638.
6. Sejourne, Laurette. Burning Water. Vanguard Press 1956, 101.
8. Ferm, Vergilius, ed. Ancient Religions: A Symposium. New York: Philosophical Library 1950, 360.
9. Watson, Lyall. The Nature of Things: The Secret Life of Inanimate Objects. Rochester: Destiny Books 1992.
10. Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1964, 5.
11. Ibid, 298.
12. Ibid., 13.
13. Lowie, Robert H. Indians of the Plains. New York: Natural History Press 1954, 176.
14. Ibid., 177.
15. Schoolcraft, op cit. 657.
16. Ibid.
17. La Barre, Weston. The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion.. New York: Doubleday & Company 1970, 179.
18. Schoolcraft, op cit. 647.