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How do traditional Native Americans explain
their beliefs?

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Traditional Native Americans have had little interest in developing what is thought of as religious doctrine. Their participation in nature and spirit does not lend itself easily to standing apart and analyzing. Inherited tradition, spiritual experiences of ordinary people and religious specialists, judgment of the elders, and the welfare of the people all interacted creatively in each generation to shape religious reality. Spirituality was a fluid thing, responding to changes in a variety of circumstances. <o:p></o:p> Significant dreams and visions played important roles in shaping beliefs. The 19th century movement known as the Ghost Dance, culminating among the Lakota in the massacre at Wounded Knee, originated in the west with one man's vision of the white race's defeat and the buffalo's return. The 19th century Iroquois prophet Handsome Lake almost singlehandedly halted the disintegration of his people's religious traditions by his vision-led institution of the Iroquois Longhouse religion. White Buffalo Calf Woman appeared among the Lakota sometime after 1500 and reshaped their whole approach to life. <o:p></o:p> Traditional Native American religion today has lost much of its fluidity. Like many dispossessed peoples, Native Americans often look on what remains of their original culture as infinitely precious -- too precious to risk losing. In this way, tradition can harden into an inflexible shell of traditionalism, no longer responsive to the people's experiences or to the changes around them. However, as more Native Americans seek to recapture the wisdom of past generations and apply it to their contemporary lives, their traditions will have a greater chance of revival, as well as ongoing transformation. <o:p></o:p> In academic terms, Native American spirituality may be described as panentheism (deity/spirit present in, as well as beyond, everything). Such a worldview assumes the existence of Spirit beyond the visible world, but also dwelling in all that is. Words like animism (belief in spirits in natural phenomena, such as trees, rocks, animals, fire) are commonly used to describe Native American religion, but when one neglects to include the broader presence of Spirit beyond physical nature, this explanation is incomplete. The Lakota concept of Wakan Tanka (most frequently translated as Great Spirit) illustrates panentheism well: Wakan Tanka is the Spirit over, under, and throughout all of the physical world, its guiding principle, present in individual phenomena yet not confined to it, not strictly singular nor plural, neither truly personal nor impersonal. Manitou/manitos of the Algonkians is a similar concept.      How do traditional Native Americans seek closeness/union with Spirit?

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For traditional Native Americans, there is no separation between the sacred and the ordinary. Every act, every thought, walks hand-in-hand with Spirit. The hunting of a beast for food is a dialogue between the hunter and the spirit of the animal. Agriculture is an honoring of the spirits of the plants and the fruitfulness of the earth. Human sexuality mirrors and participates in the masculine and feminine forces present in all the earth and the skies beyond. For traditional Native American religion, almost every act could be considered ritual, since each act is consciously tied to Spirit.

How can this be? For Native Americans (like primal or earth-based religions all around the world) the world of spirit and the world of physical appearances lie close together, intersecting at innumerable points, neither distinct from the other. Actions in the everyday world impact the spirit world -- things done in the spirit world impact this world. At the Niman Kachina rituals of the Hopi, men put on wooden likenesses of the spirit-kachinas and enact their return to their homeland, where the kachinas watch over the Hopi, bringing rain and good fortune until their reappearance among the people several months later. Do these costumed dancers believe the masks possess them so that they become the kachinas? Or are they acting "as if" this were so? The answer is both and neither: Such an either-or does not exist in Native American thought. To participate in ritual dance is to walk in both worlds simultaneously.

Yet what is true of dance is also true of daily life: Everything has the same sacred over/underlay. Religion and life are one thing. The Woodlands hunter who whispers ritual apologies and blessings to the spirit of the dying deer walks in this space. The Lakota who pierces his flesh, attaching himself physically to the spirit-symbol of the sundance pole, dances in two worlds. Southeastern peoples "going to water" are opening doors between the two worlds as widely as they can so that the focused rituals that follow will have their intended effect. All across Native America, sweat lodges bring participants into the womb of earth to be cleansed, reborn, reconnected with the web of life afresh. Any action in life can begin a kind of spirit dance between a person and the object acted upon: All of nature has the same capacity for relationship with a person that a dance partner has. All is relationship, all is alive, and care must be taken so that each action has positive effects

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 Claiming to be American Indian shamans , talking about tarot cards and Wiccan/pagan things, or talking about crystals and New Age things. I've got nothing against shamanism, paganism, or the New Age, but a cow is not a horse: none of these things are traditionally Native American. Shamanism  is a Siberian mystic tradition, Wicca is a religion based in pre-Christian European traditions, Tarot readings are an Indo-European divination method, and the New Age is a syncretic belief system invented, as its name suggests, in the modern era. None of them have anything to do with authentic Indian traditions, and anyone who thinks they do is likely to be wrong about anything else he claims about Native American religions as well. Wiccans and New Agers don't have any more knowledge about actual American Indian beliefs than you do.

4. Identifying only as 'Native American' or 'American Indian' (an authentic person would list their actual tribal affiliation). Be a little wary, too, of people trying to speak with authority who identify as "mixed-blood" or "of Indian descent" or having a "Cherokee ancestor." There are certainly some mixed-blood people who were raised in their tribe's culture, but many more were not. A person who has rediscovered his Indian heritage as an adult is a seeker, not a teacher. He is not qualified to speak authoritatively about Native American religion or culture, for he wasn't raised that way and doesn't have any more knowledge about it than anyone else learning about it second-hand--including you.

 

 

VISION QUEST (CRYING FOR A VISION)

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For generations, the vision quest has been an extremely important part of Lakota life and ritual. Until recent times, all young men sought this experience, sometimes as young as 10 or 11 and never later than their early teens. Later in life, men would often return for another vision quest when seeking guidance in the affairs of life. Women would vision quest too, but not as regularly as men. The practice, though not as prevalent, has never been abandoned by the people and is still carried on today.

Besides the young, who vision quest at the beginning of the path to adulthood, a person might choose to cry for a vision in order to better understand another vision they already had, or to prepare for the Sundance, or ask a favor from Wakan Tanka, or as a thank you to Wakan Tanka for gifts received or simply to realize a closeness with the Great Spirit.

When it is time for a vision quest, the seeker brings a pipe to a holy man to ask for help and counsel. If the holy man thinks this is a good idea and agrees to help, a day is set aside. Often times questors were accompanied by a holy man or guide, sometimes they went alone.

On the day of the vision quest, the holy man and assistants go into the sweatlodge with the person making the quest. The object is purification. The one seeking a vision or the holy man would have already selected a place that was rugged and remote that would lend itself to spiritual thought without distraction.

After the sweat, the holy man and assistants prepare a place while the seeker waits. A rectangular place, approximately four- to six-feet wide and six- to eight-feet long, is cleared and a pole with tobacco offerings is put at the center. Other smaller poles are placed at the four directions, with offerings and the representative colors of the four directions tied to each of them. Sage is spread near the center pole as a "bed" for the seeker rest on when tired.

When the place is readied, the other leave and the seeker arrives with pipe, buffalo robe and offering sticks, praying as he approaches. He goes to the center pole and faces west, and then walks to the pole that has been placed in the west. Here he prays again with his pipe in his hands. He then returns to the center pole and goes to the north and repeats the process. Same with the east and the south, taking as much time as needed in any or all directions. When finished with all four, he starts prayer again, all day and into the night. Sometimes he may just stand and face the Sun, other times he may sit and meditate, facing east. During these times the pipe is placed at the west end of the rectangular space as a point of focus.

The seeker may sleep on the bed of sage, with his head at the center pole, but the entire duration of the vision quest he does not eat or drink. Many vision quests last just a day and a night, but others seeking a vision may stay two, three or even four days. Rarely is a quest longer than four days and four nights.

The idea is for the seeker to pray hard from the heart and pay attention to the world around him. If he does, messages from Wakan Tanka will come to him. Sometimes a message or instructions come through nature in the form of an animal or bird. Nothing should be discounted as the Wakan Tanka can, and does, speak through all things. And generally some physical representation of the vision or message (feather, fur, rock) is collected and placed in the seeker's medicine bag to ensure the power of the vision would stay with the individual to remind, protect or guide him.

When the time is up, the holy man and his assistants come to get the seeker and they all return to the sweatlodge. During the sweat, the seeker tells them of what he saw and heard, being careful not to leave anything out. Sometimes, a vision does not come, and that is reported too. When finished, the holy man prays and gives thanks to Wakan Tanka for all things given and for having pity on the person seeking the vision.

Vision quests are not generally discussed openly, but sometimes the details come out long after, only to amaze and astound the listener of the tale.