Native American Religion in Early America
Heyrman, Christine Leigh. “Native American Religion in Early America.” Divining America, TeacherServe®. National Humanities Center. DATE YOU ACCESSED ESSAY. Nov 21, 2023
[quote]First, at the time of European contact, all but the simplest indigenous cultures in North America had developed coherent religious systems that included cosmologies—creation myths, transmitted orally from one generation to the next, which purported to explain how those societies had come into being.
Second, most native peoples worshiped an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator or “Master Spirit” (a being that assumed a variety of forms and both genders). They also venerated or placated a host of lesser supernatural entities, including an evil god who dealt out disaster, suffering, and death.
Third and finally, the members of most tribes believed in the immortality of the human soul and an afterlife, the main feature of which was the abundance of every good thing that made earthly life secure and pleasant.[/quote]
The Yanomami were discovered in the Amazon region of South America in the early 1900s after being isolated from other humans for about 8,000 years, shortly after contact, about half of the 50,000 Yanomami died from the common cold virus.
[quote]Shamanism and feasts
‘You see things, you dream, you know the xapiripë [spirits]. Shamans can cure the disease of the forests.
- DAVI KOPENAWA ON SHAMANISM
The spirit world is a fundamental part of Yanomami life. Every creature, rock, tree and mountain has a spirit. Sometimes these are malevolent, attack the Yanomami and are believed to cause illness.
Shamans control these spirits by inhaling a hallucinogenic snuff called yakoana. Through their trance like visions, they meet the spirits or xapiripë. Davi Kopenawa, a shaman explains:
‘Only those who know the xapiripë can see them because the xapiripë are very small and bright like light. There are many, many xapiripë, thousands of xapiripë like stars. They are beautiful, and decorated with parrot feathers and painted with urucum (annatto) and others have oraikok, others have earrings and use black dye and they dance very beautifully and sing differently.’[/quote]
[quote]"Shamanism is not some obscure concern of cultural anthropologists.
Shamanism is how religion was practiced for its first million years. Up until about 12,000 years ago there was no other form of religion on this planet. That was how people attained some kind of access to the sacred." Terence McKenna[/quote]
[quote]"After death, the soul of the De’áruwa shaman travels to the place of the winds on top of the mountain. There he inhales yopo and sings. The shaman’s throat becomes a flute that preserves his songs. A jaguar is born from his breath and bees, from his eyes." - Source: a Piaroa
myth from Orinoco Online.[/quote]
The PDF below has clickable links to many related resources:
Painted Spirits Yanomami The Last Free Indian Tribe
[quote]"We are shamans. We care for the planet, the sun, the moon the darkness and the light. Everything that exists we look after. You cannnot go on destroying nature. We will all die, burned and drowned, and that is the Yanomamai word." - Davi Kopenawa[/quote]
The PDF below has clickable links: