SAM GILL:
Columbus = invented America according to Edmundo O’Gorman – 15th century beliefs there was no basis for speculating even the possible existence of a continent separate from Orbis Terrarum. One cannot discover what one cannot imagine as a possibility.
Los Indios/Indians/Native Americans = A term used at the time to refer to all peoples east of the Indus River = translates in English as ‘the Indians’. Indians = common terminology used in the early 16th century Christian world to designate peoples of the Far East.
Native Americans = a term that will free us from the blinding tyranny of our old term “Indian”. Peoples native to America.
Sepulveda = Juan Gines de Sepulveda, Renaissace Scholar, portrayed negative image, believed in encomiendaro – permitted colonists to use natives for theirown profit – goal was to have them be Christianized.
Las Casas = Bartolome de Las Casas = Dominican, spent 45 years in New World. Believed they were nobel people developed in arts, language, government, gentle and eager to learn.
Dirty Dogs/Native Savage = History of debate over the nature of the Indians that began in first half of 16th century. Two camps; Dirty Dogs (Sepulveda) and Noble Savage (Las Casas).
Unity of Mankind =
Homo Religiousus = generally accepted proposition tht underlies the study of religion = religion is a characteristic distinctive of human beings, that humans are by their nature religious.
Study of Religion = begins with certain assumptions. Term lies in Western history. Remains of interest only to Western institutions. Distinction: teaching the doctrines of religion and teaching about religion as an aspect of humanity.
Ojibwa Bear Ceremonialism = Among the oldes forms of religious practice.
Person/Chief of the Bears
GRIM & ST. JOHN:
Winnebago/Siouan = Winnebago is an Indian Tribe that speaks Siouan (one of three languages among the NA Indians – Algonquian and Iroquoian).
Ojibwa (Anishinaabeg/Chippewa//Algonquians = Anish refer to the people of the woodland who spoke the same language. Colonists named them Ojibway and Chippewa.
Cosmological Beliefs: Involve the concept of power as manifested in the land, in the dialectic of the sacred and the profane, and in patterns of space and time. Power is that transformative presence most clearly seen in the cycles of the day and the seasons, in the earth, in visions and deeds of spirits, ancestors and living people.
Power: expressed by the word MANITOU (a personal revelatory experience usually manifested in dreams or in visions of a spirit who is capable of transformation into a specific human or animal form. Efficacy of Power: symbolized as “medicine” either as (1) tangible object kept in a bundle, (2) intangible “charm” possessed internally.
The Land: cosmic power was intimately connected with the land. Siouan speaking Winnebago developed cosmologies in which the heavens above and the earth regions below were seen as layered in hierarchies of beneficial and harmful spirits. The highest power had different names (Great spirit, Master of Life, Finisher, Earthmaker by the Winnebago.
Spirit-forces: Power and guidance entered human existence from the cosmis spirit-forces, from the guardian spirits of individuals and medicine societies and from spirits of charms, bundles and masks. Dreams, in particular were a vehicle for contacting power and gainig guidance.
Sacred/Recounted: Among the Winnebago narrative stories were distinguished as worak (“what is recounted”) and waika (“what is sacred”). Worak stories were profane – they told stories of heroes, human tragedy and memorable events. Waika stories were sacred – they evoked the spirits.
The interweaving of sacred space and sacred time gave real dimensions to cosmic power.
Sacred Space: A place of orientation that provides individuals or groups with a sense of both an integrating center and a cosmic boundary.
Sacred Time: The period of contact with sustaining power. Contact was believed to occur in the movement of the seasons, the fecundity of nature and the personal life cycle. Society member imagistically participated in the original assembly of the Manitou – this structured an experience of sacred time.
Ceremonial Practices: - they are concerned with subsistence, life cycles and personal, clan and society visions
Subsistence: Through subsistence rituals, tribes contacted power to ensure the success of hunting, fishing or trapping; gathering of herbs fruits or root crops and agricultural endeavors. They were private and public. The power object from the environment, the empowered hunters, and the ritually imaged Manitou-spirits, functioned together to bring sustenance to the people.
Life Cycles: Birth and Early childhood, Puberty and Death: Life cycle rites of passage recognize the passage through life’s stages required a structured encounter with power
Individual, Clan, Group: Power objects given by the Manitou, (i.e. medicine bundles, charms, face-paintings) became the focus of personal rituals, songs and dances.
Religious Personalities:. Primarily a healer and diviner. – contact power by means of a trance and channels that power to specific needs.
Four Shamanic vocations: (1) Shaking tent diviner and healer; technique – shaman enter a special lodge that swayed when the Manitou arrived. (2) Tube-sucking curer – used the bones of raptorial birds to suck the affected area and to remove objects believed to have been shot into a person by malicious witches. (3) Manipulation of fire – healed by using the heat of burning embers to massage and fascinate his patients. (4) Member of one of the medicine societies; composed of shamans, candidates initiated into the society and healed patients.
Medicine People: War Chiefs: religious personalities who led war bundle ceremonies and ware parties. Peace Chiefs: acted as mediators, working for peace within the tribe as well as between separate tribes. Prophets: Ecstatic visionaries received revelations concerning the need to transform specific historical situations. Represented a shift in religious thought among native peoples from individual concern and responsibility for harmony with cosmic powers in nature to a more structured ethics based on an interior religious imperative.
PAUL RADIN:
Religious Man- ie Shamans, Intermittently Religious, Non-religious Man
Religion is connected with the preservation of life values; success, happiness and long life. They interpret religion in terms of life. It is not distinct from mundane life but a means of maintaining social ideals. The Indian does not interpret life in terms of religion, but religion in terms of life. Spirits/Deities: They mean little to The Winnebago except at some crisis or wanting something. Purely mechanical relation of cause and effect between the offerings of men (tobacco) and their acceptance by the spirits (a blessing). Condition set by Earthmaker: in return for tobacco the spirits were to bestow blessings on man. The spirits are dazzled, hypnotized by the offerings and
Localized Spirits: spirits possess the power of bestowing anything – from rain, success on the warpath to insignificant trifles. Any spirit can bestow generalized blessings. Spirits are looked upon from 2 points of view (1) bestowers of certain blessings, ( guardian spirits) (2) protectors of their own precincts ( vague indistinct spirits to whom offerings are made for temporary protection.
Earthmaker = the great spirit, for shamans – he is a true monotheistic deity, benevolent but unapproachable. Comes into relation with man only through his intermediaries, the spirits. Created everything for the purpose of benefiting mankind – contrast to the Trickster and his creative acts of mischief.
Sun: his worship diminished when that of Earthmaker began to assert itself. Many of his functions and powers were taken over by Thunderbirds. Spoken in myths but is not a culture hero. He is not a true guardian spirit. Only blesses men (not women) gives success in war.
Disease-Giver: deals out death from one side of his body and life from the other. He is a guardian spirit who only appears to the bravest and holiest fasters. Specific blessings are with war and curing of disease.
Thunderbird: also part of the older group – has been remodeled and reinterpreted by the shamans. He is found everywhere. He is a clan ancestor, popular guardian spirit and a popular deity. Theromorphic in form – causing lightning by the flashes of his eyes and thunder by the flapping of his wings. Blesses men with everything but particularly victory on the warpath.
Mechanical Relationship = If the Winnebago make the offering, the spirits must accept and bestow the blessings.
Contract Theory = Introduced by the Shamans. Spirits possessed various powers which man needed for success. Man possessed tobacco, corn, eagle feathers, buckskin, etc. The contract: Man was to give the spirits tobacco; and the spirits were to give man the powers they controlled.
Difference: In attitude, principal characteristic of which was a heightened religious feeling.
Fasting experiences that show what powers are supposed to be possessed by various spirits. Dealing with boys and girls of adolescent stage. Attitude varies from play to extreme religious intensity. Methods of Bringing the Spirits into Relation with Man: (1) Fasting, a) method of superinducing a religious feeling, b) this religious feeling in turn is bound up with the desire for preserving and perpetuating socio-economic life values, (2) Mental Conentration – effectiveness of a blessing, a ceremony depended upon “concentrating one’s mind” upon the spirits, the details of the ritual or the precise purpose to be accomplished. The blessing would be in direct proportion to the power of concentration. (3) Offerings and Sacrifices, offerings consisted of tobacco, buckskins and whatever the particular spirit liked. Animal spirits were given favorite foods. (4) Prayers, Objects of the prayer are always connected to happiness, success and long life. Prayers are accompanied by religious feelings when made by the religious man – but become more formulas in the hands of the lay Indian.
The concept of evil: 3 Causes of Evil: (1) Did not perform a rite in the prescribed way (2) Was not able to invoke the spirits for protection, (3) The evil machinations of other men.
The concept of disease: Disease is rarely ascribed to the spirits. It is regarded as a fact of existence. (1) Due to carelessness of man of trying to pass through life without the aid of spirits (2) evil machinations of other men.
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