World Religions in America, Exercises of World Religions

Download World Religions in America and more Exercises World Religions in PDF only on Docsity! World Religions in America An Introduction Fourth edition Jacob NeusNer Editor CONTeNTS Preface to the Fourth Edition vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Jacob Neusner PART ONE: IN THE BEGINNING 1. Native Americans and Their Religions 11 Sam Gill PART TWO: CHRISTIAN FOUNDATIONS OF AMERICAN RELIGIONS 2. Protestant Christianity in the World and in America 29 Martin E. Marty 3. The Religious World of African Americans 55 Peter J. Paris 4. The Catholics in the World and in America 73 Andrew M. Greeley and Paul Murray 5. The Religious World of Latino/a-Hispanic Americans 87 Justo L. González and Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi 6. Orthodox Christianity in the World and in America 105 Jaroslav Pelikan and John McGuckin PART THREE: OTHER MONOTHEISTIC TRADITIONS IN AMERICA 7. Judaism in the World and in America 123 Jacob Neusner 8. Islam in the World and in America 143 John L. Esposito 9. The Bahá’í Faith in the World and in America 159 Mike McMullen PART FOUR: MORE RECENT ARRIVALS 10. Hinduism in India and in America 179 Gerald James Larson 11. Buddhism in the World and in America 199 Malcolm David Eckel 12. East Asian Religions in Today’s America 213 Robert S. Ellwood and Mark A. Csikszentmihalyi Introduction Jacob NeusNer This book introduces you to the world’s religions in the United States today. Such an introduction is important because to under- stand America,* you have to know about religion. Most, though not all, Americans say they are religious, and the world’s religions flourish in today’s America. Most Americans would agree that “in God we trust.” But each does so in his or her quite special way, and that is what makes religion in America inter- esting. This book does not advocate religion, or any particular religion. Its purpose is only to describe and explain religion as an impor- tant factor in American society. AmericAns Are A religious PeoPle Most Americans are religious. They believe in God. They pray. They practice a religion. They explain what happens in their lives by appeal to God’s will and word and work, and they form their ideal for the American nation by reference to the teachings of religion: “one nation, under God.” This statement, from the Pledge of Allegiance, describes how most Americans view our country. Americans act on their religious beliefs. A 2008 Pew study found that nearly all Americans (92 percent) profess belief in God. More than half pray at least once a day. Most Christians go to church every week; nearly all Jews observe the Passover festival and most keep the Days of Awe (New Year, Day of Atonement) and other religious celebrations. Religiosity is a fundamental trait of the American people and has been from the very beginning. The religions of The World flourish in TodAy’s AmericA Americans are not only a religious people. We also are a people of many religions. Most of the religions of the world are prac- ticed in America, and the number of people who profess to be Protestant is decreasing. According to a study released in 2004 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, about 52 percent of the American people are Protestants, down from 63 percent in 1993. Another 25 percent are Roman Catholics, a figure that has held steady through the years. Slightly less than two percent are Jews. “Other” reli- gions—which the study defined as includ- ing Islam, Buddhism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Hinduism, among others—clocked in at seven percent, more than triple its 1972 share of 1.9 percent. Another growth area *Although Canadians, Mexicans, and Latin Americans of South America also are Americans, this work concentrates on the United States in particular, and in these pages we use “Americans” to mean residents of the United States. is nonbelief; nearly fourteen percent of the American people profess no religion at all, double what it was thirty years ago. One cannot understand America without making some sense of its diverse religious life. The marvel of America is its capacity to give a home to nearly every religion in the world, and the will of the American people to get along with one another, with the rich mixture of religions that flourish here. This book presents not only the better-known religions of America, Christianity and Juda- ism, but also the religious world of Native Americans, African Americans, and His- panic or Latin Americans, as well as the old religions newly arrived in this country, such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. America Began Because of Religion: Reli- gion played a fundamental role in America’s development by Europeans. The eastern part of this country was settled by people from Great Britain as an act of religion. The South- west was founded by people from Spain and Latin America as an act of religion. New England was settled by British Puri- tans from the East Anglia; Virginia and the Chesapeake area, by British Anglicans (Epis- copalians); Pennsylvania and New Jersey, by British Quakers; and the Appalachian South, from West Virginia and western Pennsylva- nia south through Piedmont North and South Carolina, by British Presbyterians from the area around the Irish Sea, the border regions of Scotland and Northern England, and the Irish counties of Ulster, in particular. The first European settlements in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California were established by Roman Catholic missionar- ies and soldiers coming north from Mexico, who wanted to bring Christianity to the native peoples. Many of the place-names in the American Southwest were given by His- panic pioneers, who acted in the name of Jesus Christ and the Roman Catholic faith. The earliest European explorers and settlers from Detroit to New Orleans were Roman Catholic missionaries and traders from Que- bec, in French Canada. From colonial times onward, many groups that joined in the adventure of building the American nation brought with them their religious hopes and founded in this country a particularly American expression of reli- gions from all parts of the world: Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Entire American states and regions took shape because of religiously motivated groups—for example, Utah and the intermountain West through the Latter-day Saints (“Mormons”). So our coun- try is a fundamentally religious nation, and in our country today, nearly every living religion is now represented in a significant way. is AmericA A chrisTiAn counTry? Some people think America is basically a Christian country because different forms of Christianity have predominated through its history and have defined much of its culture and society. The vast majority of Americans who are religious—and that means most of us—are Christians. But to be a true Ameri- can, one can hold another religion or no reli- gion at all. The first religions of America were those of the Native Americans. And although Protestant and Roman Catholic Christian- ity laid the foundations of American society, America had a Jewish community from nearly the beginning; the first synagogues date back to the mid-seventeenth century. Today this country has become the meeting place for nearly all of the living religions of the world, with the Zoroastrian, Shinto, Muslim, Bud- dhist, and Hindu religions well represented. Various religious groups from the Caribbean and from Africa and Latin America likewise flourish. What you learn in this book is that nearly every religion in the world is practiced by some Americans. AmericA is differenT Other countries have difficulty dealing with more than a single skin color, or with more than a single religion or ethnic group, and 2 / Introduction nations today break apart because of ethnic and religious difference. But America holds together because of the American ideal that anyone, of any race, creed, color, language, religion, gender, sexual preference, or coun- try of origin, can become a good American under this nation’s Constitution and Bill of Rights, its political institutions and social ideals. And while religions separate people from one another, shared religious attitudes, such as a belief in God, unite people as well. America is different because, except for Native Americans, it has always been a land of immigrants. From the very beginning, but especially before World War I and after World War II, people have come to this country from all parts of the world. Today the great religious traditions of the world are practiced in America, where many of them have become distinctively American. This book presents the world’s religions both as they flourish universally and also in their distinctively American forms. Why sTudy The World’s religions in The AmericAn seTTing? America is the right place in which to study the religions of the world because nearly all of them can be found here (and in nearby Canada). But America is religiously more interesting than most countries in another way. Not only do we have Judaism and the various kinds of European Christianity, we also have Christian traditions deriving from places besides Europe, for instance, from Africa, China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific islands. To give one exam- ple, the Unification Church, which began in Korea, flourishes in America today. Distinc- tive forms of Christianity from Latin Amer- ica, both Pentecostal and Roman Catholic, have also become part of the tapestry woven by world religions into the fabric of Ameri- can society. All of these important compo- nents of religion in America are described in this book. WhAT you Will leArn in This Book ABouT religions in PArTiculAr This book first examines religions one by one, and then religion in America in general. Part 1 starts with the first set of religions to exist in America, the diverse faith of Native Americans. We turn next to the Christian foundations of American religion in Part 2. Protestant Christianity is addressed first, because the founders of the earliest Ameri- can settlements, in Virginia and Massachu- setts, were Protestants. Because Protestants form the most complex and also the largest single component of religious life in Amer- ica, Protestant Christianity is treated in a chapter twice as long as those devoted to the other American representatives of the reli- gions of the world. African Americans have formulated a distinctive religious expression within Protestant Christianity, and they were among the earliest settlers, so we turn then to African American religious life. Next we discuss Catholic Christian- ity, represented in the eastern part of the United States nearly from the beginning, and also the foundation religion of the great Southwest. Because Hispanic Ameri- cans today comprise nearly half of all Roman Catholic Christians in the United States, we take up Hispanic religious life in America, both Roman Catholic and Prot- estant. We round out our section on Chris- tian foundations by addressing Orthodox Christianity, especially as it came to Amer- ica from Russia and Greece. Part 3 explores the other major mono- theistic traditions in America. We first turn to Judaism, a most ancient religion that has produced a strikingly contemporary and dis- tinctively American statement of its own. We learn much about America from how Juda- ism has evolved within this country’s open society. Next, we encounter Islam, a fast- growing religion in America, and the Bahá’í Faith, an offshoot of Islam that emphasizes unity and harmony of religion. Introduction / 3 hoW Will you knoW WheTher This Book hAs succeeded? If, when you meet someone of another reli- gion, you find yourself able to understand what is important to that person about the religion he or she believes in, then the course in which this book has been used is a success for you. The goal of this course is to help you better understand the world you live in, which means understanding the peo- ple you meet. America is a huge and diverse country, and the secret of its national unity lies in its power to teach people to respect one another, not despite difference but in full regard for difference. We like one another as we are, or, at least, we try to. And when we do not succeed, we know we have failed our country. A good American is a person who cares for the other with all due regard for the way in which the other is different. 6 / Introduction sTuDY QuesTIoNs 1. Do you believe that most Americans are religious persons? If yes, explain why you think so, and give specific examples of persons “being religious” or “acting out” their religion to support your answer. If no, explain why you think so, and give specific examples. 2. Why do you think that America has such religious diversity? Is this a positive and/or negative feature of American society? 3. Why would Christians tend to describe America as a Christian nation? Why should persons be careful in defining America in this way? Should we/Can we talk about “being religious” in America and include everyone, Christian and non-Christian? Introduction / 7 Part One In the Beginning Native American Religion / 13 Americans are not unaware of literacy. Some have even suggested reasons for resisting it. A member of the Carrier tribe in British Colum- bia told anthropologist Diamond Jenness, “The white man writes everything down in a book so that it might not be forgotten; but our ancestors married the animals, learned their ways, and passed on the knowledge from one generation to another.”1 An old Inuit (Eskimo) woman told the Danish eth- nologist Knud Rasmussen, “Our forefathers talked much of the making of the world. . . . They did not understand how to hide words in strokes, like you do; they only told things by word of mouth, . . . they told many things . . . which we have heard repeated time after time, ever since we were children. Old women do not fling their words about without mean- ing, and we believe them. There are no lies with age.”2 The Zuni in New Mexico tell stories of their origins. In the earliest era the ancestors of the Zuni people lived in dark, crowded caves deep within the earth. The Sun Father sent his two warrior sons to lead the people out. When they emerged as “sunlight peo- ple” the Sun Father told them to travel in search of their home, “the middle place of the world.” During their travels the people found a rain priest. Their own rain priest prayed with him, and together they made it rain. A water strider, an insect that skates on the surface of the water, came along and stretched its legs out to the edges of the earth. Where its heart touched the earth marked the middle. The Zuni had finally found itiwana, the middle place of the world. Today, as in the past, the Zuni see the world as divided into sections correspond- ing mainly with the four cardinal directions, but they also consider the regions above and below as important. The Zuni are matrilineal. Each person is born into her or his mother’s family and receives her clan, a named social designation. Each clan is associated with one of these directions. For example, if your mother’s clan is Evergreen-oak, this is your clan. Evergreen-oak, green even in winter, is associated with the north and with winter. Yellow, the color of morning and evening light in winter, is associated with northern clans. One’s clan determines the range of occupations and religious activities one has. Because the north correlates with war and destruction, a person in the Evergreen-oak clan would be encouraged to engage in war- related occupations and religious activities. One must always marry outside of one’s own clan. The Zuni priesthoods stand at the pivot and meeting place of all these divisions. For the Zuni the center represents totality and summation. The Zuni annual calendar is divided at the solstices into two halves, each containing six lunar months. Around the time of the solstices are twenty-day periods of intense religious activities, known as iti- wana, marking the center or turning places within the yearly cycle. The Zuni village, known also as itiwana, bears the prestige and power of a center place, of being at the conjunction of all places in the universe. The Seneca, who live in upper New York State, tell stories about a woman who fell from the sky into this world. A flock of birds caught this woman. The world was then covered by water, so the only support they could find for her was on the back of a turtle swimming in the water. One by one, many animals tried to dive to the bottom of the water to get a bit of earth from which to make the world. After many failed, one finally succeeded, and the Earth Maker, a creator, expanded this bit of soil into the present earth, which is supported on the back of the turtle. The woman who fell from the sky gave birth to a daughter. The daughter was the mother of corn as well as of twin boys who represent the negative and positive forces constantly at struggle in life. We may think that no one could really believe such a fanciful story, and we might even be a little suspicious of anyone who claimed they believed it. These stories are, however, quite interesting, and they are among the ways Native American people 14 / Sam Gill express such important things as what they understand to be good and bad, how the world came to be, what makes life meaning- ful, and how to relate to one another. These stories tell how members of a particular Native American culture strive to under- stand the world. This kind of story, which we call a myth, can be used in very serious ways. For exam- ple, for decades the Navajo and Hopi peoples have been in conflict over lands declared for their joint use by a U.S. government treaty. Though there have been many court battles and efforts made by the federal government to resolve the situation, the peoples them- selves remain unsatisfied. Several years ago the Hopi and Navajo tribal chairpersons met in public to discuss this conflict. Both appeared dressed in business suits. Both were well versed in the law and government policy. Each, when it was his time to speak, told the story of the creation of the world. Each showed how the particular landscape in question is essential to the identity of the people in his tribe. The Hopi tribal chairperson described how the Hopi people were led out of the lower worlds onto this surface of the earth through an emergence hole (sipapuni) in the canyon of the Little Colorado River. From there they migrated in clan groupings to their present homes atop the mesas in north- eastern Arizona. The Navajo tribal chairperson told the story of how, before the Navajo world was created, the Navajo ancestors traveled through worlds below this one. Eventually they emerged at a location somewhere in the four corners region, where present-day Arizona, Utah, Col- orado, and New Mexico meet. The Navajo world was then created, bound by four mountains, one in each of the four cardinal directions, each identified with a mountain that Navajos can see in their land today. While expressed in a political and legal setting, these stories are no less religiously significant today, for they continue to perform the cultural work of defining people to themselves and to others around them, including the fed- eral government and the broader public. Both cultures depend for their very lives on the land they occupy. Each culture’s identity depends on its creation story and on living in the landscape created for it. These stories are the basis for a meaning- ful life for individuals and cultures. art and architecture Native Americans’ homes are commonly models of the universe. This makes homes religiously important. Every architectural feature, every way a house is used, reflects something meaningful. The way Native Americans build, divide up, and use parts of Mother Earth Contemporary Indians refer often to the fig- ure “Mother Earth” (sometimes connected with Father Sky). The frequency of this story across native cultures is remarkable. Comparative aca- demic studies of the ideology, symbology, the- ology, mythology, language, ritual, and history of the hundreds of cultures that comprise native North America show that the differences among the cultures are so vast as to exclude almost any- thing held in common that is not also common to all human beings (one might think of archetypes). Yet Native Americans have increasingly identified Mother Earth as distinctive to Indian belief and identity, particularly as opposed to Americans with European ancestry. Studies of the histori- cal record of the emergence of these references indicate that the figure known by the English term “Mother Earth” emerged from the discourse of Native Americans attempting to defend their ancestral lands against claims made by those of European heritage. Today, in broad terms, Mother Earth has become a powerful figure that is actively used to demonstrate Native American distinctiveness. Native American Religion / 15 their houses correlates with their way of life. Many Native Americans perform ceremoni- als in the home. Yet there is also specialized religious architecture. Sweat lodges, found in many styles throughout North America, are small houses in which people go to purify themselves, to learn religious information, and to talk about serious things. Pueblo peo- ple use kivas, partly underground rooms, for performing rituals. Large Eskimo ceremonial houses called qasgiq are entered through a tunnel and a hole in the floor. These houses contain marionettes; for use in dramatic per- formances there are screens, behind which the performer can dress or otherwise pre- pare; even the entry tunnel and the skylight window are used to dramatic effect. Enor- mous clan houses of the Pacific Northwest have elaborately painted fronts and door- ways that represent an orifice of the body of a mythic ancestor. Just imagine that every time you enter your house you step through the mouth or vagina of a mythic ancestor! The designs on clothing, pottery, baskets, and tools frequently correspond with images from stories, features of the landscape, and clan symbols. By wearing clothing and using pottery and baskets, Native Ameri- cans are reminded of their stories; they are surrounded by the patterns that they associ- ate with what makes their life and culture meaningful. For example, Navajos believe that closed circles constrict movement and thereby life. To bring harm to another, one need only draw a closed circle around her or his house. Navajos insist on openings in all encircling designs. The characteristic design woven into Navajo wedding baskets is always open, and the opening corresponds with the beginning and ending coil at the center and perimeter of the basket. The border designs in Navajo weavings always have a thread carried from the interior to the outside signifying the opening for the movement of life. A personified rainbow surrounds sandpaintings (discussed below) on three sides, being open on the east. It is more appropriate to think of Native American art as a verb, as “arting,” to focus attention on the creation process and the use of the objects produced. In Eskimo carving, the carver picks up the raw material, a piece of ivory or stone. Turning it about, the carver tries to see the shape contained within. To assert one’s will upon the material is not the goal of carving. Rather the carver serves as an agent to reveal or release a shape already in the material—a seal, a bear, a whale. Navajo sandpainting, so commonly known in the craft or fine art form, is always a part of a ritual process in traditional Navajo culture. Sandpainting is a ritual act of curing performed as a part of healing cer- emonials that often last many days. These pictures are associated with stories about heroes or heroines who are cured of some illness they suffer. Sandpaintings are made on smooth, clean sand bases on the floors of Navajo hogans (houses). They are often ten feet or larger in diameter. The elaborate designs must be produced accurately, but none of the hundreds of paintings that can be prepared exists anywhere in permanent form. Their every detail must be remembered by the medicine people who know these cer- emonials. When the painting is finished, the person to be treated walks on and sits in the middle of the painting. The medicine per- son or a masked spirit being known as ye’ii begins to treat the person. The medicine per- son’s or the ye’ii’s hands are moistened with an herbal medicine lotion and placed on the story figures in the picture. Particles of sand are transferred from the body parts of each figure in the sandpainting to the correspond- ing body parts of the suffering person. This identifies the person with story. The paint- ing is smeared in this process. After the ritual is performed upon the sandpainting, the medicine person destroys and removes it from the hogan. For Navajos, a sandpaint- ing functions less as a work of art than as a tool to make a healthy human being and world. What a sandpainting helps create is beauty of the highest order. For Native Americans, art and arting have a religious aspect. By making and using art, Native Americans continue the 18 / Sam Gill Here is what must be remembered to this point: Native American tribal traditions, though different from one another, are none- theless similar in some respects. These tradi- tions are directed toward the creation of a meaningful life for the people within a spe- cific landscape that has been sanctioned by a tradition based on primordial events recorded in stories. Native American tribal traditions foster a closeness to and respectful interde- pendence with the natural world. shamanism Health and healing are common concerns of tribal traditions. Some of these traditions, such as the Navajo, use health and heal- ing to address almost all concerns. Some traditions, especially those in the Arctic and down the Pacific Northwest Coast into California, practice shamanism. Caution is needed when using the term shaman. Many have used it to name any religious or spiri- tual specialist. The term comes from tribal cultures in Siberia and refers to individuals who use ecstatic techniques—that is, it des- ignates those who know how to enter into a trance. Through trances shamans enter the spiritual world to seek help in resolving human problems, most often illness. The Pomo, a California tribe, is one group that continues to use shamans. These individuals, often women for the Pomo, sing and shake long rattle staffs in prepara- tion for entering a trance. Kneeling beside the sick person, the shaman then breathes rapidly while blowing incessantly on a bird- bone whistle. Eventually the shaman’s body begins to quiver and convulse, showing that she or he has entered into trance. After entering a trance the shaman exam- ines the body of the sufferer by passing a quivering hand over it. This locates the ill- ness, believed to be a malevolent object— a bone, a worm, an arrow, an insect—that has intruded into the body. These objects are often thought to be “shot” by witches. The shaman sucks out this evil object. As it enters the shaman’s body, there is a notice- able convulsion. The shaman spits the object in the fire or in a bowl of water to destroy it. In some cultures the Shaman actually dis- plays for all to see the object that has been removed. Another form of illness treated by sha- mans is conceived as the loss of the life form, sometimes called the soul. The Salish people of the Pacific Northwest engage troupes of shamans who ritually paddle canoes in search of the lost life form; that is, they dra- matize this journey by sitting in a canoe in the healing lodge. They recover the life form in dramatized ritual battles and then paddle back to return it to the sufferer. Ecstatic techniques are used in North America to find lost objects or relatives, to learn of the future, to ensure success in hunt- ing, and to conduct the deceased to the land of the dead. Shamanism always involves the use of ecstatic techniques by an individual to call upon forces in the spiritual world to intervene in human affairs. An individual is often called by a pow- erful vision or dream to enter a shamanic career. A persistent theme in these dreams, as well as in the initiatory rituals, is the aspir- ing shaman being stripped to a skeleton and reconstituted as a shaman. This theme sug- gests that a shaman gains power through a death and rebirth experience. Still, shamans require extensive training beyond these ini- tiatory experiences. Perhaps because Native American tribal traditions are shaped by an essential con- nection with a specific landscape and by an authority structure based on telling stories of primordial events, it may appear that these traditions do not change, that they do not have histories. But extensive changes often take place in these tribal traditions. Native Americans are not helpless recipients of changes brought on by others. Because many of their traditions bear the responsibility for the ongoing creation of the world, Native Americans often creatively manage their own histories. There is no greater evidence Native American Religion / 19 of this than the fact that so many tribal tra- ditions not only have survived but continue to thrive in the face of half a millennium of almost constant onslaught by powerful visi- tors from other lands. nATive AmericAn chrisTiAniTy When Columbus met Native Americans, all their religions were tribal traditions. One of his first observations of these new peo- ples was that he believed they could be eas- ily Christianized. Missionaries soon began their work in this new land. Today not a single tribal tradition has escaped the influ- ence of Christianity. Many Native American communities today are primarily Christian. Many other communities have extensively incorporated Christian elements into tribal traditions. Others, particularly those forced to become Christian, secretly continued their own tribal traditions while publicly practic- ing Christianity. The discussion of several cultures will exemplify these several types of Native American Christianity. The Pueblo Peoples of the southwest Though it is often thought that American history moved across the continent from east to west and that American religious his- tory began with the founding of Jamestown in 1607, one of the first meetings between Native Americans and Europeans was at Zuni in present-day New Mexico. The con- quest of Mexico led to explorations north into the American Southwest. The first Franciscan missionaries attempted to estab- lish themselves among the pueblo peoples by 1580. Santa Fe was a provincial capital city in 1610, a decade before the Mayflower sailed. Franciscan missionaries accompa- nied Spanish explorers, and by the early seventeenth century, mission churches had been built in pueblos throughout the South- west. These churches are the largest build- ings in most pueblo villages. The church in the village of Acoma, which sits high atop a mesa, required the forced labor of hundreds of pueblo people to hand-carry the build- ing materials to the mesa top, including many enormous roof support beams from trees cut as far away as a hundred miles. Pueblo peoples were forced, sometimes on punishment of beatings or even death, to be baptized and to practice Christianity pub- licly. Mission aries discouraged the practice of the tribal traditions and even destroyed pueblo ceremonial paraphernalia such as altars, costumes, and masks. Little wonder this treatment did not endear Christians and Christianity to pueblo peoples. Although the people were forced to practice Christianity, the tribal traditions of these pueblos survived and persisted by going underground. These practices became so secret that almost nothing is known about the religions of several pueblos still appar- ently quite vital today. This public practice of Christianity complemented by the secret and private practice of tribal traditions is sometimes called “compartmentalization.” As the centuries have passed, missionar- ies have become far less oppressive of Native American tribal traditions. Although the compartments remain, with less pressure the pueblo antagonism toward Christian- ity has diminished. Christianity has earned a meaningful place in the lives of many pueblo people today, complementing their tribal traditions. The Yaqui Among the most creative interactions between tribal traditions and Christianity are those of the Yaqui, who currently live in several Arizona communities. The Yaqui lived in present-day Sonora at the time of the conquest of Mexico. For a long time they effectively resisted Span- ish influence. Finally, in 1617, they invited Christian missionaries (who were Spanish) to live among them. Almost overnight the Yaqui willingly transformed their culture and 20 / Sam Gill religion, taking on many Christian forms. In 1767, after more than a century, under pres- sure from the Mexican government, which was demanding economic and social change and rejecting everything Spanish, the Yaqui asked the missionaries to leave. In the cen- tury that followed, however, even without the presence of missionaries, they continued to practice and develop traditions that had distinctive Christian forms. The Mexican government finally conquered the Yaqui in fierce military engagements and dispersed the culture. Some formed commu- nities in southern Arizona. By the beginning of the twentieth century they began once again to practice their traditions. Central among these is the elaborate ritual process that unfolds during the forty days of Lent. Elements of the Christian Passion can be rec- ognized in this ritual, but they are interpreted as representing the universal struggle between good and evil. The evil forces are portrayed by soldiers dressed in black known as Pilates and by groups of masked figures known as Chapayekas. Holy Week, the climax of this ritual season, includes the capture of the church by the evil forces, the crucifixion of Jesus (represented as an icon), and the return to the church of the good. The final struggle between good and evil occurs on Easter Sat- urday. An effigy figure of Judas is placed in the center of the plaza that extends in front of the Yaqui church. Midmorning the Pilates and Chapayekas march into the plaza in two long lines, prepared to assault the church and return to power. At the signal of the ringing church bell, the evil forces rush the church, which is defended by children and old women armed with flower petals and green leaves representing the transformed blood of Christ. These prove to be stronger weapons, and evil is repelled. The masked figures leave their swords, daggers, and masks at the foot of the Judas effigy and rush to the church to rededicate themselves to Christ and the good. Judas is torched, and as he, along with all the masks and swords, explodes into fire, the whole Yaqui village erupts into fiesta. Native american christian communities Throughout America today there are Native American communities that are primar- ily Christian, peoples who have little or no practice of tribal traditions. These Christian communities often have distinctive tribal des- ignations. Others are identified generically as Indian, without tribal designation, especially in the large Native American communities in many cities. Although Americans of Euro- pean ancestry introduced Christianity to Native Americans, Native American clergy and leaders have increasingly taken over the leadership of churches in these communities. Many young Native Americans have trained for Indian ministry in institutions such as Cook Christian Training School in Phoenix. Native American Christian communities are frequently fundamentalist in their theol- ogy, conservative in their practice, and often revivalistic and evangelical. As Native Americans became Christian, they gained a certain freedom from being the objects not only of missionization, but also of academic scrutiny. As Christians they no longer seemed unknown or exotic. As a result very little is known about most of these com- munities. What are these religions? How are they related to tribal traditions? A scholar named Thomas McElwain did a study that gives us some hints. He studied Christian hymns that had been translated from English into Seneca for the 1834 publication of a Sen- eca Christian hymnal. He simply translated the Seneca back to English, examining espe- cially the words in Seneca used for God. He found that the hymns express the religious ideas of Seneca tribal traditions much more than those of Christian theology.4 Many Native American Christian com- munities have responded innovatively to the pressures of Christianization, being able at once to continue older tribal traditions or ideas in new forms (and forms that have little compatibility with their own), to incorporate some aspects of the invading traditions, and Native American Religion / 23 tribal variations in the ritual practice. The Native American Church links Native Ameri- cans together, forging a common identity out of their shared history of oppression. nATive AmericAn sPiriTuAliTy Early in the nineteenth century, faced with the displacement from ancestral lands by the American westward expansion, a Shaw- nee man named Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa fought for Native American survival. They believed that cooperation among the various native cultures would provide more effective resistance than the separate efforts of many tribes. Military and political strength was the foremost concern, but there was also a vision of a common Indian religion. This perspective marks a shift from trying to accommodate the European American presence to the acknowledgment that Native Americans, despite significant cultural differences, held more in common among themselves than they did with those who were threat- ening their existence. Especially since the middle of the twentieth cen tury leaders have described what distinguishes all Native American peoples. These distinctive traits are reli- gious in character, but the term spiritu- ality will be used here to emphasize that the view is self-consciously anti-Western. The term religion denotes Christianity to many Native Americans; the term spiritual- ity avoids this connection while suggesting an attitude of respect and reverence toward every aspect of life. Notably, the rise of Native American spirituality has been associated with the print medium. Those who have shaped it are those who have written, or at least whose words have been written and published. There is perhaps some irony in this, but it has also made Native American spirituality the most known and accessible of all forms of Native American religions. The movement has served to mediate between mainstream American culture (whose primary access to other cul- tures is through print) and tribal cultures (which remain exclusively oral). No single book has been more important to the rise of Native American spirituality than Black Elk Speaks, recorded and developed by the non- Indian author John Neihardt. The extent of Neihardt’s contribution has given rise to con- siderable controversy (see sidebar), yet many Native Americans see this book as equivalent to a holy book. Black Elk Speaks is comple- mented by The Sacred Pipe, in which Black Elk tells Joseph Epes Brown about the seven rites of the Oglala Sioux. Many other Native Americans have participated in the develop- ment of Native American spirituality. Vine Deloria Jr., schooled in Christian theology and the law, has written books widely read by Native Americans and other Americans alike. The fiction of Leslie Silko, N. Scott Momaday, and Sherman Alexie has shown that one of the spiritual centers of Native American traditions is storytelling. Those Native Americans most influential in developing Native American spirituality Black Elk The Lakota man called Black Elk became a Chris- tian after a traditional childhood that included visionary experiences. John Neihardt, a poet, traveled the northern plains looking for material to enrich his epic poem “A Cycle of the West.” In 1930 he met Black Elk and they talked. Based on those conversations, yet heavily shaped by his own view of Native Americans as tragic figures willingly sacrificing themselves to the progress of U.S. expansion, Neihardt wrote Black Elk Speaks (1932). While scholars have shown that much of this work is Neihardt’s construction and the book conveniently omits mention of Black Elk’s life and work as a Christian, many Native Americans have embraced it as a sacred narrative. The late Vine Deloria Jr. referred to it as the Native American holy book. Hundreds of college classes through- out the United States use this book to teach tradi- tional Native American religions. 24 / Sam Gill have retained close contact with their spe- cific tribal traditions. In describing their own tribally based spirituality, they have seen themes, images, and concerns common among all Native American peoples. Native American spirituality encourages the continuity of tribal traditions, but more so the embracing of a common Indian iden- tity. Native American spirituality exists in an arena of intense awareness of the crises and difficulties Native Americans face. Native Americans share a history of oppression and a pride and confidence in their heritage that has given them the strength to survive. Understandably, the tenets of Native American spirituality are expressed largely in opposition to majority American culture. Native American spirituality condemns the very things its proponents identify as distinc- tive of most Americans: capitalism and the accompanying materialism, rational thought and literacy, political and economic policies that encourage the exploitation of the land and peoples, and Christianity. Native Amer- ican spirituality builds upon its ancient roots in the American soil and a spiritual way of life that reveres the land as a mother, often formalized as Mother Earth, and respects as kin all plants and animals, indeed, all of nature. This perspective strongly holds that Native American spirituality not only is superior to the religion and culture of most Americans, but that it also holds the prom- ise for saving the whole of America from a course of destruction. Native American spirituality encourages the continuity and revitalization of the sto- ries and rituals of tribal traditions. It has virtually no distinctive mythology apart from tribal traditions, though in its place is an extensive body of anecdotes, stories, and literature about Native American oppres- sion and mistreatment by European Ameri- cans, and about the apparently foolish and destructive ways of these oppressors. Native American spirituality has embraced pipe cer- emonies and sweat lodge rites. The dancing, singing, drumming, and ceremony of pow- wows have become the principal form of expression for many Native Americans. Native American spirituality is widely popular among non-Native American peo- ples. This popularity is at once a backlash against what are considered negative aspects of our American heritage and a sign of respect for Native American religions. Though it may seem that Native Ameri- cans are largely gone, a people of movies and books, it must be remembered that today millions of people identify themselves as Native Americans. Further, as we have learned in this chapter, Native Americans have rich and diverse cultures, including many forms of religious practice. Notes 1. Diamond Jenness, “The Carrier Indians of Bulkley River,” Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, no. 133 (Washington, D.C., 1943): 540. 2. Knud Rasmussen, The People of the Polar North: A Record (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1908), 99–100. 3. Adapted from Pliney E. Goddard, Navajo Texts, Anthropology Papers, vol. 34 (New York: American Museum of Natural His- tory, 1933), 164. 4. Thomas McElwain, “ ‘The Rainbow Will Carry Me’: The Language of Sen- eca Christianity as Reflected in Hymns,” in Religion in Native North America, ed. Christopher Vecsey (Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1990): 83–103. See also James Treat, Native and Christian: Indig- enous Voices on Religious Identity (New York: Routledge, 1996). Native American Religion / 25 sTuDY QuesTIoNs 1. Discuss the stereotypes often associated with Native American religious traditions. How has reading this chapter changed your understanding of Native American religious traditions? 2. What are the four predominant categories of Native American religions in today’s Amer- ica? How do they function? What do you see as the important characteristics distin- guishing these categories? How are they similar? 3. Native American languages are not written languages, at least not in their original forms. What do you see as the implications, positive and negative, of an oral tradition versus a written tradition? What would you gain from your religious tradition if your language were only oral? What would you lose from your religious tradition? 4. What is a story? Why is “story” important for any religious tradition? The Native Amer- ican tradition? Describe or create a religious story from your religious tradition that functions like a story in the Native American religious tradition. 5. Explain how Native American art can be described as having a religious function. Give examples of Native American art and describe its role in the religious lives of its people. 6. Religious ritual plays a significant role in the lives of Native Americans. Define ritual. How would you distinguish ritual from habit? Describe at least two rituals from Native American religious traditions and discuss their functions. essaY ToPIcs The Role and Function of the Shaman in Native American Religious Traditions Native American Art: Exploring a Religious Tradition through Images Native American Religious Traditions and Christianity: Conflict and Compromise WorD eXPLoraTIoN The following words play significant roles in any discussion of Native American religious traditions and are worth careful reflection and discussion. Tribe Native American Peyote Oral Tradition Medicine Person Shaman Sacred Rite of Passage Ritual Crisis Movement For FurTHer reaDING Beck, Peggy V., and Anno L. Waiters. The Sacred: Ways of Knowledge, Sources of Life. Tsaile, Ariz.: Navajo Community College Press, 1977. Capps, Walter H., ed. Seeing with a Native Eye. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1976. Gill, Sam. Native American Religions: An Introduction. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub- lishing Co., 1982; rev. ed., 2004. Silko, Leslie. Ceremony [a novel]. New York: Viking, 1977. Talayesva, Don C. Sun Chief. The Autobiography of a Hopi Indian. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1942.