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    American Religion Unit 1.1 Notes

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    This document provides an overview of Native American religious traditions and how they were impacted by European contact. It describes the diversity of early Native civilizations like the Olmecs, Mayans, and Cahokia. Native religions viewed the natural world in a holistic way and emphasized harmony. European diseases, guns, and trade disrupted traditional practices. While some Native groups converted to Christianity, most incorporated Christian traditions into existing beliefs in a process of religious syncretism. Moravian missionaries found some success by relating Christian themes to native spiritual concepts.

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    American Religion Unit 1.1 Notes

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    notreally anyoneatall
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    This document provides an overview of Native American religious traditions and how they were impacted by European contact. It describes the diversity of early Native civilizations like the Olmecs, Mayans, and Cahokia. Native religions viewed the natural world in a holistic way and emphasized harmony. European diseases, guns, and trade disrupted traditional practices. While some Native groups converted to Christianity, most incorporated Christian traditions into existing beliefs in a process of religious syncretism. Moravian missionaries found some success by relating Christian themes to native spiritual concepts.

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    This document provides an overview of Native American religious traditions and how they were impacted by European contact. It describes the diversity of early Native civilizations like the Olmecs, Mayans, and Cahokia. Native religions viewed the natural world in a holistic way and emphasized harmony. European diseases, guns, and trade disrupted traditional practices. While some Native groups converted to Christianity, most incorporated Christian traditions into existing beliefs in a process of religious syncretism. Moravian missionaries found some success by relating Christian themes to native spiritual concepts.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    17 views3 pages

    American Religion Unit 1.1 Notes

    Uploaded by

    notreally anyoneatall
    This document provides an overview of Native American religious traditions and how they were impacted by European contact. It describes the diversity of early Native civilizations like the Olmecs, Mayans, and Cahokia. Native religions viewed the natural world in a holistic way and emphasized harmony. European diseases, guns, and trade disrupted traditional practices. While some Native groups converted to Christianity, most incorporated Christian traditions into existing beliefs in a process of religious syncretism. Moravian missionaries found some success by relating Christian themes to native spiritual concepts.

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    Unit 1: Native Americans

    The Native American World


    ● The Local Gods
    ○ Master of Breath - God
    ○ Tamookwa
    ● An Americas Perspectives
    ● Native American Diversity
    ● Change in Native American Traditions

    Bering Strait
    ● Place where Alaska and Asia join
    ● First people in hemisphere
    ● 15,000 Years ago

    Olmecs
    ● First Civilization in Americas
    ● 3,000 years ago
    ● Built pyramids
    ● Giant stones heads, masks, etc

    Mayans
    ● 3rd to 10th century
    ● Kings talked with gods
    ● Urban Centric

    Cahokia
    ● 900 - 1350 AD
    ● Urban Centric
    ● Solar and Seasonal Rituals
    ● Mississippian society

    ● Native Americans had no word for religion.


    ○ Had not separated ordinary from mysterious. Beliefs and activities were part of
    the same

    Diversity
    ● Origin stories
    ● Cherokees’ “Great Island”
    ● Community Rituals

    Religion as Culture
    ● Cultural collisions
    ● Every people had sacred stories
    ● Culture -> Tradition -> Religion
    Common Characteristics
    ● Our world and Outer world are interwoven
    ● Ties of Kinship
    ● Ties of time

    Native American: The purpose of being on the earth was to live in harmony with all of nature
    vs.
    English: Profane world vs. Divine Existence

    1. Syncretism: Keep up traditional practice, but add Christian traditions as well


    2. Millennialism: Casting off old religion in favor of a new one
    3. Conversion:

    Native Americans and Europeans


    ● Initial Encounters
    ● Population Shift
    ● Effects on Religion
    ● Missionaries

    Initial Encounters
    ● 1492 - 2,000,000 Natives
    ○ East of Mississippi
    ● 1700 - 250,000 Colonists
    ○ Coasts and seaboards
    ● 1750 - Shift in Population

    Native American Religion


    ● Morally neutral universe
    ○ Potentially hostile or friendly spiritual forces
    ● Relation with spirit forces
    ● Exchange of goods
    ● The Mourning War
    ○ Required young men to raid their enemies for war captives to replace loss of
    loved ones

    Spiritual Power
    ● Necessary warfare
    ● Replace dead
    ● Community rituals
    European Contact
    ● Changing warfare
    ● Derangement
    ○ Diseases
    ○ Guns
    ○ Trade
    ● End of Mourning War
    ○ Warfare failing to maintain a stable population

    When Native Americans could no longer explain the world due to European arrival, Christians
    easily witnessed them
    - Moravian Missionaries

    Moravian Missionaries
    ● Successful
    ● Similar themes to native religions
    ● Music and images
    ● Blood and Wounds Theology
    ○ Familial Metaphors
    ○ Symbolism of Communion
    ○ Transformative Power of Wounds
    ○ Emphasis on Christ’s Gruesome Death

    Effects on Religion
    ● Native American religion could not provide answers
    ● Turned to similar forms of Christianity
    ● Incorporation over conversion

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