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 | "The culture, values and traditions of native people amount to more than crafts and carvings. Their respect for the wisdom of their elders, their concept of family responsibilities extending beyond the nuclear family to embrace a whole village, their respect for the environment, their willingness to share - all of these values persist within their own culture even though they have been under unremitting pressure to abandon them." Mr. Justice Thomas Berger, Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, (aka the Berger Inquiry), Canada. |
| "Rather than going to church, I attend a sweat lodge; rather than accepting bread and toast [sic] from the Holy Priest, I smoke a ceremonial pipe to come into Communion with the Great Spirit; and rather than kneeling with my hands placed together in prayer, I let sweet grass be feathered over my entire being for spiritual cleansing and allow the smoke to carry my prayers into the heavens. I am a Mi'kmaq, and this is how we pray." Noah Augustine, from his article "Grandfather was a knowing Christian," Toronto Star, Toronto ON Canada, 2000-AUG-09. |
| "If you take [a copy of] the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible IS the wind." Statement by an anonymous Native American woman. |
Introduction
A quote from Native American Religions by Arlene Hirschfelder and Paulette Molin (Facts on File, New York, 1992, ISBN 0-8160-2017-5) is instructive:
".....the North American public remains ignorant about Native American religions. And this, despite the fact that hundreds of books and articles have been published by anthropologists, religionists and others about native beliefs......Little of this scholarly literature has found its way into popular books about Native American religion..." 1
Yet Natives culture and religion should be valued. They have made many contributions to North American society:
| An awareness of concern for the environment. |
| Food staples such as corn, beans, squash, potatoes and sweet potatoes. |
| The design of the kayak, toboggan and snowshoe. |
| The original oral contraceptive. |
| Cultivation of cotton. |
| Over 200 drugs, derived from native remedies. |
It is ironic that the wine that is the Christians' most sacred substance, used in the Mass to represent the blood of their God, has caused such a trail of devastation within Native populations. Meanwhile, the Natives' most sacred substance, tobacco, has caused major health problems for so many Christians.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the population of American Indians and Alaska Natives, including those of more than one race, was 4.5 million as of 2005-JUL-01. 2 According to the most recent Canadian census, in 1991, there were 1,002,945 Canadians with North American Indian, Métis and/or Inuit ancestry. 10,840 Canadians are recorded as following an aboriginal spiritual path; this value is believed to be greatly under-reported.
From where did Native Americans originate?
There are at least four conflicting beliefs about the origin of Native Americans:
| Scientific belief: There had been, until recently, a consensus among scientists that prior to perhaps
9,200 BCE -- 11,200 years ago:
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Recent archaeological discoveries have convinced some scientists that people may have arrived far earlier than about 9200 BCE "in many waves of migration and by a number of routes." The Monte Verde site in Chile has shown that human habitation existed there 12,800 years ago, more than a century before the first evidence of habitation in North America and before a Siberian land bridge would have opened up. The migrants might have navigated the open seas. Alternately, they may taken smaller craft and hugged the coastline down what is now Alaska, British Columbia, and the western coast of the continental U.S. 3,4
| Mormon belief: During the early 19th
century, two widespread beliefs circulated in North America:
Both of these beliefs were abandoned later in the 19th century, except by Mormons. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and other Restorationist churches, teach that in the late 1820s, their church's founder, Joseph Smith, used a seer stone to translate The Book of Mormon from the "Reformed Egyptian" characters on ancient golden tablets revealed by an angel. The book contained both of the above themes. Some skeptics have cited the appearance of these topics in the Book of Mormon as one indication that the book was an early 19th century forgery and not a translation from ancient tablets. More info. | ||||
| Native beliefs: Many native tribes contest these theories:
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Many Natives find the suggestion that their ancestors migrated to North America only a few tens of thousands of years ago to be quite offensive. 6
References used:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
- Arlene Hirschfelder and Paulette Molin, "Native American Religions," Facts on File, (1992). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com.
- "American Indians By the Numbers," InfoPlease, at: http://www.infoplease.com/
- J.N. Wilford, "New answers to an old question: Who got here first?" New York Times, 1999-NOV-9
- T.D. Dillehay, "Monte Verde: A late Pleistocene settlement in Chile: The archeological context and interpretation," Smithsonian Institution Press, (1997). Read reviews or order this book This is not an inexpensive book!
- Vine Deloria Jr., "Low Bridge, Everybody Cross," a chapter in the book: "Red Earth, White Lies,"
- Vine Deloria, "Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact," Fulcrum Pub (1997). You can read reviews and/or order this book
Copyright © 1995 to 2008 by Ontario Consultants on
Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2008-JAN-13
Author: B.A. Robinson
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