Native American Religion

Native American Religion
by Joel W. Martin
Religion in American Life
edited by Jon Butler and Harry S. Stout
Oxford University Press, 1999
157 pgs
ISBN 0-19-511035-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 0-19-514586-0 (paperback)

Joel Martin's "Native American Religion" is another excellent contribution to the "Religion in American Life series. Using elements common to many Native American traditions, creation myths, story-telling, and narrative, he evokes a deep empathetic appreciation of these rich traditions as well as a historical understanding of Native American life. The writing is clear and concise, yet balanced with a poetic quality that adds to the superb nature of this book.

Brilliantly, the first chapter, "Circling Earth," begins by using the tools that many peoples have used to explain their origins, creation myths. Through several examples of stories of the beginning times, Mr. Martin weaves the content of these origin myths into an explanation of the connections between a people, the land, and central stories. Even more important is our being told that this religious connection to the land and to the natural world of animals and plants is not a generic and abstract connection to land, but it is a connection to geographically specific locations. With Native American religion, we are in a world of a land-based religion. Through modern examples he illustrates, too, that central myths serve as modes of social education. He finishes up the opening chapter with an explanation of a basic continuum of native peoples that is organized around hunter-gathers, agriculturalists, and urban settlers. He then illustrates this for readers with clear and informative examples. I was particularly impressed with his discussion of the Hopewell ceremonial center.

In the second chapter, "Tradition and Crisis in the Eastern Woodlands," Mr. Martin uses the geographic location of the Eastern Woodlands, the first major geographic area of continuous and large scale contact with Europeans in North America, as the focus for telling several important stories. Once again, he takes up Native American religious themes, ceremony, song, and dance as entrance points into a variety of historical narratives. The idea of religious exchange between the human and non-human world are vividly illustrated by stories of the bear hunt and autumnal harvest rituals. Once more we are given examples of how story-telling was an essential component of moral education. Mr. Martin moves then to look at how contact with Europeans first brought devastating diseases to the native peoples that eventually changed much of the social fabric of these peoples. As time passed, contact between native peoples and Europeans became more commonplace, and, as might be expected, stimulated religious creativity among native peoples to account mythically for the presence of white people. Gradually, Native Americans became more dependent on traders for goods, and settlers became more covetous of Indian land. The story of the resistance to this encroachment, embodied in leaders like Tecumseh, are dramatic and informative.

The third chapter, "Native and Christian," looks at various Native American responses to Christianity. From forced to voluntary religious conversion, Christianity had an enormous impact upon Native Americans. From charismatic leaders and sympathetic missionaries to other forms of missionary activity that were brutal and coercive, Native Americans were involved with multiple types of Christianity. In response, they adopted a wide variety of response strategies that ranged from conversion to mixtures of Christianity and Native American religious beliefs, to non-adherence. By the early twentieth century however, many Native Americans were Christians. In 1990 "two out of three Native American high school students claimed Christianity as their religious preference in a poll (69)."

The fourth chapter,"New Religion in the West," looks at the development of new Native American religious movements in response to the radical changes in their ways of life and to the continuing encroachment of white settlers and culture. These new and creative religious responses took a variety of forms. We are introduced to the spiritual leader Wovaka, who revalorized circle dances into an apocalyptic ritual of five days involving the community of both the living and the dead in the hopes of an imminent new world. As this movement spread among other tribes it took on different shades of meaning. This movement when adopted by Lakota people become known as the "Ghost Dance." The federal government repressed this movement with the slaughter of over two hundred Lakota people on Dec 29, 1890. Two other religious responses upon which Martin focuses are the career and vision of Black Elk and Quanah Parker's sacramental use of peyote in the "Comanche Way." Mr. Martin is at his best here when he once again so gracefully interweaves history and the diverse and rich ways in which Native Americans religiously responded to a deep cultural crisis.

The final chapter, "Home Coming," investigates the resurgence of Native American religious traditions. Modern vison quests by Sioux medicine people, Apache female initiation ceremonies, and modern incarnations of geographic religiosity in political organization around issues of land use, the return of sacred objects, and protection of burial grounds are some of the numerous ways that land spirituality is resurfacing. Parallel to these movements are efforts to confront racial stereotypes, the loss of tribal languages among the young due to the onslaught of television, and a type of new age shamanism that can trivialize and commercialize core religious practices.

Beautifully written, well illustrated, supported with maps, and a bibliography for further reading, "Native American Religion" is a wonderful addition to the "Religion in American Life" series. Whether you teach about religion in America or not, this book is a must read.

Religion in American Life
A Series by Oxford University Press
Jon Butler & Harry S. Stout
General Editors

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