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INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS 33

C H A P T E R 2

INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS

“I am a child of both worlds. Despite being a university

professor, and one who has embraced modernity, I am

still a Maasai girl deep down.” Damaris Parsitau1

2.1 Outline the challenges faced by scholars in understanding indigenous sacred ways

2.2 Explain the cultural diversity of indigenous groups

2.3 Describe the circle of right relationships

2.4 Identify the different spiritual specialists in indigenous sacred ways

2.5 Summarize group and individual observances in indigenous sacred ways

2.6 Illustrate how the processes of globalization are affecting indigenous peoples

2.7 Discuss how development projects have affected indigenous peoples and how they have responded

Here and there around the globe, pockets of people still follow local sacred ways handed down from their remote ancestors but adapted to contemporary circum- stances. They are often referred to by religious scholars as indigenous peoples. In common parlance, “indigenous” means “native to a place,” but some of these groups have actually migrated or been displaced from somewhere else. This is thus a somewhat catch-all label used to distinguish these local groups from worldwide religions. Despite their great variety, “indigenous peoples” have two characteristics in common: Their spiritual beliefs, rituals, and social practices are centered on their own ancestors, and they relate to a specific geographic place. Their distribution around the world, suggested in the map overleaf, reveals a fascinating picture, with many indigenous groups surviving in the midst of industrialized societies, but with globalization processes altering their traditional lifeways.

Indigenous peoples comprise at least four percent of the world’s population. Some who follow the ancient spiritual traditions still live close to the earth in nonindustrial, small-scale cultures; some do not. In some places, such as parts of Africa and India, many traditional spiritual practices and ways of understanding

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34 INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS

have been retained, albeit influenced by modernity and global religions. In other places, the ways that indigenous peoples may refer to as their “original instruc- tions” on how to live have almost been lost under the onslaught of genocidal colonization, conversion pressures from global religions, mechanistic material- ism, and the destruction of their natural environments by the global economy of limitless consumption. In those cases, much of the ancient visionary wisdom has disappeared. To seek paying jobs and modern comforts such as electricity, people have shifted from their natural environments into urban settings. In the southwestern United States, there are few traditionally trained elders left and few young people willing to undergo the lengthy and rigorous training necessary for spiritual leadership in these sacred ways. Nevertheless, in many places there is now a renewal of interest in these traditions among the people, fanning hope that what they offer will not be lost.

To what extent can [indigenous groups] reinstitute traditional religious values in a world gone mad with development, electronics, almost instantaneous transportation facilities, and intellectually grounded in a rejection of spiritual and mysterious events?

Vine Deloria, Jr.2

Understanding indigenous sacred ways What challenges have scholars faced in understanding indigenous sacred ways?

Outsiders have known or understood little of the indigenous sacred ways, many of which have long been practiced only in secret. In Mesoamerica, the ancient teachings have remained hidden for 500 years since the coming of the conquis- tadores, passed down within families as a secret oral tradition. The Buryats living

Inuit (Eskimo)

Lakota (Sioux)

Hopi

Kogi

Navajo Papago

Huichol

Zuni

Cheyenne Onondaga

Mohegan

Da ga

ra Da

ho m

ey Ibo

Am as

iri

Tsalagi (Cherokee)

Akan

Yoruba

Ogoni

Bakongo

Achewa

Vaduma

Kung

Efe

Nankani

Kikuyu

Kalmyk

Indian tribals

Orang Asli

Khasi

Buryat

Yakut

Ainu

Australian Aborigines

Saami (Lapp)

Toltec

Maya

Haida

Ne z

Pe rc

Yup´ik

Koyukon Dene Tha

Yurok

Apache

Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)

Maori

The approximate distribution of indigenous groups mentioned in this chapter.

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near Lake Baikal in Russia were thought to have been converted to Buddhism and Christianity centuries ago; however, almost the entire population of the area gathered for indigenous ceremonies on Olkhon Island in 1992 and 1993.

In parts of Aboriginal Australia, the indigenous teachings have been under- ground for 200 years since white colonialists and Christian missionaries appeared. As Aborigine Lorraine Mafi Williams explains:

We have stacked away our religious, spiritual, cultural beliefs. When the missionaries came, we were told by our old people to be respectful, listen and be obedient, go to church, go to Sunday school, but do not adopt the Christian doctrine because it takes away our cultural, spiritual beliefs. So we’ve always stayed within God’s laws in what we know.3

Not uncommonly, the newer global traditions have been blended with the older ways. For instance, Buddhism as it spread often adopted existing customs, such as the recognition of local deities. Now many indigenous people practice one of the global religions while still retaining many of their traditional ways.

Until recently, those who attempted to ferret out the native sacred ways had little basis for understanding them. Many were anthropologists who approached spiritual behaviors from the nonspiritual perspective of Western science or else the Christian understanding of religion as a means of salvation from sinful earth- ly existence—a belief not found among most indigenous peoples. There is a great difference between the conceptual frameworks of the religions of Africa and the thinking of Western scholars. Knowing that researchers from other cultures did not grasp the truth of their beliefs, native peoples have at times given them information that was incorrect in order to protect the sanctity of their practices from the uninitiated.

Academic study of traditional ways is now becoming more sympathetic and self-critical, however, as is apparent in this statement by Gerhardus Cornelius Oosthuizen, a South African scholar:

[The] Western worldview is closed, essentially complete and unchangeable, basically substantive and fundamentally non-mysterious; i.e. it is like a rigid

Uluru (Ayers Rock), a unique mass rising from the plains of central Australia, has long been considered sacred by the Aboriginal groups of the area, and in its caves are many ancient paintings.

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programmed machine. … This closed worldview is foreign to Africa, which is still deeply religious. … This world is not closed, and not merely basically substantive, but it has great depth, it is unlimited in its qualitative varieties and is truly mysterious; this world is restless, a living and growing organism.4

Indigenous spirituality is a lifeway, a particular approach to all of life. It is not a separate experience, like meditating in the morning or going to church on Sunday. Spirituality ideally pervades all moments. As an elder of the Huichol in Mexico puts it:

Everything we do in life is for the glory of God. We praise him in the well-swept floor, the well-weeded field, the polished machete, the brilliant colors of the picture and embroidery. In these ways we prepare for a long life and pray for a good one.5

In most native cultures, spiritual lifeways are shared orally. Oral transmis- sion has been used in all religions, but in indigenous religions oral transmission rather than written scripture remains the main way of sharing and carrying on the traditions. The people create and pass on songs, proverbs, myths, riddles, short sayings, legends, art, music, and the like. This helps to keep the indige- nous sacred ways dynamic and flexible rather than fossilized. It also keeps the sacred experience fresh in the present. Oral narratives may also contain clues to the historical experiences of individuals or groups, but these are often carried from generation to generation in symbolic language. The symbols, metaphors, and humor are not easily understood by outsiders but are central to a people’s understanding of how life works. To the Maori of New Zealand, life is a continual dynamic process of becoming in which all things arise from a burst of cosmic energy. According to their creation story, all beings emerged from a spatially confined liminal state of darkness in which the Sky Father and Earth Mother were locked in eternal embrace, continually conceiving but crowding their off- spring until their children broke that embrace. Their separation created a great burst of light, like wind sweeping through the cosmos. That tremendously free- ing, rejuvenating power is still present and can be called upon through rituals in which all beings—plants, trees, fish, birds, animals, people—are intimately and primordially related.

The lifeways of many small-scale cultures are tied to the land on which they live and their entire way of life. They are most meaningful within this context. Many traditional cultures have been dispersed or dismembered, as in the forced emigration of slaves from Africa to the Americas. Despite this, the dynamism of traditional religions has made it possible for African spiritual ways to transcend space, with webs of relationships still maintained between the ancestors, spirits, and people in the diaspora, though they may be practiced secretly and are little understood by outsiders.

Despite the hindrances to understanding of indigenous forms of spirituality, the doors to understanding are opening somewhat in our times. The traditional elders are very concerned about the growing potential for planetary disaster. Some are beginning to share their basic values, if not their esoteric practices, in hopes of preventing industrial societies from destroying the earth.

Cultural diversity Why are indigenous groups culturally diverse?

In this chapter we are considering the faithways of indigenous peoples as a whole. However, behind these generalizations lie many differences in social con- texts as well as in religious beliefs and practices. There are hundreds of different indigenous traditions in North America alone, and at least fifty-three different ethnolinguistic groups in the Andean rainforests. And Australian Aboriginal lifeways, which are some of the world’s oldest surviving cultures, traditionally included more than 500 different clan groups, with differing beliefs, living pat- terns, and languages.

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Indigenous traditions have evolved within materially as well as religiously diverse cul- tures. Some are descendants of civilizations with advanced urban technologies that sup- ported concentrated populations. When the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés took over Tenochtitlán (which now lies beneath Mexico City) in 1519, he found it a beautiful, clean city with elaborate architecture, indoor plumbing, an accurate calendar, and advanced systems of mathematics and astronomy. Former African kingdoms were highly culturally advanced with elaborate arts, such as intricate bronze and copper casting, ivory carving, goldwork- ing, and ceramics. In recent times, some Native American tribes have become quite materially successful via economic enterprises, such as gambling complexes.

Among Africa’s innumerable ethnic and social groupings, there are some indigenous groups comprising millions of people, such as the Yoruba of West Africa and the Ashanti of Ghana. Even though they are so large as to be con- sidered “nations,” these groups can be labelled indigenous because they are located in one region, their stories of origin relate to how their ancestors came to occupy that land, and they are bound by lines of kinship, even though these may be mythical. At the other extreme are those few small-scale cultures that still maintain a survival strategy of hunting and gathering. For example, some Australian Aborigines continue to live as mobile foragers, though restricted to government-owned stations. A nomadic survival strategy necessitates simplicity in material goods; whatever can be gathered or built rather easily at the next camp need not be dragged along. But material simplicity is not a sign of spiritual poverty. The Australian Aborigines have complex cosmogonies, or models of the origins of the universe and their purpose within it, as well as a working knowl- edge of their own bioregion.

Some traditional peoples live in their ancestral enclaves, though not untouched by the outer world. The Hopi people have continuously occupied a high plateau area of the southwestern United States for between 800 and 1,000 years; their sacred ritual calendar is tied to the yearly farming cycle. By contrast, tribal peoples have lived in India for thousands of years, but the forests they now occupy may not have been their primary homelands. There is evidence that they once lived in the hills and plains but were marginalized by higher-caste Hindus and then British colonizers, and the only place left for them was the forests. Since the twentieth century even the forests have been taken over for “devel- opment” projects and encroached upon by more politically and economically powerful groups, rendering many of the seventy-five million Indian tribespeople landless laborers.

Other indigenous peoples visit their sacred sites and ancestral shrines but live in more urban settings because of job opportunities. The people who participate in ceremonies in the Mexican countryside include subway personnel, journal- ists, and artists of native blood who live in Mexico City.

In addition to variations in lifestyles, indigenous traditions vary in their adap- tations to dominant religions. Often native practices have become interwoven with those of global religions, such as Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity. In Southeast Asia, household Buddhist shrines are almost identical to the spirit houses in which the people still make offerings to honor the local spirits. In Africa, the spread of Islam and Christianity saw the introduction of new religious ideas and practices into indigenous sacred ways. The encounter transformed indigenous religious thought and practice but did not supplant it; indigenous religions preserved some of their beliefs and ritual practices but also adjusted

The indigenous community of Acoma Pueblo—built on a high plateau in New Mexico—live in what may be the oldest continuously occupied city in the United States.

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to the new sociocultural milieu. The Dahomey tradition from West Africa was carried to Haiti by African slaves and called Vodou, from vodu, one of the names for the chief nonhuman spirits. Forced by European colonialists to adopt Christianity, worshipers of Vodou secretly fused their old gods with their images of Catholic saints. More recently, emigrants from Haiti have formed diaspora communities of Vodou worshipers in cities such as New York, New Orleans, Miami, and Montreal, where Vodou specialists are often called upon to heal sick- ness and use magic to bring desired changes. In Australia, some Aboriginal peo- ple are converting to Islam for various reasons. These include honouring their roots among ancestors who intermarried with Muslim traders from Indonesian islands or cameleers from Afghanistan, political activism against social injustice, and the search for a positive identity. Conversion does not necessarily mean abandoning their traditional culture. As one convert explains:

Islam recognises tribes and nations. It gives you identity, a purpose. It doesn’t just say, “You’re Muslim, that’s it.” It says yes, all Muslims are the same, but it does recognise we belong to different tribes and nations, so it doesn’t do what Christianity did to a lot of Aboriginal people [which] was try and make them like white people. … Islam allows you your identity, your tribe and nation, and that is quoted in the Quran.6

Despite their different histories and economic patterns, and their geograph- ical separation, indigenous sacred ways have some characteristics in common. Similarities found among the myths and symbols of geographically separate peo- ples can be partly accounted for by global diffusion through trade, travel, com- munications, and other kinds of contact. Perhaps from ancient contact across land-bridges that no longer exist, there are similarities between the languages of the Tsalagi in the Americas, Tibetans, and the aboriginal Ainu of Japan. There are also basic similarities in human experience, such as birth and death, pleasure and pain, and wonderment about the cosmos and our place in it. Cognitive sci- entists of religion also relate similarities in symbols and stories to shared human environmental conditions and the way the human mind functions. For instance, in all cultures, people tend to project human qualities onto plants, animals, and inanimate things and cross boundaries of this-worldly logic, developing belief in beings or forces that operate in extraordinary ways in the midst of ordinary time and space. People’s relationships to, and the concepts surrounding, these symbols are not inevitably the same. Nevertheless, the following sections look at some recurring themes in the spiritual ways of diverse indigenous cultures. These tendencies are not unique to indigenous religions, for they appear in other religions as well, but they may be particularly prominent in indigenous lifeways.

The circle of right relationships What is the circle of right relationships?

For many indigenous peoples, everything in the cosmos is intimately interre- lated. These interrelationships originate in the way everything was created. To Australian Aborigines, before time began there was land, but it was flat and devoid of any features. Powerful ancestral beings came forth from beneath the surface and began moving around, shaping the land as they moved across it. In this “Dreamtime,” the ancestral figures also created groups of humans to take care of the places that had been created. The people thus feel that they belong to their native place in an eternal sacred relationship.

A symbol of unity among the parts of this sacred reality is a circle. This is not used by all indigenous people; the Navajo, for instance, regard a completed cir- cle as stifling and restrictive. However, many other indigenous peoples hold the circle sacred because it is infinite—it has no beginning, no end. Time is circular rather than linear, for it keeps coming back to the same place. Life revolves around the generational cycles of birth, youth, maturity, and physical death,

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the return of the seasons, the cyclical movements of the moon, sun, stars, and planets. Rituals such as rites of passage may be performed to help keep these cycles in balance.

To maintain the natural balance of the circles of existence, most indigenous peoples have traditionally been taught that they must develop right relation- ships with everything that is. Their relatives include the unseen world of spirits, the land and weather, the people and creatures, and the power within.

Relationships with spirit

The cosmos is thought to contain and be affected by numerous divinities, spir- its, and also ancestors. For many indigenous groups, ancestors are the closest and most important spirits. Death is not an end; connection continues between the spirit of the dead person and the living relatives. To the Nankani of north- ern Ghana, ancestors have been delegated the power to take care of the needs and quarrels of their descendants, since they know and understand them well. For the Amasiri people of southeast Nigeria, the relationship of ancestors with the living is so intimate that the dead person may be buried in the floor of the home. During a funeral, mourners beg the parent not to forget them—to always remember and protect them.

Traditional Africans understand that the person is not an individual, but a composite of many souls—the spirits of one’s parents and ancestors—resonating to their feelings. Rev. William Kingsley Opoku, International Coordinator of the African Council for Spiritual Churches, says:

Our ancestors are our saints. Christian missionaries who came here wanted us to pray to their saints, their dead people. But what about our saints? … If you are grateful to your ancestors, then you have blessings from your grandmother, your grandfather, who brought you forth.7

Continued communication with the “living dead” (ancestors who have died within living memory) may include libation rituals in which food and drink are offered to the ancestors, acknowledging that they are still in a sense living and engaged with the people’s lives. For the Nankani, female ancestors are represented by pots within the house decorated with bangles; male ancestors are represented by pots placed outside the house. The guidance and protection of the ancestors is essential. Failure to keep in touch with them is a dangerous oversight, which may bring misfortunes to the family.

Among the gentle Efe pygmies of the Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), children learn to value the circle by playing the “circle game.” With feet making a circle, each child names a circular object and then an expression of roundness (the family circle, togetherness, “a complete rainbow”).

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Many unseen powers are perceived to be at work in the material world. In addition to ancestors, some of these are perceived without form, as mysterious presences, who may be benevolent or malevolent. Others are perceived as hav- ing more definite, albeit invisible, forms and personalities. These may include deities with human-like personalities, the nature spirits of special local places, such as venerable trees and mountains, animal spirit helpers, personified ele- mental forces, or the nagas, known to the traditional peoples of Nepal as invisible serpentine spirits who control the circulation of water in the world and also within our bodies.

The Dagara of Burkina Faso in West Africa are familiar with the kontombili, who look like humans but are only about one foot (thirty centimeters) tall, because of the humble way they express their spiritual power. Other West African groups, descendants of ancient hierarchical civilizations, recognize a great pantheon of deities, the orisa or vodu, each the object of special worship. The orisa are embodiments of the dynamic forces in life, such as Oya, powerful goddess of change, experienced in winds; Osun, orisa of fresh waters, associat- ed with sweetness, healing, love, fertility, and prosperity; Olokun, ruler of the mysterious depths of consciousness; Shango, a former king who is now honored as the stormy god of electricity and genius; Ifa, god of wisdom; and Obatala, the source of creativity, warmth, and enlightenment. At the beginning of time, in Yoruba cosmology, there was only one godhead, described by psychologist Clyde Ford as “a beingless being, a dimensionless point, an infinite container of everything, including itself.”8 According to the mythology, this being was smashed by a boulder pushed down by a rebellious slave, and broke into hun- dreds of fragments, each of which became an orisa. According to some analysts, orisa can also be seen as archetypes of traits existing within the human psyche. Their ultimate purpose—and that of those who pay attention to them as inner forces—is to return to that presumed original state of wholeness.

Australian Aborigines understand their environment as concentric fields of subtle energies. (Nym Bunduk, 1907–1974, Snakes and Emu.)

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Many indigenous traditions also worship a Supreme Being who they believe created the cos- mos. This being is known by the Lakota as “Great Mysterious” or “Great Spirit.” African names for the being are attributes, such as “All-powerful,” “Creator,” “the one who is met everywhere,” “the one who exists by himself,” or “the one who began the forest.” To traditional Buryats of Russia, the chief power in the world is the eternally blue sky, Tengry. The Supreme Being is often referred to by male pronouns, but in some groups the Supreme Being is a female. Some tribes of the southwestern United States call her “Changing Woman”—sometimes young, sometimes old, the mother of the earth, associated with women’s reproductive cycles and the mystery of birth, the creatrix. Many traditional languages make no distinction between male and female pronouns, and some see the divine as androgynous, a force arising from the interaction of male and female aspects of the universe. In the religions of Africa, the Supreme Being—whether singular or plural— may have human-like qualities, but no gender. This great Source is so awesome that no images are used to represent it. An Inuit spiritual adept described his people’s experience of:

a power that we call Sila, which is not to be explained in simple words. A great spirit, supporting the world and the weather and all life on earth, a spirit so mighty that [what it says] to mankind is not through common words, but by storm and snow and rain and the fury of the sea; all the forces of nature that men fear. But Sila has also another way of [communicating]; by sunlight and calm of the sea, and little children innocently at play, themselves understanding nothing. … When all is well, Sila sends no message to mankind, but withdraws into endless nothingness, apart.9

African myths suggest that the High God was originally so close to humans that they became disrespectful. The All-powerful was like the sky, they say, which was once so close that children wiped their dirty hands on it, and women (blamed by men for the withdrawal) broke off pieces for soup and bumped it with their sticks when pounding grain. Although southern and central Africans believe in a high being who presides over the universe, including less powerful spirits, they consider this being either too distant, too powerful, or too dangerous to worship or call on for help.

It cannot therefore be said that indigenous concepts of, and attitudes toward, a Supreme Being are necessarily the same as that which Western monotheistic religions refer to as God or Allah. In the religions of Africa, much more emphasis tends to be placed on the transcendent dimensions of everyday life and doing what is spiritually necessary to keep life going normally. The spirits are thought to be available to those who seek them as helpers, as intermediaries between the people and the power, and as teachers. A right relationship with these spirit beings can be a sacred partnership. Seekers respect and learn from them; they also purify themselves in order to engage their services for the good of the people.

Teachings about the spirits also help the people to understand how they should live together in society. Professor Deidre Badejo observes that in Yoruba tradition there is an ideal of balance between the creativity of women, who give and sustain life, and the power of men, who protect life. Under various internal and external pressures, this balance has swung toward male dominance, but

Deity may be conceived as either male or female in indigenous religions. In Navajo belief, divinity is personified as both Father Sky and Mother Earth. In this traditional sand-painting, Father Sky is on the left, with constellations and the Milky Way forming his “body.” Mother Earth is on the right, with her body bearing the four sacred plants: squash, beans, tobacco, and corn.

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the stories of feminine power (see Box) and the necessity for men to recognize it remain in the culture, teaching an ideal symmetry between female and male roles. In many indigenous cultures, women appear as powerful beings in myths and they are thought to have great ritual power.

Kinship with all creation

In addition to the unseen powers, all aspects of the tangible world are believed to be imbued with spirit. Josiah Young III explains that in African traditional religion, both the visible and the invisible realms are filled with spiritual forces:

The visible is the natural and cultural environment, of which humans, always in the process of transformation, are at the center. The invisible connotes the numinous field of ancestors, spirits, divinities, and the Supreme Being, all of whom, in varying degrees, permeate the visible. Visible things, however, are not always what they seem. Pools, rocks, flora, and fauna may dissimulate invisible forces of which only the initiated are conscious.11

Within the spiritually charged visible world, all things may be understood as spiritually interconnected. Everything is therefore experienced as family. In African traditional lifeways, “we” may be more important than “I,” and this “we” often refers to a large extended family and ancestral village, even for people who have moved to the cities. In indigenous cultures, the community is paramount, and it may extend beyond the living humans in the area. Many traditional peoples know the earth as their mother. The land one lives on is part of her body, loved, respected, and well known. Oren Lyons, an elder of the Onondaga Nation Wolf Clan, speaks of this intimate relationship:

[The indigenous people’s] knowledge is profound and comes from living in one place for untold generations. It comes from watching the sun rise in the east and set in the west from the same place over great sections of time. We are as familiar with the lands, rivers and great seas that surround us as we are with the faces of our mothers. Indeed we call the earth Etenoha, our mother, from whence all life springs. … We do not perceive our habitat as wild but as a place of great security and peace, full of life.12

YORUBA TEACHING STORY

Osun and the Power of Woman

Olodumare, the Supreme Creator, who is both female and male, wanted to prepare the earth for human habitation. To organize things, Olodumare sent the seventeen major deities. Osun was the only woman; all the rest were men. Each of the deities was given specific abilities and specific assignments. But when the male deities held their planning meetings, they did not invite Osun. “She is a woman,” they said. However, Olodumare had given great powers to Osun. Her womb is the matrix of all life in the universe. In her lie tremendous power, unlimited potential, infinities of existence. She wears a perfectly carved, beaded crown, and with her beaded comb she parts the pathway of both human and divine life. She is the leader of the aje, the powerful beings and forces in the world.

When the male deities ignored Osun, she made their plans fail. The male deities returned to Olodumare for help. After listening, Olodumare asked, “What about Osun?” “She is only a woman,” they replied, “so we left her out.”Olodumare spoke in strong words, “You must go back to her, beg her for forgiveness, make a sacrifice to her, and give her whatever she asks.” The male deities did as they were told, and Osun forgave them. What did she ask for in return? The secret initiation that the men used to keep women in the background. She wanted it for herself and for all women who are as powerful as she is. The men agreed and initiated her into the secret knowledge. From that time onward, their plans were successful.10

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Some striking feature of the natural environment of an area—such as a great mountain or canyon—may be perceived as the center from which the whole world was created. Such myths heighten the perceived sacredness of the land. Western Tibet’s Mount Kailash, high in the Himalayas, is seen by the indigenous people of that area as the center of the earth, a sacred space where the earthly and the supernatural meet. The Western Apache remember vivid symbolic nar- ratives about the exploits of people in specific places in their environment and contemplate them to make their minds smooth, steady, and resilient. Dudley Patterson’s grandmother taught him:

Wisdom sits in places. It’s like water that never dries up. You need to drink water to stay alive, don’t you? Well, you also need to drink from places. You must remember everything about them. You must learn their names. You must remember what happened at them long ago. You must think about it and keep on thinking about it. Then your mind will become smoother and smoother. Then you will see danger before it happens. You will walk a long way and live a long time. You will be wise. People will respect you.13

Because of the intimate relationship indigenous peoples have with their particular environments, forced removal from that environment can be devas- tating. When pushed onto the most marginal lands by colonizers, nation-states, or multinational companies that regard land as a valuable commercial resource rather than a sacred place, indigenous peoples may feel they have lost their own identity. New Zealand traditional elders, who were systematically forced off their ancestral homeland from the nineteenth century onward, explain:

It is important to know where we come from, to know where we belong. To identify who I am I identify my mountain, my river, my lands, our tribal and subtribal community. Knowing these things helps to bring about and to keep together the healing, the wellbeing of our people. We have suffered the loss of our lands, our connection to the land. We belong to the mountains, to the sea, to the forest. With the loss of the land, there has been a tremendous alienation from who we are. As a people we are currently in a renaissance, in a reclamation of our cultural identity, our land works, our traditional practices, our healing methods, because without these things we become a lost people, we become invisible, we become submerged into the dominant culture.14

An indigenous earthwork in Ohio represents a snake and an egg, symbols of fertility and transformation. The spiral in the snake’s tail may be an appreciative symbol of the life force and wisdom inherent in the earth.

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In contrast to the industrial world’s attempts to own and dominate the earth, native peoples consider themselves caretakers of their mother, the earth. Some are now raising their voices against the destruction of the environment, warning of the potential for global disaster. Nepali shamans who have undertaken the dif- ficult pilgrimage to Lake Mansarovar at the base of revered Mount Kailash report that the lake level is low and the spirits are unhappy. Their prophecies indicate difficult times ahead unless we humans take better care of our planetary home. Some indigenous visionaries say they hear the earth crying. Contemporary Australian Aboriginal elder Bill Neidjie speaks of feeling the earth’s pain:

I feel it with my body, with my blood. Feeling all these trees, all this country … If you feel sore … headache, sore body that mean somebody killing tree or grass. You feel because your body in that tree or earth. … You might feel it for two or three years. You get weak … little bit, little bit … because tree going bit by bit … dying.15

Rocks, bodies of water, and mountains—considered inanimate by other peoples—are personified as living beings. Before one can successfully climb a mountain, one must ask its permission. Visionaries can see the spirits of a body of water, and many traditional cultures have recognized certain groves of trees as places where spirits live, and where spiritual specialists can communicate with

them. As a Pit River Indian explained, “Everything is alive. That’s what we Indians believe.”16

All creatures may be perceived as kin, endowed with consciousness and the power of the Great Spirit. Many native peoples have been raised with an “ecological” perspective: They know that all things depend on each other. They are taught that they have a reciprocal, rather than dominating, relationship with all beings. Children learn from their elders that just as they have family relation- ships with humans, other living things are also like family members. They have intimate spiritual con- nections with trees, birds, animals, fish, reptiles— all creatures—and are taught that they can and should communicate with them, for their mutual benefit. All are to be approached with caution and consideration. If one must cut down a tree or kill an animal, one must first explain one’s intentions and ask forgiveness. Those who harm nature may themselves be harmed in return. Tribal peoples of Madhya Pradesh in central India will avoid killing a snake, for they feel that its partner would come after them to seek revenge. When a Buryat cuts a tree to build a house, he must first offer milk, butter, rice, and alcohol to the spirits of the forest and ask their forgiveness. In 1994, a half-French, half-Buryat businessman returned to Buryatia and started to build a guesthouse in a picturesque place that had long been considered sacred to the god Huushan-baabay. When the businessman began

Many traditional peoples learn a sense of reverence for, and kinship with, the natural world, as suggested in this image from Botswana created by Elisabeth Sunday.

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cutting trees, he was warned by the traditional people that he would not be suc- cessful. Nonetheless, he proceeded and finished the guesthouse. Three months later, it burned down.

Respect is always due to all creatures, in the indigenous worldview. The Yup’ik of southwestern Alaska know animals as thinking, feeling fellow beings. In fact, they may be even more sensitive and aware than humans. No one should handle the geese’s eggs or goslings, lest the human smell should fright- en the adults and they abandon the babies, to be eaten by predators. In Yup’ik belief, if humans treat animal populations carefully as guests, they will come back in plentiful numbers the following year to intentionally offer themselves to the Yup’ik hunters.

In the challenging environment of the Koyukon people of northern Canada, all interactions between humans and animals are conducted carefully accord- ing to a respectful moral code so that the animals will allow themselves to be caught. The animal spirits are very easily offended, not by animals being killed but by disrespect shown to the animals or their remains. Killing must be done prayerfully and in a way that does not cause suffering to the animal; wounded animals must be found and put out of their misery. If displeased, the spirits can bring bad luck in the hunt for that species or perhaps illness or even death for the hunters. But if humans maintain good relationships with the animals, they will give themselves freely to the hunters and keep coming back year after year. It is the natural world that is dominant, not humans.

There are many stories of indigenous peoples’ relationships with nonhuman creatures. Certain trees tell the healing specialists which herbs to use in curing the people. Australian Aboriginal women are adept at forming hunting partner- ships with dogs. Birds are thought to bring messages from the spirit world. The Ainu people of Japan learned to heed the cries of foxes when a tsunami was coming, and thus moved to higher ground to save themselves. A crow, a wild yak, and a pack of silver wolves revealed the sacred path to Mount Kailash in Tibet. A Hopi elder said he spent three days and nights praying with a rattle- snake. “Of course he was nervous at first, but when I sang to him he recognized the warmth of my body and calmed down. We made good prayer together.”17

Relationships with power

Another common theme in indigenous lifeways is developing an appropriate relationship with spiritual energy.

All animals have power, because the Great Spirit dwells in all of them, even a tiny ant, a butterfly, a tree, a flower, a rock. The modern, white man’s way keeps that power from us, dilutes it. To come to nature, feel its power, let it help you, one needs time and patience for that. … You have so little time for contemplation. … It lessens a person’s life, all that grind, that hurrying and scurrying about.

Lame Deer, Lakota Nation18

In certain places and beings, the power of spirit is believed to be highly con- centrated. It is referred to as mana by the people of the Pacific islands. This is the vital force that makes it possible to act with unusual strength, insight, and effectiveness.

Tlakaelel, a spiritual leader of the descendants of the Toltecs of Mexico, described how a person might experience this power when looking into an obsidian mirror traditionally made to concentrate power:

When you reach the point that you can concentrate with all your will, inside there, you reach a point where you feel ecstasy. It’s a very beautiful thing, and everything is light. Everything is vibrating with very small signals, like waves of

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music, very smooth. Everything shines with a blue light. And you feel a sweetness. Everything is covered with the sweetness, and there is peace. It’s a sensation like an orgasm, but it can last a long time.19

Sacred sites may be recognized by the power that believers feel there. Some sacred sites have been used again and again by successive religions, either to capitalize on the energy or to co-opt the preceding religion. Chartres Cathedral in France, for instance, was built on an ancient ritual site. In New Zealand, the traditional Maori people know of the revivifying power of running water, such as waterfalls (now understood by scientists as places of negative ionization, and which do indeed have an energizing effect). The Maori elders have told the pub- lic of the healing power of a certain waterfall on North Island; the area is now dedicated to anyone who needs healing.

Because power can be built up through sacred practices, the ritual objects of spiritually developed persons may have concentrated power. Special stones and animal artefacts may also carry power. A person might be strengthened by the spiritual energy of the bear or the wolf by wearing sacred clothing made from its fur. Power can also come to one through visions, or by being given a sacred pipe or the privilege of collecting objects into a personal sacred bundle.

In some cultures women are thought to have a certain natural power; men have to work harder for it. Women’s power is considered mysterious, dangerous, uncontrolled. It is said to be strongest during menstruation. Women are secluded during their menstrual periods in many cultures, not necessarily because they are considered polluting. Among the Yurok of northern California, houses have a separate back room for women who are menstruating so that they can concen- trate on their inner selves, becoming inwardly stronger and purified by the flow of blood. In certain rituals in which both men and women participate, women’s menstrual blood is often thought to diminish or weaken the ritual or the men’s spiritual power. In most Native American nations that have sweat lodge cere- monies for ritual purification, menstruating women are not allowed to enter the lodge. A few cultures, such as the Ainu of Japan, have prized menstrual blood as a potent offering returned to the earth.

Gaining power is both desirable and dangerous. If misused for personal ends, it becomes destructive and may turn against the person. To channel spiritual power properly, native peoples are taught that they must live within certain

At a remote shrine used by indigenous people in New Mexico, a ring of stones protects the sacred area where sun- bleached antlers and offerings have been placed around two stones naturally shaped like mountain lions.

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strict limits. Those who seek power or receive it unbidden are supposed to con- tinually purify themselves of any selfish motives and dedicate their actions to the good of the whole.

Spiritual specialists What types of spiritual specialists are there in indigenous sacred ways?

In a few remaining hunting and gathering tribes, religion is a relatively private matter. Each individual has direct access to the unseen. Although spirit is invis- ible, it is considered a part of the natural world. Anyone can interact with it spontaneously, without complex ceremony and without anyone else’s aid.

More commonly, however, the world of spirit is thought to be dangerous. Although everyone is expected to observe certain personal ways of worship, such as offering prayers before taking plant or animal life, many ways of inter- acting with spirit are thought to be best left to those who are specially trained for the roles. These specialists are gradually initiated into the secret knowledge that allows them to act as intermediaries between the seen and the unseen.

Storytellers and other sacred roles

Specialists’ roles vary from one group to another, and the same person may play several of these roles. One common role is that of storyteller. Because the traditions are oral rather than written, these people must memorize long and complex stories and songs so that the group’s sacred traditions can be remem- bered and taught, generation after generation. The orally transmitted epics of the indigenous Ainu of Japan are up to 10,000 “lines” long. Chants of the Yoruba orisa comprise 256 “volumes” of 800 long verses each. Unlike written texts, stories are told in context, as performances that change as they are told. They may be told for entertainment, for social or moral purposes, or for rituals such as dances in which deities manifest.

Yoruba chants about the orisa include an explanation of the genesis of the earth, with its center in what is now the Nigerian city of Ife. When time began, where the earth now exists there was only a vast watery area, with a dim and misty atmosphere, the domain of Olokun. The other orisa lived in an upper world of light until Obatala decided to go down to see if some solid land could be created so that the orisa could inhabit the earth. He had a sacred chain of gold made for his descent, and carried a shell of sand, a white hen, a palm nut, and a black cat. He climbed down to the watery world by means of the chain, but it was too short. Thus he poured the sand downward and then released the hen, who by scratching in the sand created the contours of the earth. Obatala settled on the land and planted his palm nut, which flourished and sent its seed far and wide, developing the plant life of the earth. At first he was alone, with only the black cat as his companion, but as the story continues, many things happen, accounting for the features of the earth and its inhabitants as we know them today. The golden chain is a common mythological symbol of a World Axis connecting heaven and earth; the palm tree also commonly appears in myths of the World Tree, giver and protector of the first forms of life on earth.

Such stories are important clues to understanding the universe and one’s place in it. What is held only in memory cannot be physically destroyed, but if a tribe is small and all its storytellers die the knowledge is lost. This happened on a large scale during contacts with colonial powers, as indigenous people were killed by war and imported diseases. Professor Wande Abimbola, who has tried to preserve the oral tradition of the Yoruba, has made thousands of tapes of the chants, but there are few people who can understand and interpret their mean- ing. Loss of traditional languages is not only a loss of cultural identity; it is a loss of symbolic layers of meaning embedded in languages.

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There are also contemporary bards who carry the energy of ancient traditions into new forms. In Africa, poets are considered “technicians of the sacred,” conversing with a dangerous world of spirits. Players of the “talking drums” are highly valued as communicators with the spirits, ancestors, and Supreme Being. As the Akan of Ghana say:

The thumb, finger with mouth, wake up and speak! The thumb armed with sticks for drumming Is more loquacious and more eloquent Than a human being sleeping; Wake up and come!20

Drumming creates a rhythmic environment in which the people can draw close to the unseen powers. By counterposing basic and complex cross-rhythmic patterns with a “return beat,” Yoruba drummers create a tension that draws listeners into the unfilled spaces between the beats.

“Tricksters” such as foxes often appear in the stories of indigenous traditions. They are paradoxical, transformative beings. Similarly, sacred clowns may endure the shame of behaving as fools during public rituals in order to teach the people through humor. Often they poke fun at the most sacred of rituals, keeping the people from taking themselves too seriously. A sacred fool, called heyoka by the Lakota, must be both innocent and very wise about human nature, and must have a visionary relationship with spirit as well.

Life is holiness and everyday humdrum, sadness and laughter, the mind and the belly all mixed together. The Great Spirit doesn’t want us to sort them out neatly.

Leonard Crow Dog, Lakota medicine man21

A storyteller of the Kung people of Botswana entertains an audience while passing on the oral teachings of the distant past.

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Another coveted role is that of being a member of a secret society in which one can participate by initiation or invitation only, whether to enhance one’s prestige or to draw closer to the spirit world. When serving in ceremonial capac- ities, members often wear special costumes to hide their human identities and help them take on the personas of spirits they are representing. In the religions of Africa, members of secret societies periodically appear as impersonators of animal spirits or ancestors, demonstrating that the dead are still watching the living, warning transgressors and protecting the village. The all-male Oro secret society in some Yoruba tribes uses this authority to enforce male domination, fearsomely “roaring” by swinging a piece of wood on a cord.

Women also have their secret societies. Among Aboriginal peoples of Australia, the men’s and women’s groups initiate members into separate but interrelated roles for males and females. For instance, when boys are separated from the tribe for circumcision by the men’s secret society, the women’s secret society has its own separation rituals and may stage mock ritual fights with the men’s society. But men’s and women’s rituals ultimately refer to the eternal Dreaming, in which there is no male/female differentiation.

Sacred dancers likewise make the unseen powers visible. Body movements are a language in themselves expressing the nature of the cosmos, a language that is understood through the stories and experiences of the community. Yvonne Daniel describes the dance of the Yoruba goddess Oya, as she learned it in Cuba: First the dancer makes a foot pattern that indicates all the directions and all spheres of being, to slow drum-beats. Oya being associated with wind and dynamic change, she then shifts from this powerfully balanced base into a canter and then a gallop, and finally to the fierce tornado of a fighting buffalo. To the sound of aggressive tuitui music, she hurls herself into a pattern of “three huge, percussive torso undulations that alternate side to side. Literally on top of this, the arms, which have been carrying the iruke [fly-whisk], finish the pattern by slashing downward from high in the air to at least hip height, alternately on each side.”22 Through her movements, she teaches the community about female strength, modeling “vivacious power.”23

In some socially stratified societies there are also priests and priestesses. These are specially trained and dedicated people who carry out the rituals that ensure proper functioning of the natural world, and perhaps also communicate with particular spirits or deities. Though West African priests or priestesses may have part-time earthly occupations, they are expected to stay in a state of ritual purity and spend much of their time in communication with the spirit being, paying homage and asking for guidance.

Indigenous groups may be led by people who combine spiritual and social duties. The Cheyenne Nation of the North American plains is believed to have been established by its visionary hero, Sweet Medicine, in the 1700s. One of its salient features is a council of forty-four men chosen from various groups in the Cheyenne family to be peace chiefs. When they join the council, the peace chiefs are to make a complete break with their past, in which they might have been warriors, and give up violence as a means of settling disputes. Instead, they have been instructed by Sweet Medicine that, if there are any fights, “You are to do nothing but take your pipe and smoke.”24 The chiefs meet to arbitrate disputes by smoking the peace pipe together; the goal is to smoke the pipe with their enemies. The chiefs’ homes also become places of refuge, for they are to help the people however they can. At a community meal, they are the last to be fed.

Mystical intermediaries

There are other distinctive spiritual specialists found among many indige- nous peoples. They are called by many names. The Siberian and Saami word “shaman” is often used as a generic term for those who offer themselves as mys- tical intermediaries between the human community and the spirits, attempting to use them for various needs of the community, such as ensuring the success

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of the hunt or curing illnesses. Such people are able to enter alternate reali- ties, moving in and out of time and space that is different from ordinary time and space. Archaeological research has confirmed that shamanic methods are extremely ancient—at least 20,000 to 30,000 years old. Shamanic ways are remarkably similar around the globe.

There are also spirit mediums who undergo possession by spirits for the sake of others. A spirit medium is possessed by a spirit and usually does not remem- ber what goes on during the possession. The medium is a conduit but does not control the spirit that inhabits him or her. Such a person may become ill and nearly die until a religious specialist diagnoses the cause as the need for a spir- it to make the person his or her medium. A shaman, by contrast, attempts to control the spirits.

Other intermediaries include “medicine people” who have special healing skills. There are many kinds of medicine. One is the ability to heal physical, psy- chological, and spiritual problems. Techniques used include physical approaches to illness, such as therapeutic herbs, sweat-bathing, massage, cauterization, and sucking out toxins. But the treatments are given to the whole person—body, mind, and spirit, with emphasis on healing relationships within the group—so there may also be divination, prayer, chanting, and ceremonies in which group power is built up and spirit helpers are called in. If an intrusion of harmful power, such as the angry energy of another person, seems to be causing the problem, the medicine person may attempt to suck it out with the aid of spirit helpers and then dry-vomit the invisible intrusion into a receptacle.

These healing methods are now beginning to earn respect from the scientific medical establishment. Organizations of registered spiritual healers practice in recognized clinics in Russia, Korea, and China. In the United States, medicine people are permitted to attend indigenous patients in some hospitals, and the National Institute of Mental Health has paid Navajo medicine men to teach young Indians the ceremonies that have often been more effective than Western psychiatry in curing the mental health problems of Navajos.

In addition to healing, certain mystical intermediaries are thought to have gifts such as being able to talk with plants and animals, control the weather, see and communicate with the spirit world, and prophesy. A gift highly developed in Africa is that of divination, using techniques such as reading patterns supposed to be revealed by a casting of cowrie shells. According to Mado Somé of the Dagara, “Divination is a way of accessing information that is happening now, but

Shaman Maria Amanchina of Siberia outside the hut she uses for healing. Maria repeatedly became seriously ill until she accepted her spiritual powers and began serving people as a healer.

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not right where you live. … The cowrie shells work like an inter- mediary between us and the other world.”25 Since everything is interrelated, divination is a system for finding the point at which harmony has been disrupted and how the break can be healed.

Whatever the mode of operation, these mystical intermediaries may be helpers to society, using their skills to benefit others. They are not to be confused with sorcerers, who practice black magic to harm others or promote their own selfish ends, interfering with the cosmic order. Spiritual power is neutral; its use depends on the practitioner. What Native Americans call “medicine power” does not originate in the medicine person. Black Elk explained:

Of course it was not I who cured. It was the power from the outer world, and the visions and ceremonies had only made me like a hole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds. If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through.26

The role of shaman may be hereditary or it may be recognized as a special gift. Either way, training is rigorous. In order to work in a mystical state of ecstasy, moving between ordinary and non- ordinary realities, shamans must experience physical death and rebirth. Uvavnuk, an Inuit shaman, was spiritually initiated when she was struck by a lightning ball. After she revived, she had great power, which she dedicated to serving her people.

Other potential mystical intermediaries undergo rituals of purification, isolation, and bodily torment until they make contact with the spirit world. Igjugarjuk from northern Hudson Bay chose to suffer from cold, starvation, and thirst for a month in a tiny snow hut in order to draw the attention of Pinga, a helping female spirit:

My novitiate took place in the middle of the coldest winter, and I, who never got anything to warm me, and must not move, was very cold, and it was so tiring having to sit without daring to lie down, that sometimes it was as if I died a little. Only towards the end of the thirty days did a helping spirit come to me, a lovely and beautiful helping spirit, whom I had never thought of; it was a white woman; she came to me whilst I had collapsed, exhausted, and was sleeping. But still I saw her lifelike, hovering over me, and from that day I could not close my eyes or dream without seeing her. … She came to me from Pinga and was a sign that Pinga had now noticed me and would give me powers that would make me a shaman.27

For many mystical intermediaries, initiation into the role is not a matter of their own choice. The spirits enter whom they will. Often it is a person with unusual spiritual sensitivity who is chosen for this sacred work. Some people try to resist their call- ing but it is reportedly very difficult to do so because the spirits persist. Two men who were called as shamans in Nepal tried to get the spirits to leave them by praying to them, performing special worship ceremonies, and finally even carrying manure around to make themselves undesirable. But when some of their relatives and animals died, they surrendered and their rigorous initiation program began. When people resist the call, they themselves may become very sick and nearly die. Nevertheless, some who are called do not want to become spiritual interme- diaries because the role would require them to give up their ordinary lives and take on heavy spiritual responsibilities, as well as go through difficult training that sometimes takes them to the edge of death.

{Place shaman in Senegal photo near here}

Traditional diviners in Mali rake sand and leave it overnight. The tracks of animals that run over it are interpreted the next day for information the client seeks.

A shaman in Senegal invokes the power of a spirit and then, as its vehicle, sprays energized water onto a girl who needs healing.

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LIVING INDIGENOUS SACRED WAYS

An Interview with Nadezhda Ananyevna Stepanova

One of the remaining traditional shamans of Buryatia, Nadezhda Ananyevna Stepanova comes from a family of very powerful shamans. Her mother tried to prevent her from becoming a shaman. Buddhist lamas had spread the impression that

shamans were to be avoided, saying that they were ignorant, primitive servants of dark, lower spirits. The reputation of shamans has also been recently damaged by pseudo-shamans—some of whom have certain extrasensory powers and others of whom are simply cheats. But when a shaman receives a true spiritual call, to deny that pull is dangerous. Nadezhda explains:

As a child I knew when I would fall ill, and I could repeat by heart anything the teacher said or anything I read in a book, but I thought that was normal. When I was twenty-six, I was told I would be a shaman, a great shaman. When I told Mother, she said, “No, you won’t.” She took a bottle, went to her native town, and then came back. “Everything will be taken away; you won’t become a shaman,” she said. I didn’t understand. The year I was said to become a shaman, I became seriously ill, and Mother was paralyzed. Usually paralyzed people have high blood pressure, but hers was normal. The doctors were surprised, but I understood then: We were both badly ill because she went against the gods. Nobody could heal me. Then one seer said, “You must cure.” I replied, “I don’t know anything about curing.” But a voice inside me said, “If you don’t become a shaman, you will die. You will be overrun by a lorry with a blue number.” I began to collect materials about medicine, about old rites. Then I could do a lot, for all we need is seeing and feeling. I was initiated by the men shamans of all the families, each praying to his god in a definite direction, for every god has his direction. I sat in the middle. Every shaman asked his gods to help me, to protect me, to give me power. The ritual was in early March. It was very frosty and windy, and I was only lightly dressed, but I wasn’t cold at all. The wind didn’t touch me. I sat motionless for about four hours, but I was not cold. I began to cure. It is very difficult. You go through pain, through the tears of children and adults. I am able to see whether I will be able to cure a specific

person. The main thing to me is to help a person if I can. I pray to my gods, ask them for mercy, I ask them to pay attention, to help. I feel the pain of those who come to me, and I want to relieve it. I have yodo—bark from a fir tree scratched by a bear; its smoke purifies. I perform rituals of bringing back the soul; often they work. My ancestors are very close to me; I see them as well as I see you. Last year in the island Olkhon in Lake Baikal, there was a great gathering of shamans from Tchita, Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, Yakutiya, and Buryatia to pray to the great spirits of Baikal about the well-being and prosperity of the Buryat land. For a long time these spirits were not turned to. They were forgotten by the people, and they fell asleep. They could not take an active part in the life of people; they could not help them any more. Teylagan, the prayer of the shamans for the whole Buryatia, was to awaken the great spirits. It was a clear, clear sunny day, without a cloud. When the prayer began, it started to rain. It was a very good sign. There had been a long drought before. The Olkhon shamans had tried to call rain, but they couldn’t. But when everyone gathered and three sheep were sacrificed, then they could, and the shamans of that district were grateful. We had always prayed to thirteen northern nainkhats, the great spirits of this area. But when the Buddhists came, persecution began, and people prayed secretly, only for their families. They could not pray for the whole Buryat Nation, and they did not. They forgot. Shamans were killed. Then the atheistic Soviet regime tried to make us forget the faith, and we forgot. The most terrible thing about them was that they wanted to make people forget everything, to live by the moment and forget their roots. And what is man without roots? Nothing. It is a loss of everything. That is why now nobody has compassion for anybody. Now we are reaping the fruit: robbery, drinking, drugs. This is our disaster. That is why we must pray to our own gods. When we had the teylagan, on the first day three blue pillars rose from earth to the sky—it was a prayer to Ehon-Bahve, the head spirit of Baikal, and to all three gods. The second day we prayed to the bird-god, and there were very many birds flying and a rainbow in the sky.”28

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In addition to becoming familiar with death, a potential mystical intermediary must undergo lengthy training in spiritual techniques, the names and roles of the spirits, and secrets and myths of the tribe. Novices are taught both by older shamans and reportedly by the spirits themselves. If the spirits do not accept and teach the shaman, he or she is unable to carry the role.

The helping spirits that contact would-be mystical intermediaries during the death-and-rebirth crisis become essential partners in their sacred work. Often it is a spirit animal who becomes the shaman’s guardian spirit, giving him or her special powers. The shaman may even take on the persona of the animal while working. Lapp shamans metamorphosed into wolves, reindeer, bears, or fish.

To enter parallel realities an altered state of consciousness is needed. Techniques for entering this state are the same around the world: drumming, rattling, singing, dancing, and in some cases hallucinogenic drugs. The effect of these influences is to open what the Huichol shamans of Mexico call the nar- ieka—the doorway of the heart, the channel for divine power, the point where human and spirit worlds meet. It is often experienced and represented artisti- cally as a pattern of concentric circles.

The “journey” then experienced by mystical intermediaries is typically into the Upperworld or the Lowerworld. To enter the latter, they descend mentally through an actual hole in the ground, such as a spring, hollow tree, cave, ani- mal burrow, or special ceremonial hole regarded as a navel of the earth. These entrances typically lead into tunnels that, if followed, open into bright land- scapes. Reports of such experiences include not only what the journeyer saw but also realistic physical sensations, such as how the walls of the tunnel felt during the descent.

The shaman enters into the alternate landscape, encounters beings there, and may bring something back if it is needed by the client. This may be a lost guard- ian spirit or a lost soul, brought back to revive a person in a coma. The mystical intermediary may be temporarily possessed by the spirit of departed relatives so that an afflicted patient may finally clear up unresolved tensions with them that are seen as causing illness. Often a river must be crossed as the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead. A kindly old man or woman may appear to assist passage through the Lowerworld. In cultures that have subdued the indigenous ways, this mystical process is retained only in myths, such as the Greek story of Orpheus in the underworld.

Group observances What group and individual observances do indigenous sacred ways follow?

Indigenous ways are community-centered. Through group rituals, traditional people not only honor the sacred but also affirm their bonds with each other and all of creation. Humans can help to maintain the harmony of the universe and thus, for example, ensure success in the hunt or harvest by their ritual observances. Rituals often take people out of everyday consciousness and into awareness of the presence of the sacred. In such altered states, participants may also experience a heightened group consciousness that powerfully binds indi- viduals together as a community.

Rituals tend to follow certain patterns everywhere. Some honor major points in the human life cycle, such as birth, naming, puberty, marriage, and death. These rites of passage assist people in the transition from one state to another and help them become aware of their meaningful contribution to life. When a Hopi baby is twenty days old, it is presented at dawn to the rays of Father Sun for the first time and officially given a name. Its face is ritually cleansed with sacred cornmeal, a ceremony that will be repeated at death for the journey to the Lowerworld.

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