Academic literature on the topic 'Indians of North America – Religion and mythology'

Leland Donald, Aboriginal Slavery on the Northwest Coast of North America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, US$40). Pp. 379. ISBN 0 520 20616 9.George W. Dorsey, The Pawnee Mythology (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997, £20.95). Pp. 546. ISBN 0 8032 6603 0.Frederic W. Gleach, Powhatan's World and Colonial Virginia: A Conflict of Cultures (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997, £52.50). Pp. 241. ISBN 0 8032 2166 5.Richard G. Hardorff (ed.), Lakota Recollections of the Custer Fight: New Sources of Indian-Military History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997, £9.50). Pp. 211. ISBN 0 8032 7293 6.Michael E. Harkin, The Heiltsuks: Dialogues of Culture and History on the Northwest Coast (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997, £38). Pp. 195. ISBN 0 8032 2379 X.Jean M. O'Brien, Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650–1790 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, £35, US$49.95). Pp. 224. ISBN 0 521 56172 8.Allen W. Trelease, Indian Affairs in Colonial New York: The Seventeenth Century (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997, £15.95). Pp. 379. ISBN 0 8032 9431 X.In the contemporary United States there are 556 American Indian groups in 400 nations. Given that survival story, the tired myths of the disappearing redman or wandering savage which have distorted our understandings of Indian history are being revised. The reasons for our nearly four-century-long gullibility are manifold. The religion of winners and losers, saints and sinners, combined effectively with the scientific racism inherent sine qua non in the secular beliefs of winners and losers expressed through Linnaean and Darwinian conceptions of order and evolution. After colonizers cast their imperial gaze through lenses made of the elastic ideology of “City Upon a Hill,” “Manifest Destiny,” “Young America,” and “White Man's Burden,” most Euro-Americans rationalized a history and present in survival of the fittest terms. By 1900, the near-holocaust of an estimated ten million Indians left only 200,000 survivors invisible in an overall population of 76 million. The 1990 census count of two million Native Americans affirms resilience not extinction.

In this paper, the authors argue that Franz Boas had a coherent theory of the secret society, which he did not systematically develop anywhere, but which can be reconstructed from several of his works. The authors are not dealing with the whole theory, but only with the postulate of the warfare origin of secret societies (which later became the foundation of the Männerbund theory). Namely, Boas believed that the secret societies of the North American Indians were originally warlike, but that by the beginning of the 20th century they either retained only the functions of initiation and education, or were transformed into therapeutic and dance societies. Although he claimed that the mythology of the Indians did not provide additional insights into the origins of secret societies, his dealings with the myth of the “culture heroˮ and the “tricksterˮ proved the contrary. The authors try to go a step further and find new contributions for the study of the origins of secret societies in North America in the myth of Wolf as the brother (father) of the “culture hero.ˮ

Abstract This article examines the parallels and contrasts between Pamela Klassen’s and Jennifer Graber’s recent studies of settler colonialism and Indigenous nations of North America. I identify major themes in their analysis and assess the import of their work for the greater understanding of religion, settler-states, and Indigeneity. I note especially the challenge they raise for scholars concerned with missionary friendship with Indians, as both authors complicate facile assumptions about this history.

This article explores how Indian and Pakistani immigrant groups from the Bay Area in North California relate to and interact with one another. There is limited research on the role of religion in shaping sentiments of distinctiveness or “groupness” among diasporic Indians and Pakistanis in the UK and North America. Through conducting qualitative interviews with 18 Indian and Pakistani immigrants in the Bay Area, I recognized three factors pertaining to religion that were salient in influencing notions of groupness—notions of modernity, sociopolitical factors, and rituals. With respect to these three variables, I flesh out the spectrum of associated groupness; while some factors were linked with high levels of groupness, others enabled the immigrant groups to find commonality with one another. This research is integral to a better understanding of the interactions between South Asians in the diaspora, as well as to gain insight into how these immigrant groups—whose countries of origin share a history of religious conflict—perceive and interact with one another.

Life and religion at Louisbourg, 1713–1758. By A. J. B. Johnston. London: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1984, paperback edition, 1996. Pp. xxxii+227. ISBN 0-7735-1525-9. £12.95.The New Orleans Cabildo: Colonial Louisiana's first city government, 1769–1803. By Gilbert C. Din and John E. Harkins. London: Louisiana State University Press, 1996. Pp. xvii+330. ISBN 0-8071-2042-1. £42.75.Revolution, romanticism, and the Afro-Creole protest tradition in Louisiana, 1718–1868. By Caryn Cossé Bell. London: Louisiana State University Press, 1997. Pp. xv+325. ISBN 0-8071-2096-0. £32.95.Hopeful journeys: German immigration, settlement and political culture in colonial America, 1717–1775. By Aaron Spencer Fogleman. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. Pp. xii+257. ISBN 0-8122-1548-6. £15.95.Britannia lost the war of American independence but still reigns over the historiography of colonial North America. This is a problem now that historians of early America have embarked on an attempt to apply an Atlantic world perspective to colonial development. The complex web of human, cultural, economic, and political encounters and exchanges among Europe, Africa, and the Americas spreads well beyond the familiar terrain of Britain and its thirteen mainland colonies. While the histories of Indians and enslaved Africans are beginning to find their way into the historical narrative of early America to challenge the British hegemony, non-British Europeans remain virtually invisible, except as opponents in the imperial wars that punctuated the colonial era. These four books illustrate obstacles that must be overcome to remedy this gap and offer glimpses of the rewards to be gained by drawing the history of continental Europeans previously treated as peripheral into the centre of the major debates currently shaping early American history.

The European practice of conceptualizing their enemies so that they could dispose of them in ways that were not in accord with their own Christian principles is well documented. In the Americas, this began with Columbus's designation of certain Indians as man-eaters and was continued by those Spanish who also wished to enslave the natives or eliminate them altogether. The word “cannibal” was invented to describe such people, and the Spanish were legally free to treat cannibals in ways that were forbidden to them in their relations with other people. By the late fifteenth century the word cannibal had assumed a place in the languages of Europe as the latest concept by which Europeans sought to categorize the “other.” As David Gordon White has shown, by the time the Spanish discovered America, barbarians were an established component of European mythology, history and theology as well as popular thought, and the categories Europeans employed to describe outsiders date as far back as the Greeks and the Egyptians before them. Therefore, it is not surprising that when they reached Mexico the Spanish easily adopted a word from Nahuatl to describe the Indian peoples of the north whom they believed to be barbarians. This word, chichimeca, which both designated and defined in a very particular way the native peoples of the north Mexican frontier, assumed in Spanish the credibility of longstanding native use, although as we shall see, this was not entirely justified.

The article focuses on the specific significance of the myths of the indigenous peoples of North and South America for the formation of a special artistic creation of Crane’s “myth to God” (the definition of the poet). The purpose of the research is to identify and analyze the ancient mythologies used by Hart Crane to construct the future of America, which will be inspired by the new myth. This new myth, according to Crane, will emerge from the synthesis of all mythologies existing on the American continent, the achievements of all cultures whose peoples participated in the discovery and development of the New World, and the incredible success in the development of civilization that the Americans achieved. Crane’s poetry space is homogeneous. Probably somewhat eclectic, but homogeneity is achieved by a purposeful orientation to the subordination of all components to the American idea, that is, Crane’s space is a poetic melting pot. In accordance with the indicated homogeneity, in conducting the research the synergy of literary methods is used: biographical, which made it possible to follow the works from the initial idea to their creation; cultural-historical, due to which the characteristic features of the era of modernism are identified in the poet’s works; comparative, which makes it possible to compare the elements of work of different poets (not only modernists, but also remotely distant literary periods); ritual-mythological, intended for direct analysis of the paradigm of Indian myths; historical-functional, which made it possible to identify the reception of Crane’s works from total non-acceptance to the granting of program status; systemic-holistic, to which all the above-mentioned methods are subordinated, because it helps to highlight the main core (idea) of works (Crane’s “myth to God”), to which all other images, motives, plots, etc. are subordinated. In Hart Crane’s works, almost every word holds a mythological potential, it always functions in its original meaning, based on which the mythical context prevails. It can be the name of Pocahontas or the name of Atlantis, stirring up myths about the Indians and the conquest of America by the whites, or about the love of Pocahontas and Captain Smith, about Plato’s mythological Atlantis and the migration of the first settlers across the Atlantic, which in Crane’s time had also become a myth. Or maybe the seagull is one of Crane’s favorite images: an ordinary bird that circles over the Brooklyn Bridge and a permanent character in Native American mythology, in which the boundlessness of freedom and the ingenious mind of a trickster are combined. That is one verbal marker of Crane – the seagull – holds and simultaneously produces several meanings, from concreteness to the symbolism of the myth, as the majestic image of the Brooklyn Bridge, which removed the mythological dimension, became the new myth created by Hart Crane.

-Chuck Meide, Kathleen Deagan ,Columbus's outpost among the Taínos: Spain and America at La Isabela, 1493-1498. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2002. x + 294 pp., José María Cruxent (eds)-Lee D. Baker, George M. Fredrickson, Racism: A short history. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. x + 207 pp.-Evelyn Powell Jennings, Sherry Johnson, The social transformation of eighteenth-century Cuba. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. x + 267 pp.-Michael Zeuske, J.S. Thrasher, The island of Cuba: A political essay by Alexander von Humboldt. Translated from Spanish with notes and a preliminary essay by J.S. Thrasher. Princeton NJ: Markus Wiener; Kingston: Ian Randle, 2001. vii + 280 pp.-Matt D. Childs, Virginia M. Bouvier, Whose America? The war of 1898 and the battles to define the nation. Westport CT: Praeger, 2001. xi + 241 pp.-Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Antonio Santamaría García, Sin azúcar no hay país: La industria azucarera y la economía cubana (1919-1939). Seville: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Universidad de Sevilla y Diputación de Sevilla, 2001. 624 pp.-Charles Rutheiser, Joseph L. Scarpaci ,Havana: Two faces of the Antillean Metropolis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. x + 437 pp., Roberto Segre, Mario Coyula (eds)-Thomas Neuner, Ottmar Ette ,Kuba Heute: Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Vervuert, 2001. 863 pp., Martin Franzbach (eds)-Mark B. Padilla, Emilio Bejel, Gay Cuban nation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. xxiv + 257 pp.-Mark B. Padilla, Kamala Kempadoo, Sun, sex, and gold: Tourism and sex work in the Caribbean. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. viii + 356 pp.-Jane Desmond, Susanna Sloat, Caribbean dance from Abakuá to Zouk: How movement shapes identity. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002. xx + 408 pp.-Karen Fog Olwig, Nina Glick Schiller ,Georges woke up laughing: Long-distance nationalism and the search for home. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2001. x + 324 pp., Georges Eugene Fouron (eds)-Karen Fog Olwig, Nancy Foner, From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's two great waves of immigration. Chelsea MI: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000. xvi + 334 pp.-Aviva Chomsky, Lara Putnam, The company they kept: Migrants and the politics of gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870-1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. xi + 303 pp.-Rebecca B. Bateman, Rosalyn Howard, Black Seminoles in the Bahamas. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002. xvii + 150 pp.-Virginia Kerns, Carel Roessingh, The Belizean Garífuna: Organization of identity in an ethnic community in Central America. Amsterdam: Rozenberg. 2001. 264 pp.-Nicole Roberts, Susanna Regazzoni, Cuba: una literatura sin fronteras / Cuba: A literature beyond boundaries. Madrid: Iberoamericana/Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Vervuert, 2001. 148 pp.-Nicole Roberts, Lisa Sánchez González, Boricua literature: A literary history of the Puerto Rican Diaspora. New York: New York University Press, 2001. viii + 216 pp.-Kathleen Gyssels, Ange-Séverin Malanda, Passages II: Histoire et pouvoir dans la littérature antillo-guyanaise. Paris: Editions du Ciref, 2002. 245 pp.-Sue N. Greene, Simone A. James Alexander, Mother imagery in the novels of Afro-Caribbean women. Columbia MO: University of Missouri Press, 2001. x + 215 pp.-Gert Oostindie, Aarón Gamaliel Ramos ,Islands at the crossroads: Politics in the non-independent Caribbean., Angel Israel Rivera (eds)-Katherine E. Browne, David A.B. Murray, Opacity: Gender, sexuality, race, and the 'problem' of identity in Martinique. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. xi + 188 pp.-James Houk, Kean Gibson, Comfa religion and Creole language in a Caribbean community. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. xvii + 243 pp.-Kelvin Singh, Frank J. Korom, Hosay Trinidad: Muharram performances in an Indo-Caribbean Diaspora.Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. viii + 305 pages.-Lise Winer, Kim Johnson, Renegades: The history of the renegades steel orchestra of Trinidad and Tobago. With photos by Jeffrey Chock. Oxford UK: Macmillan Caribbean Publishers, 2002. 170 pp.-Jerome Teelucksingh, Glenford Deroy Howe, Race, war and nationalism: A social history of West Indians in the first world war. Kingston: Ian Randle/Oxford UK: James Currey, 2002. vi + 270 pp.-Geneviève Escure, Glenn Gilbert, Pidgin and Creole linguistics in the twenty-first century. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2002. 379 pp.-George L. Huttar, Eithne B. Carlin ,Atlas of the languages of Suriname. Leiden, The Netherlands: KITLV Press/Kingston: Ian Randle, 2002. vii + 345 pp., Jacques Arends (eds)

-Edward L. Cox, Judith A. Carney, Black rice: The African origin of rice cultivation in the Americas. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. xiv + 240 pp.-David Barry Gaspar, Brian Dyde, A history of Antigua: The unsuspected Isle. Oxford: Macmillan Education, 2000. xi + 320 pp.-Carolyn E. Fick, Stewart R. King, Blue coat or powdered wig: Free people of color in pre-revolutionary Saint Domingue. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001. xxvi + 328 pp.-César J. Ayala, Birgit Sonesson, Puerto Rico's commerce, 1765-1865: From regional to worldwide market relations. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 200. xiii + 338 pp.-Nadine Lefaucheur, Bernard Moitt, Women and slavery in the French Antilles, 1635-1848. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. xviii + 217 pp.-Edward L. Cox, Roderick A. McDonald, Between slavery and freedom: Special magistrate John Anderson's journal of St. Vincent during the apprenticeship. Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2001. xviii + 309 pp.-Jaap Jacobs, Benjamin Schmidt, Innocence abroad: The Dutch imagination and the new world, 1570-1670. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. xxviii + 450 pp.-Wim Klooster, Johanna C. Prins ,The Low countries and the New World(s): Travel, Discovery, Early Relations. Lanham NY: University Press of America, 2000. 226 pp., Bettina Brandt, Timothy Stevens (eds)-Wouter Gortzak, Gert Oostindie ,Knellende koninkrijksbanden: Het Nederlandse dekolonisatiebeleid in de Caraïben, 1940-2000. Volume 1, 1940-1954; Volume 2, 1954-1975; Volume 3, 1975-2000. 668 pp. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2001., Inge Klinkers (eds)-Richard Price, Ellen-Rose Kambel, Resource conflicts, gender and indigenous rights in Suriname: Local, national and global perspectives. Leiden, The Netherlands: self-published, 2002, iii + 266.-Peter Redfield, Richard Price ,Les Marrons. Châteauneuf-le-Rouge: Vents d'ailleurs, 2003. 127 pp., Sally Price (eds)-Mary Chamberlain, Glenford D. Howe ,The empowering impulse: The nationalist tradition of Barbados. Kingston: Canoe Press, 2001. xiii + 354 pp., Don D. Marshall (eds)-Jean Stubbs, Alejandro de la Fuente, A Nation for All: Race, Inequality, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. xiv + 449 pp.-Sheryl L. Lutjens, Susan Kaufman Purcell ,Cuba: The contours of Change. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000. ix + 155 pp., David J. Rothkopf (eds)-Jean-Germain Gros, Robert Fatton Jr., Haiti's predatory republic: The unending transition to democracy. Boulder CO: Lynn Rienner, 2002. xvi + 237 pp.-Elizabeth McAlister, Beverly Bell, Walking on fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. xx + 253 pp.-Gérard Collomb, Peter Hulme, Remnants of conquest: The island Caribs and their visitors, 1877-1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 371 pp.-Chris Bongie, Jeannie Suk, Postcolonial paradoxes in French Caribbean Writing: Césaire, Glissant, Condé. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 216 pp.-Marie-Hélène Laforest, Caroline Rody, The Daughter's return: African-American and Caribbean Women's fictions of history. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. x + 267 pp.-Marie-Hélène Laforest, Isabel Hoving, In praise of new travelers: Reading Caribbean migrant women's writing. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. ix + 374 pp.-Catherine Benoît, Franck Degoul, Le commerce diabolique: Une exploration de l'imaginaire du pacte maléfique en Martinique. Petit-Bourg, Guadeloupe: Ibis Rouge, 2000. 207 pp.-Catherine Benoît, Margarite Fernández Olmos ,Healing cultures: Art and religion as curative practices in the Caribbean and its diaspora. New York: Palgrave, 2001. xxi + 236 pp., Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert (eds)-Jorge Pérez Rolón, Charley Gerard, Music from Cuba: Mongo Santamaría, Chocolate Armenteros and Cuban musicians in the United States. Westport CT: Praeger, 2001. xi + 155 pp.-Ivelaw L. Griffith, Anthony Payne ,Charting Caribbean Development. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. xi + 284 pp., Paul Sutton (eds)-Ransford W. Palmer, Irma T. Alonso, Caribbean economies in the twenty-first century. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002. 232 pp.-Glenn R. Smucker, Jennie Marcelle Smith, When the hands are many: Community organization and social change in rural Haiti. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. xii + 229 pp.-Kevin Birth, Nancy Foner, Islands in the city: West Indian migration to New York. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. viii + 304 pp.-Joy Mahabir, Viranjini Munasinghe, Callaloo or tossed salad? East Indians and the cultural politics of identity in Trinidad. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. xv + 315 pp.-Stéphane Goyette, Robert Chaudenson, Creolization of language and culture. Revised in collaboration with Salikoko S. Mufwene. London: Routledge, 2001. xxi + 340 pp.

CairnsIn Denmark, the term stenkast (a ‘stone throw’) is used for cairns – stone heaps that have accumulated in places where it was the tradition to throw a stone. A kast (a ‘throw’) would actually be a more correct term, as sometimes the heaps consist of sticks, branches, heather, or peat, rather than stones – in short, whichever was at hand at that particular place. A kast could also consist of both sticks and stones.The majority of the known Danish cairns were presented by August F. Schmidt in 1929. Since then, numerous new ones have been discovered, and we now know of around 80 cairns, cf. the list on page 264 and map Fig. 3. It appears from the descriptions that the majority – a total of 65 – are actual cairns, 14 are heaps of branches, whereas two are described as either peat or heather heaps.Geographically, the majority – a total of 53 – are found in Jutland, with most in North and Central Jutland (Fig. 3). Fifteen are known from Zealand, four from Lolland, four from Funen, and five from Bornholm.Topographically, they are found – naturally – where people would normally be passing: next to roads and in connection with sacred springs, chapels, and places of execution. However, they also occur in less busy places, in woods, along the coast, on moors, and on small islands.A few cairns have been preserved because they are still “active” as reminiscences of customs and habits of past times. This is the case of the cairn called Røsen (“røse” being another Danish term for a cairn) on Trøstrup Moor (no. 45, Fig. 1-2), of Heksens Grav (“The Witch’s Grave”) (no. 27, Fig. 4), and of the branch heap in the wood of Slotved Skov (no. 14, Fig. 5), which was recently revived after having been almost forgotten. Other cairns are maintained as prehistoric relics, as is the case of the branch heap by the name of Stikhoben (“The Stick Heap;” no. 10, Fig. 6) and Kjelds Grav (“Kjeld’s Grave,” no. 59, Fig. 7). Although heaps of stones and branches are included in the Danish Protection of Nature Act as relics of the past worthy of protection, so far merely the two latter have been listed.Whereas the remaining ’throws’ of organic material have probably disintegrated, it is still possible under favourable conditions to retrieve those made from more enduring materials – unless they have been demolished – even if they have practically sunk into oblivion (Figs. 8-10).The oldest known cairn is almost 500 years old. It was situated by the ford Præstbjerg Vad in Vinding parish near the Holstebro-Ribe highroad. Tradition says that the stone heap came into existence as a memorial of a priest in Hanbjerg, who died in the first half of the 16th century following a fall with his horse.Such legends of origin are connected with most of the Danish cairns. They usually tell of some unhappy or alarming happening supposed to have occurred at the place in question. However, they are often so vague and stereotype that they can only rarely be dated or put into a historical context. Indeed, on closer examination several of them turn out to be travelling legends. Apart from the legend of the murdered tradesman, they comprise the legend of the exorcised farmhand and that of the three sisters, who were murdered by three robbers, who turned out to be their own brothers. The latter legend, which is also known from a folksong, is connected to the so-called Varper on the high moor in Pedersker parish on Bornholm (no. 7). Until the early 20th century, it was the custom to maintain these cairns by putting back stones that had fallen down and adorn them with green sprigs. Early folklorists interpreted this as a tradition going back to an old sacrificial ritual, although the custom also seems to have had a pure practical purpose, as these stone heaps were originally cairns marking the road across inland Bornholm.A special group of the Danish cairns are connected with the tradition that someone is buried underneath them, such as a body washed ashore, a murdered child from a clandestine childbirth, a murdered person, several persons killed in a fight, an exorcised farmhand, a suicide, a murderer buried on his scene of crime, or witches and murderers buried at the place of execution. In all these cases, the throwing of a stone was supposed to protect the passers-by against the dead, who was buried in unconsecrated grounds and thus, according to public belief, haunted the spot. Another far less frequent explanation was that the stone was thrown in order to achieve a good journey or luck at the market. In some places, the traveller would throw the stone while shouting a naughty word or in other ways showing his disgust with the dead witch, criminal, or infanticide buried in that particular place. In rather a lot of the cases, as explained by the context, the cairn was merely a memorial to some unhappy occurrence, and the stone was thrown in memory of the deceased.In an article on Norwegian cairns written by the folklorist Svale Solheim, the author attached importance to achieving a clear picture of the position of the cairns (kastrøysarne) in the landscape. A closer examination showed that almost all were situated by the side of old roads – between farms and settlements, through forests, or across mountains – in short, where people would often walk. “The cairns follow the road as the shadow follows the man,” Solheim writes and gives an example of an old road, which had been relocated, and where the cairns had been moved to the new road. Furthermore, the position of the cairns along the roads turned out to not be accidental; they were always found at places that were in one way or other interesting to the travellers. This is why Solheim thought that the stone heaps mostly had the character of cairns or road stones thrown together at certain places for a pure practical purpose. “For instance,” he writes, “we find stone heaps at places along the roads where there is access to fine drinking water. These would also be natural places for a rest, and numerous stone heaps are situated by old resting places. And so it came natural to mark these places by piling up a stone heap, and of course it would be in every traveller’s interest to maintain the heaps.”The older folklore saw the tradition as a relic of pagan rituals and conceptions. As a reaction to this, Solheim and others took a tradition-functionalistic view, according to which most folklore, as seen in the light of the cultural conditions, was considered rational and the rest could be explained as pseudo beliefs, for instance educational fiction and tomfoolery.However, if we turn to our other neighbouring country, Sweden, it becomes more difficult to explain away that we are dealing with sacrificial rites, as here, the most used dialectal term for the stone and branch piles were offerhög, offervål, or offerbål (“offer” is the Swedish word for sacrifice), and when someone threw stones, sticks, or money on the pile, it was called “sacrificing.” An article from 1929 by the anthropologist Sigurd Erixon is especially interesting. Here, he documents how – apart from the cairns with a death motive (largely corresponding to the Danish cases mentioned above), Sweden had both good luck and misfortune averting sacrificial stone throwing (Fig. 13).Whereas the sacrificial cairns connected to deaths were evenly distributed across the whole country, Erixon found that the “good luck cairns” occurred mainly in environments associated with mountain pasture farming or fishing. Based on this observation and desultory comparative studies, Erixon formed the hypothesis that the “good luck cairns” represented an older and more primitive culture than the cairns associated with sacrifices to the dead. “The first,” he writes, “belong rather more to the work area of hunting, fishing, and animal husbandry, roads, and environments, whereas the death sacrificial cairns seem to be closer related to the culture of agriculture.”The problem with the folkloristic material is that most of it is based on reminiscences. In order to study the living tradition, one must turn elsewhere. However, as demonstrated by James Frazer in “The Golden Bough,” this is no problem, as the custom of throwing stones in a pile is known from all over the world, from Africa, Europe, and Asia to Australia and America (Fig. 14).Customs last, their meanings perish – the explanation why, for instance, one must throw a stone onto a stone pile, may be forgotten, or reinterpreted, or get a completely new explanation. The custom probably goes back further than any known religion. However, these have all tried to tally the stone throwing with their “theology.” In Ancient Greece, the stone piles by the roadsides were furnished with statues of Hermes (in the shape of a post with a head and sometimes a phallus). As an escort for the dead, Hermes became the god of the travellers, and just as the gods had thrown stones after Hermes when he was accused of murdering Argus, people could now do the same.With the introduction of Christianity, the throwing of stones was denounced as superstition, and a standard question for the penitents in the so-called books of penance was: “Have you carried stones to a heap?” All across Europe, crosses were planted in the stone heaps – which must have caused problems as it was considered a deadly sin to throw stones after a cross. In the culture connected with pilgrimage, the cairns got a new meaning as markers of important places. For instance, enormous stone piles outside Santiago de Compostela mark the location where pilgrims first spotted the towers of the city’s cathedral (Fig. 15). At many places, the cairns were consecrated to saints, so that now people would carry stones to them as a sacrifice or a penance. The jews also adopted the custom. The Old Testament mentions stone heaps gathered over murdered persons or placed around a larger stone, as the “witness dolmen” built by Jacob and his people to commemmorate his pact with Laban, his father-in-law. However, there is no mention of throwing new stones onto these heaps. However, the latter occurs in the still practiced Jewish custom of placing stones on the gravestones when Jews visit the graves of their dead (Fig. 16).Stone throwing in a Muslim context is illustrated by Edward Westermarck’s large investigation of rituals and popular belief with the Berbers and the Arabs in Marocco in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, it only comprises cairns connected to Muslim saints, but even with this limitation, the investigation gives an idea of the variety of applications. If the stone heap is situated near the grave of a saint, it may mark the demarcation of the sacred area, or it may have come into existence because the wayfaring have a habit of throwing a stone when they pass the grave of a saint, which they do not have time to visit. If the heap is situated on a ridge, it is usually an indication of the spot on a certain pilgrim route where the sacred places become visible for the first time. Other stone heaps mark the places where a holy man or woman is supposed to have been buried, or rested, or camped some time. By a large crossroads outside Andira, Westermark was shown a stone heap, which indicated that this place was the gathering place for saints, who met there at nighttime. The sacred cairns in Marocco are often easily recognized by the fact that they are chalked white at intervals. At some places, the cairns may also be marked with a pole with a white flag symbolising the sacred character of the place.Even Buddhism struggled against the stone heaps, especially in the form of the oboo cult, which was repeatedly reformered and reinterpreted by Buddhist missionaries. And in early 17th-century South America, the converted aristocratic Inca, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, made sarcastic remarks about Indians, who “even now” had preserved the bad habit of [sacrificing to] stone heaps (apachitas).”Historically, the Danish cairns can be documented from the 16th century, but the tradition may well be older. Seen in a larger, comparative context, heaps of stones and branches represent an ancient tradition rooted in the deepest cultural layers of mankind. Thus, as cultural relics, they are certainly worthy of preservation, and we ought to put a lot of effort into preserving the few still existing.Whereas it will probably be difficult to establish possible prehistoric stone heaps using archaeology, the possibilities of documenting hitherto unknown stone piles from historical times is considerably higher, if special topographic conditions are taken into consideration. In connection with small mounds on tidal meadows or stone heaps along stretches of old roads and by fords, old places of execution, springs, and grave mounds used secondarily for gallows, one should pay attention to such structures, which may well prove to be covering a grave.In a folklore context, the Danish stone heaps must be characterized as mainly “death sacrifice throws,” whereas only few were “good luck throws.” Due to the limited size of the country, and early farming, cairns and other road marks have not played the same role as a help for travellers and traffic as it did in our neighbouring countries with their huge waste areas.If the stone piles are considered part of a thousands of years old chain of traditions, they belong to the oldest human “monuments.” The global distribution of the phenomenon endows it with a mystery, which, during a travel in Mongolia, Haslund-Christensen caught with a stroke of genius: “We stood before an oboo, one of the largest I have ever seen...one of those mysterious places of sacrifice which are still secretly preserved, built of stone cast upon stone through many generations; a home of mystery which has its roots in the origin of the people itself, and whose religious significance goes much further back in time than any of the religions in the modern world.”Gustav HenningsenDansk Folkemindesamling Jesper LaursenMoesgård Museum Translated by Annette Lerche Trolle

This dissertation intends to demonstrate the impact of numerology in every aspect of the lives of ancient precolombian people as well as several contemporary American Indian tribes. For this reason numerology may be viewed as a true science, that is both an esoteric and a philosophical one. Thus, numbers may be looked upon not only as abstract signs, but as all inclusive entities in and of themselves. To the ancients, numerical symbols had an occult connotation that transcended the restrictive boundaries of simple computation. For instance, numerology had an integral role in Maya, Aztec, and some contemporary American Indian religious ceremonies. As an example, the high priests were able to predict future events by making intricate numerological computations. Further still, Maya and Aztec calendars were so accurate that they demonstrated an extraordinary knowledge of astronomical events. In order to accurately study the intricate subject of numerology it was necessary to divide the dissertation in several parts. These parts include a concise discussion of the Maya, the Aztec, and certain contemporary American Indian tribes. A general account of Maya, Aztec, and Contemporary American Indian culture and society was included, using the available data of present day archeological and written documents, in order to accurately describe the philosophy of these people. From an examination of the life and culture of these ancient societies, the basis for their myths of creation and the impact of numerology on those particular myths may be easily ascertained. The conclusion discusses how numerology shaped two great civilizations, that of the Maya and Aztecs, and how these basic esoteric numbers were absorbed and changed, to suit the needs and culture of some present day American Indian tribes.

This examination looks at the contextual and cultural implications of learning, using sources from story-telling traditions. The thesis proposes that perceptions of reality are manipulable fictions. It uses the teachings of the American visionary writer, Lynn Andrews, to illustrate how a person's perceptions can be altered to his or her advantage, and how, when not properly attended to, perceptions can manipulate the person. Andrews' work is compared to that of Carlos Castaneda and other contemporary visionary writers, as well as to very old teachings from an oral tradition. I have set the study of Andrews' insights in the social, environmental and educational contexts of North America in the final years of the 20th century, as I experience those contexts in my private and professional academic life. I conclude that including knowledge such as that which Andrews offers, in the menu of teachings available to and tolerated by North Americans, is essential.
The thesis details a set of extra-ordinary teachings proffered by Lynn Andrews, purportedly of native origin. Attention is given both to the techniques used to teach and to the exceptional knowledge imparted. In Part I, I speak of the distinct culture of learning which I come from, and reply to detractors of cross-cultural teaching. I outline the general purposes which I believe these teachings can serve in any culture, and most particularly in the global culture of life on earth. Part II is a detailed exposition of the teachings in the first two books by Lynn Andrews. Part III addresses some of the challenges confronting those who wish to take her teachings to heart and pass them on to others. This section makes it clear that such teachings are not appropriate for everyone, and are not to be instituted in a systemic context.

Natural phenomena and natural disasters occur across the regions of the United States. While science now provides factual documentation for causes of meteorological and geological events, most Native American tribes lacked scientific explanations of these occurrences. Native Americans, however, sought to explain the effects and often devastation resulting from meteorological and geological events in some manner. The religions and mythologies of many cultures provide explanations for the occurrence of natural phenomena through supernatural intervention. The presentation of myths by geographic region provided the basis for analysis of explanations for natural phenomena. Regional analysis of myths suggests that commonalities exist among Native American Groups experiencing similar meteorological and geological events. Furthermore, common themes span across regional boundaries. For example, the use of a Thunderbird, a large bird with glowing eyes, as an explanation for the occurrence of thunder and storms occurs in every region of the United States. Another common theme is the use of a storm by a supernatural force as punishment for unacceptable behaviors of the earth's inhabitants. The most frequent example of this is the theme of a flood that destroys many inhabitants at some point in the history of the tribe. Often, storms and other natural phenomena have explanations based in the creation myth of the tribe. Another theme in myths regarding natural phenomena is the resolution of opposing forces. In many myths, the opposition exists between humans and nature, weather beings or spirits, or animals and nature. Myths regarding natural phenomena occasionally contain the attempt by humans or animals to gain control over nature or natural elements. The results of this control vary from favorable to unfavorable for those involved. A final theme exhibited in many myths is the function of a supernatural force associated with weather as a guardian, protector, and provider. The belief in these guardians provides Native Americans with assurance that they will be protected, and provided for, especially in times of natural disasters or storms. Research indicates that compilation of myths regarding natural phenomena facilitates regional and cross-cultural analysis and understanding of the role of supernatural intervention in Native American comprehension of natural phenomena.
Department of Anthropology

The technology of the dominant society, the omnipresence of a cash economy, and a history of the brutal treatment of culturally distinct peoples are among the assimilative pressures faced by native peoples within the United States. Some indigenous cultures have managed to resist the forces of assimilation in ways that are both adaptive and culturally sustaining. The Pueblos of the Southwestern United States have managed to preserve their culture through the creation of cultural boundaries that are both adaptive and culturally sustaining. The processes which serve to strengthen and renew the symbols which represent these boundaries are those of "revitalization" and "resynchronization," both of which arise from Pueblo religious practices and from the Pueblos' strong sense of family.
Department of Anthropology

Focusing on the Tsachila, Amerindians of western Ecuador, this thesis examines how competing "common knowledge" accounts of the afterlife (conventional Tsachi, Catholic, and Protestant) are related to experiences of encounters with ghosts. Inspired by conversation analysis it advocates the study of these encounters through close attention to how accounts of them are constructed in conversation, from which they emerge as inherently disruptive and resistant to any definitive interpretation. From this starting point a descriptive account is given of the ways in which these anomalous experiences form the background to everyday life among the Tsachila. Experiential associations are identified linking ghosts with the circadian patterns of sound, light and sociality. Next the thesis examines and compares a selection of myths depicting the dead and animals and it is shown that the boundaries between myth and everyday life and between the living and the dead are uncertain and subject to revision in the light of experience. They cannot be taken for granted but must be constantly reinforced. An example of such reinforcement is provided by the Tsachi celebration of the Catholic Day of the Dead, and it is shown how this intersects with and is inflected by Tsachi attitudes to the dead and their disposal. In the final chapter a selection of accounts of personal encounters with ghosts is examined to reveal ways in which the common knowledge previously discussed is shaped, deployed and contested in the context of these accounts. It is suggested, in conclusion, that personal experience of this kind cannot be treated as simply a cultural expression, but that it exerts a motivating and disruptive force on thought and action.

The 2004 presidential election seemed to signal growing religious fervor across the political spectrum. Members of the media and pollsters alike were left wondering what went on inside the voting booth. Religion has long played a role in American politics, dating back to the Constitution of the United States of America. When components of government, the military, religion, and society converge, discussion and debate invariably follows. The United States military is a religiously pluralistic institution, with members belonging to an estimated 700 religions. The chaplaincy champions religious accommodation and the military itself supports over 245 faith groups. The chaplaincy is at the core of this religious accommodation since chaplains maintain a dual allegiance, as members of the clergy and as members of the officer corps. As religious diversity grows, the likelihood of controversy increases when, for instance, Indian members of the Native American Church take peyote, Wiccans observe pagan rites on military bases, and Muslim chaplains serve Muslim soldiers who find themselves at war within an Islamic country. This thesis explores some of the challenges inherent in ministering to so many diverse religions, and takes a critical look at areas of potential friction that might cause the Department of Defense to want to take a more attentive look at what such diversity means for the future.

Orientador: John Manuel Monteiro
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas
Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-05T04:54:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Takatuzi_Tatiana_M.pdf: 956926 bytes, checksum: 3e0774422f5a00e1452a76d0361f80f5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005
Resumo: O presente trabalho acompanha a trajetória histórica de Atalaia, um aldeamento composto por índios Kaingang que teve sua concepção no governo da Capitania de São Paulo durante o processo de colonização dos Campos de Guarapuava na primeira metade do século XIX. Registros eclesiásticos, listas nominativas e relatos de Francisco das Chagas Lima, principal pároco que permaneceu no aldeamento por dezoito anos, documentam como a Igreja estabeleceu classificações hierárquicas, através das quais buscou enquadrar os índios num sistema de subordinação. Em contrapartida, também foram percebidas formas de representações indígenas nas quais uma suposta aceitação dos rituais cristãos é analisada segundo a ótica de uma política e cosmologia própria dos Kaingang, onde os diversos conflitos e alianças que permearam a história desse grupo foram visualizados de acordo com uma visão dualista de mundo e em função de um alto faccionalismo hierárquico. A dialética do encontro em situação de aldeamento promoveu a elaboração e construção de novas relações sociais e a representação indígena não foi explicitada unicamente pelos conflitos contra o colonizador mas, sobretudo, por meio de negociações e adaptações de diferenciadas formas de convívio determinados pelos atores indígenas e coloniais
Abstract: This thesis examines the historical development of Atalaia, a village occupied by Kaingang Indians, which was established in the early nineteenth century by the colonial government of the Captaincy of São Paulo as part of its colonization plan for the Campos de Guarapuava region. Based on ecclesiastical records, census lists, and the writings of Francisco das Chagas Lima, a priest who remained in the village for 18 years, the thesis shows how the church developed a hierarchical classification scheme, subjecting the Indians to a system of subordination. At the same time, the work reveals indigenous forms of representation, analyzing the apparent acceptance of Christian rituals from the perspective of Kaingang politics and cosmology, where the conflicts and alliances that permeated this group¿s history followed a dualistic world view and the logic of a hierarchical factionalism. The dialectics of the encounter within the space of the village promoted the elaboration and construction of new social relations, since indigenous agency was expressed not only through conflicts with colonial interests, but also through the negotiation and adaptation of various forms of coexistence determined both by indigenous as well and colonial actors
Mestrado
Antropologia
Mestre em Antropologia

Abstract The Biblical passage “and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea” has often been pointed to as the source of a dangerous flaw in Western thought, not shared by Indians. Claiming “dominion” over nature, modern civilization puts human needs first, whereas the mythology of the Indian imposes a more balanced view. The Indian idea, developed in the myths of many different tribes, is that the products of nature are persons, which must be treated with respect.

Abstract The French Jesuit Pierre de Charlevoix was fascinated by the religious customs of the Algonquian-speaking Indians of southern Canada and northern New York and New England. In his two-volume Journal of a Voyage to North-America (1761), Charlevoix related many stories about Algonquian religion that seemed both wonderful and strange. Charlevoix was especially intrigued by Algonquian dreaming and its dramatic effect among traditional Algonquian believers. He was particularly taken by a story told to him by French Jesuit missionaries working among the Algonquian Indians. An Algonquian man dreamed that he had been a prisoner held by Algonquian enemies. When he awoke, he was confused and afraid. What did the dream mean? When he consulted the Algonquian shaman, the figure who mediated between humans, the gods, and nature, the shaman told him he had to act out the implications of the dream. The man had himself tied to a post, and other Algonquians burned several parts of his body, just as would have happened had his captivity been real.