1. Religion of the North American Plains Indians
Tribal Traditions

2. Why Study Primal Religions?
We study “primal” traditions for 2 reasons:
Primal religions provide insight into the mythic and ritual dimension of religion
Primal religions are the source from which all the world’s religions have sprung.
Groups we will look at
Plains Indians of North America, & Aztecs

3. What characterizes a Primal Religion?
Primal religions today are generally practiced by people of oral (non-literate) cultures.
Non-literate people means that they do not depend on scriptures or written teachings
What they lack in written texts, they make up for in oral material- myths or stories that are passed down from generation to generation

4. Primal religions tend to be traditions practiced by
Tribal peoples who live in villages
BUT, they are also practiced by city dwellers such as
Modern Yoruba
Ancient Aztecs

5. First humans in America
Human came to North America 20,000 yrs. ago
Migrated from Asia by crossing over the Bering Strait (situated between Russia and Alaska)
Under water now
These first humans formed many tribes
Domestic horses enabled the Plains Indians to become great hunters of buffalo and other game

6. The Lakota The Lakota is the largest and most influential tribe
Aka Western Sioux
Inhabited western Montana and Wyoming, eastern regions of the Dakotas and parts of Nebraska
In 1890 more than 200 Lakota were massacred as the result of the war between Indians and whites
Today about 100,000 Lakota live on reservations in Montana and North and South Dakota
The Lakota

7. Ultimate reality
The Lakota name for the supreme reality is Wakan Tanka
Sometimes translated as Great Spirit/Great Mysterious
Literally meaning: most sacred
Wakan Tanka refers to 16 separate deities
The # 16 is derived from the number 4- 4X4
4-most sacred #
Refers to the compass directions: north, south, east, and west

8. Supernatural beings Inktomi Name means “Spider”
Mediator between the supernatural and human worlds.
Taught 1st humans their ways and customs
Trickster figure
Offers moral lessons from experience
Do not behave as Inktomi

9. Destiny: Next life Belief in Death/Afterlife
Believe that four souls depart from a person at death
First soul journeys to the “spirit path” of the Milky Way
Meets an old woman who judges it and either allows it to continue on to the world of the ancestors
or it goes back to earth as a ghost
The other souls enter unborn children to be reborn

10. Rituals Initiation rites Purpose To be transformed
To become full members of the tribe
And determined their role
To be able to be married
Require a symbolic death
Dying to the old self
It will very from tribe to tribe:
Some tribes require the initiates to be circumcised etc.
Totem Poles
Are usually made after initiation rituals
Represent their vision quest/vision received
Remind them of their experience
Represent an ancestor

11. Two main rituals wkst
The Vision Quest
The Sun Dance

12. Vision Quest: (Initiation Rite)
Purpose:
To gain spiritual power and knowledge of one’s role in society
For success in hunting, warfare, and curing the ill
Experienced by
young women and men (more frequently)
Carried out by
a spiritual leader: medicine woman or medicine man- they issue specific instructions beforehand, and interpret the content of the vision afterward.
Expresses 3 dimensions of religion
Ritual: sweat lodge prior to going out on one’s own
Experiential: Receiving the vision or guardian spirit
Mythic: meaning of the guardian spirit

13. VISION QUEST: Ritual Ritual of purification in the sweat lodge
Procedure
A dark/airtight hut made of saplings and covered with animal skins
Represents the universe
Heated stones placed in the center and water is poured over them by the medicine man
The resulting hot steam causes the participant to sweat profusely
Steam room
Both physical and spiritual purification

14. Vision Quest: Experiential & Mythical
After purification, the person goes off alone without food, water or shelter for a set # of days
The vision comes to the person in the form of an animal, other object, or force of nature
Once the person returns to camp, a medicine man/woman interprets the vision, to determine their role for the rest of his/her life

15. 2nd Major Lakota Ritual: Sun Dance
Procedure:
Construct a lodge
Cottonwood tree is selected
This tree becomes the Axis Mundi: the axis or center of the universe.
The tree represents the supreme being
Connects heaven & earth
The lodge is constructed of 28 poles around the tree: representing the 28 days of lunar month
The finished lodge is representative of the universe with its four compass directions.
Begin Dance
Purpose:
Benefits all (community ritual)
Occurs at the beginning of summer as new year celebration
to prepare for the annual buffalo hunt
Leader:
A medicine man or woman

16. The Sun Dance: Practice
The Sun Dance features long periods of dancing
Dancers dance facing the sun for life- giving powers
Music and drumbeats accompany the dancing
Dancers skewer the flesh of their chests and attach themselves to the tree with leather thongs
Dancers dance pulling back until the skin tears
Purpose of bodily mutilation:
The body is only thing humans can really call their own
Therefore, the body is the best sacrifice to offer to the Supreme Being

17. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vioh7ML7 5Cg