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Your Visit to the Polynesian

Cultural Center, Hawaii

A s you planned your trip to Hawaii, one of the things you found recommended in all the online tour sites was the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC) on the island of Oahu. This is the world’s larg-

est and best-known cultural theme park, and the second most visited site in Hawaii. The PCC has entertained more than 37 million visitors, while presenting the culture of Polynesia to the rest of the world. So you conclude that you should check it out.

Your tour begins with eight diff erent “villages” re - created from eight diff erent cultures spread through the southern Pacifi c. In general, people from those islands appear in the villages as presenters of cultural life in them. You see diff erent aspects of Polynesian life at each of the villages, and you’re given the opportunity to interact with the village presenters. As you go along, you begin to wonder: Where is indigenous religion in these portray- als? When you ask this of your guide, or of any of the on- site interpreters, you get this answer: “Most Polynesian religions are deeply enculturated. Religion isn’t evident to you as a tourist from the Western world, even if you’re a beginning student of religion, unless you know what you’re looking for. The few obviously religious aspects such as special ceremonies and sacred huts are often kept secret in these societies, so we keep them secret too. If you ask them, our guides will do their best to answer your questions about religion.” This satisfi es your curios- ity for the moment, but later you begin to wonder about it again.

In the evening, after a traditional Hawaiian din- ner, you attend the “Ha: Breath of Life” show at the PCC outdoor theater. With around one hundred performers and musicians, it tells the story of Polynesian culture through the life of a character named Mana. The story

beings at Mana’s birth and follows his journey through the universal stages of boy- hood, young love, respect and responsibility of adulthood, and even the experience of mourning the death of friends. You notice that these events are usually marked by rites of passage with strong religious overtones. You also note that mana is a key concept for understanding Polynesian religions.

As you begin formal study of indigenous religions, some questions about them will occur to you. Here are some things that students often wonder about:

● Why are there so many different names for this type of religion?

● Why are they so much alike that they can be studied together, but at the same time so different from one another?

● Why are so many of their practices becoming popular among people of other religions?

● Why do they have relatively little emphasis on teaching when compared to other world religions, and focus so much on rituals?

● How much have they changed, and how much have they stayed the same, especially in the last two centuries or so?

Traditional religions are striking in their plurality and their similarities.

< Cofan, a shaman, or tribal religious leader, from the Amazon forest, 2006.

Native American religions still have something signifi cant to off er people of other religions or people of no religion.

Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

What Do YOU Think?

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30 C H A P T E R 2 E N C O U N T E R I N G I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S : WAY S T O T R I B A L L I F E

Because of the large numbers of reli gions that are discussed here, this chap ter has a special organization that differs from that of all other chapters (except the last, which has an organization like this chapter). First, we will discuss the variety of names scholars have given to this overall type of religion and then explain why this book calls them indigenous religions. Second, we’ll deal with the typical challenges to the academic study of these religions, especially the kinds of challenges that students face when they begin this study. Third, we’ll draw out the more common characteristics in these religions. In this section, we’ll deal with history, teaching, ritual, and so on. Fourth, we’ll take a closer look at just three indigenous religions: those of the Lakota (lah-KOH-tuh) tribes of North America, the Yoruba (YOHR-uh-buh) tribe of Africa, and the Vodou (VOH-doo, more widely known as Voodoo) of African- Caribbean peoples.

LO1 Names for This Type of Religion Naming the overall type of religions with which we are dealing can be a challenge. But why is it necessary to name the type of religion at all, if such a comprehensive name may well distort or obscure the individual beliefs? The answer is that religious studies itself has seen this as important despite its downside, so we must grapple with the issue here. This section will deal with generic names, suggesting what is strong and weak about each one, and then we’ll discuss the term settled on in this book: indigenous religions.

Traditional Religion

Traditional religion correctly implies that religions were present in various societies around the world before European and American expansion. They are

traditional in com- parison to newer, imported religions. However, as we saw in Chapter 1, all religions are traditions, because they are compre- hensive ways of life that come from the past and are passed on into the

future. It has become common in scholarship to refer to Hinduism, Islam, and the rest as traditions as well as religions. Labeling only one type as traditional is misleading and potentially confusing.

Primitive Religion

Primitive religion and the related term primal religion were more popular in the past, especially among cul- tural anthropologists who used them in a neutral, non- judgmental way. These terms mostly describe religions that are not derived from other religions, and this is a helpful distinction. However, it’s more diffi cult to use these terms in a neutral way in religious studies. They can imply that these religions are undeveloped, unchanging, outmoded, or simple. Research into these religions has confi rmed just the opposite: They are often just as complex and comprehensive as other world religions. Most religion scholarship avoids primitive today, but primal is occasionally seen.

Animism and Totemism

Animism and totemism are popular as names for religions in some circles today. Animism (from the Latin anima, “soul, spirit”) is the belief that indi- vidual spirits exist not only in people but also in all individual things in nature, whether they appear to be alive or not: individual animals, plants, rocks, thunder and lightning, and mountains, lakes and riv- ers. In many religions the souls of deceased humans keep a close relationship with the living, so that they are part of myth and ritual. The appearance of the sacred in dreams and visions is a key element of animism. Edward B. Tylor, a founder of the fi eld of anthropology, argued as early as 1891 that all reli- gion began in animism. Totemism is a religion based on the idea that the spirit of one primary source in nature—the land itself, a particular species of animal, or the ancestors— provides the basis of human life. Totemism is found in the Native American tribes of

animism Belief that individual spirits exist not only in people but also in all individual things in nature

totemism [TOHT-em-iz-uhm] Religion based on the idea that the spirit of one primary source in nature provides the basis of human life

Indigenous religions are often just as

complex and comprehensive as other

world religions.

31N A M E S F O R T H I S T Y P E O F R E L I G I O N

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Totemism in the Twilight Series

The leader of the Quileute (KWILL-yoot) Nation of Native Americans in northwest Washington first heard about the Twilight Saga novels from their readers, who wanted to know more about the place where the blockbuster vam- pires-and-werewolves tale of teenage love is set. When the novels were made into films, interest in Quileutes exploded. “Their interest in our tribe was a good sur- prise,” tribal president Anna Rose Counsell-Geyer said to

the press. “People are going to actually get to know the Quileute and we are going to be recognized as a people.”

The Quileute’s reservation on the Olympic Peninsula serves as the scenic backdrop to author Stephenie Meyer’s fantasy novels, with thick woods and with rocks and cliff s rising along the Pacifi c Ocean. The reservation spans only one square mile. The wolf theme of Twilight draws on the Quileutes’ own creation story, which features the transfor- mation of an ancient wolf pack into people who became the Quileute tribe. Since that transformation, the wolf has been the tribe’s totem.

In Twilight, the Quileute creation story is used to explain the Wolf Pack, a group of young Quileute men joined by Jacob Black (played in the fi lm by Taylor Lautner), who shape-shift into large, powerful wolves to guard the reservation from marauding vampires. The present-day Twilight Saga marks a departure from Hollywood’s long tradition of portraying the past, not the present, of Native Americans. It also departs from Quileute religion, which does not feature tribal members who can shape-shift into wolves; this isn’t a part of totemism, but instead draws on European werewolf legends.

A Closer Look:

Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and Robert Pattinson star in The Twilight Saga.A

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Totem poles

Close-up of a totem pole with an eagle face

the northwest coast (with their famous totem poles) and in the beliefs of the Aborigines of Australia. It fi ts these totemic religions well as a comprehensive name, but it doesn’t fi t other religions of this type.

32 C H A P T E R 2 E N C O U N T E R I N G I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S : WAY S T O T R I B A L L I F E

Manaism

Some cultural anthro- pologists held that the fi rst stage of all human religion was manaism, a belief in impersonal spiritual power and energy that permeates the world as a whole. Many religions, they argued, are still based on mana. Manaism is pre- animistic, because

power is not connected to spirits in individual natu- ral things (animism) or species/groups of things ( totemism). It is drawn from the Polynesian term mana, “spiritual power.” Some see the Yoruban idea of general spiritual power that infuses the universe as an example of mana. For almost a generation at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was quite a disagreement between those who advocated manaism and those who advocated animism as the basis of all later religion. Today this argument is largely a thing of the past.

Shamanism

A shaman is a tribal member with special abilities and the authority to act as an intermediary between the people and the world of gods and spirits (both good and evil). He, or rarely she, is known by different names in different tribes; the most common are holy man, medicine man, and healer. Shamans are so com- mon in this type of religion that some scholars have

called their beliefs shamanic/ shamanis tic religions. But this is controversial today, especially among cultural anthropologists. Many indigenous peo- ples around the world, particularly in the Native American tribes, also reject this term as misleading when applied to them.

Small-Scale Religions

This name, from cultural anthropology, is accurate in its implication that some of the religions to which it refers are held by a smaller number of people, but other so-called small-scale religions are actually prac- ticed by more people than some world religions such as Judaism, Sikhism, Jainism, and Shinto. Other than the relative size of some of them—and there were indigenous empires in the Americas and in Africa with empire-wide religions, we must remember—there is nothing small about these religions.

Nature Religion

Some people informally use the term nature religions. This correctly suggests the stronger connection to the natural environment in indigenous religions than in other world reli- gions. But there is much more to the religion in this chapter than a connection to the natu- ral environment. Moreover, here, “nature” itself is a Western concept that many other societies, especially the societies dealt with in this chapter, do not share. They usually have no strong distinction between the natural and supernatural that nature religions may imply to Westerners. Nor do they see human beings as so superior to the rest of the world that they almost stand above and apart from nature. A 1991 book by the noted religion

Doña Juanita, a Seri Indian healer in Mexico, with her supplies

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manaism [MAH-nah-iz-uhm] Belief in impersonal spiritual power and energy that permeates the world as a whole

shaman [SHAH-muhn] Tribal member with special abilities and the authority to act as an intermediary between the people and the world of gods and spirits (both good and evil)

Catherine Albanese argues that

“nature religion” applies to

many different sorts of American

beliefs, from early colonial

times to the contemporary

“New Age” movement.

33N A M E S F O R T H I S T Y P E O F R E L I G I O N

scholar Catherine Albanese, Nature Religion in America, argues that nature religion applies to many differ ent sorts of American beliefs, from the times of pre-colonial Native

American religions to the contemporary “New Age” movement.1

Indigenous Religions

In this book we’ll use the term indigenous religions. Indigenous means “native, intrinsic to an area,” espe- cially in the sense of peoples who originate and belong to a specifi c area. (Students should avoid a common confusion with indigent, which means “poor.”) As we’ll see shortly, indigenous entails a strong sense of belong- ing religiously to a certain place, in a way that native alone might not. In current usage, indigenous implies religions and cultures that were present in a given place for centuries, and usually millennia, before the coming of other cultures with different religions. When used in this way, it says more than the ambiguous term native. Strictly speaking, everyone born in North America is a “native American,” but most people born in North America don’t belong to continuing indigenous groups of “Native Americans.” Indigenous today often implies a lack of political power in the wider society, when other groups of people have taken over the lands of indigenous peoples.

When considering the names for individual indig- enous groups, we should ask: What names do the indi- vidual groups use, and what names are given to them by others? The European colonizers of Africa and the Americas played a large role in giving them names that Westerners know them by, so we should begin here. In general, European names for indigenous peoples and their religions have been inaccurate. Europeans did not often listen carefully to what other cultures called them- selves, but instead imposed their own names or adapted the sound and spelling of indigenous names for tribes to their own languages. This refl ects a colonialist men- tality. In later chapters, we will see that Westerners also had a key role in the rise of names such as “Hinduism” and “Confucianism.” In recent times there has been a movement to restore the original sound and spelling of these names: “Odawa” for “Ottawa” and “Algonkian” for “Algonquin,” for example.

1 Catherine L. Albanese, Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

The most famous European name for indigenous peoples is the historic Western term for peoples who inhabited the Western Hemisphere: Indians. In 1492 Christopher Columbus supposed that he had reached the islands off China called at the time the “Indies.” However, he unknowingly had discovered a new continent between Europe and Asia, a conti- nent that would become known as the New World. The name “Indians” persisted even when it became obvious that it was wrong, and it was soon used by the English and French as well. To call the indige- nous peoples of the Americas “Indians” was one of the biggest geography bloopers of all time, but it has endured for centuries.

However, ideas about names do change, and sometimes in unpredictable ways. Today many native peoples in the United States happily call themselves “Indians,” not “Native Americans.” The latest Census Bureau Survey of terminology, done in 1995, showed that 49 percent of native peoples preferred being called “American Indian,” 37 percent preferred “Native American,” about 4 percent preferred “some other term,” and 5 percent had no preference. “Indians” grew in approval by Native Americans at the same time as it became disapproved in wider North American cul- ture. For example, in his highly praised memoir, The Names, the Kiowa writer N. Scott Momaday speaks about how his mother embraced this name: “[S]he began to see herself as an ‘Indian’. That dim native heritage became a fascination and a cause for her.”2 American Indian is still the main term used in the U.S. Census, although it is still controversial there; many scholars use it alongside Native American, and we will use it occasionally here as well. The safest policy for students and scholars is to use the names indigenous peoples themselves prefer.

In general, many of the indigenous peoples of North America prefer their

2 N. Scott Momaday, The Names (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976), p. 25

indigenous religions Term for religions of peoples, usually tribes, original to an area

Calling the earliest American peoples

“Indians” was one of the biggest

geography bloopers of all time.

34 C H A P T E R 2 E N C O U N T E R I N G I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S : WAY S T O T R I B A L L I F E

local group name as rendered in their language, not an English-language name or a traditional name recog- nized by whites. Many Sioux Nation Indians prefer to be known by the main name of “Lakota,” “Dakota,” or “Nakota” (each designating groupings within the same culture), and further subgroups are known as well. They use “Sioux” as a name for themselves when speaking to outsiders, but inside their group they use “Lakota” or its variants. In the 2000 U.S. census, fully 75 percent of people who identifi ed their eth- nic group as “Indian” also identifi ed their main tribal or national group. Sometimes political differences within a tribe or nation lead to competing preferences for different names in the same group—for example “Navajos” or Diné (“Earth People”). In Canada the broad designation First Nations (note the plural) is widely accepted as a general term by native groups and wider Canadian society, but the individual tribes still use their own names. In Australia and New Zealand, Aboriginals (people there “from the origin”) is com- monly accepted as a name, although its use is lessening, with new preference being given to the specifi c names of the more than two hundred cultural groups that “Aboriginals” encompasses.

LO2 Challenges to Study In Chapter 1, we dealt with some challenges to the study of religion in general. When we encounter indig- enous religions, some special challenges emerge that don’t apply to most other religions we will deal with in this book. We can list and explain them briefl y.

Lack of Written Sources

Because the cultures in which these religions are based are almost exclusively oral cultures, not writing cul-

tures, their religions have with only a few exceptions not written down their stories, beliefs, or ritu- als. Where these features of religious life do exist in writing today, most of them have been written down by anthropologists. Nor do we have as much archaeological evidence for indigenous peoples as we do for other world reli- gions. Some tribes, along

with their particular religions, disappeared long before the coming of Europeans, the victims of disease, famine, and especially intertribal warfare, and we know little about them. In the fi rst chapter of this book, we noted the importance of history as a method of studying reli- gion, but the use of history to study the fi rst Americans is severely limited. This restricts the scope and depth of study.

Difficulty Discerning

Continuity and Discontinuity

By the time Western scholars began to study native groups in the Americas, Africa, and Australia, it was hundreds of years after the natives’ fi rst contact with European Americans. Sometimes this contact led to sig- nifi cant changes in indigenous belief and practices, and at other times it didn’t. As a result, scholars of indig- enous religions aren’t certain about how far back many beliefs and practices go: Are they pre-contact or post- contact? For example, some have argued that in Yoruba religion in west Africa, the remote high god developed as an adaptive reaction to Christian and Muslim mis- sionaries who proclaimed a religion of one God. Other scholars dispute this, arguing that indigenous religions often have belief in one high, remote deity without any question of Western religious infl uence.

Mainstream Guilt

Many indigenous peoples have been treated brutally during the whole sweep of human history and even pre- history, whenever one group came into the territory of another group and tried to take over. Treatment that was intended to reduce their numbers and their cultures is nothing short of genocide, the killing of an entire racial/ethnic/religious group of people. Today we think that this should have caused second thoughts among people of European origins who took over the lands of indigenous peoples—for example in North America and Africa—but in the ethos of the times it usually didn’t. Many of their present-day descendants are ashamed of the actions of their ancestors and the continued bitter legacy of prejudice and discrimination. This is prob- ably as it should be, but sometimes guilt, powerful emotion that it is, gets in the way of understanding. It can distort the careful study of indigenous cultures and their religions. This is not to say that people shouldn’t regret what happened in the past; it is to say that care- ful understanding of the past is a key part of knowing what to do in the present if we are to move beyond the ills of the past.

First Nations Generic term for indigenous peoples in Canada

Aboriginals [ab-oh- RIHJ-ih-nahls] Indigenous peoples there “from the origin” of Australia and New Zealand

genocide Killing of an entire racial/ethnic/ religious group

35 C O M M O N F E AT U R E S O F I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S

Misrepresentations in

Popular Culture

Popular culture, and especially Hollywood fi lm that is so infl uential in shaping attitudes today, has distorted indigenous religions. On the one hand, fi lms such as Dances with Wolves and Avatar have portrayed indigenous tribes as habitually moral, master ecologists, or even “noble savages.” This last phrase was a theme in the infl uential work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712– 1778), who held that people are naturally good but that so-called civilization corrupts them. Such an ideal- ized view of indigenous peoples is based on superfi cial knowledge; if they were in fact so noble, they would not need practices to deal with misdeeds, social disorder, and outright crimes, which they indeed have and use.

On the other hand, Hollywood has depicted some religions as dangerously exotic in order to amuse or frighten audiences, as in Apocalypto or the hundreds of fi lms made about the white settlement of the American West. Negative portrayals have seeped down to the life of North American children, where playing games of “cow- boys and Indians” has been popular for generations—if historically incorrect, because cowboys rarely fought Indians. Africa has frequently been depicted in fi lm as a place of more savagery than nobility, with religions that are little more than superstitions. Popular culture’s portrayal of Afro-Caribbean religions, Vodou in particular, is prob- ably the worst misrepresentation of all. The 1973 James Bond fi lm, Live and Let Die, and the more frightening Angel Heart portrayed Vodou as violent and dangerous. The popular Night of the Living Dead, originally from 1968 and remade in 1990, removed zombie lore from its Vodou context, and zombies have become increasingly popular ever since. All these misrepresentations of indig- enous religions have affected how we understand them, and this makes it harder to study them today.

Misuse of Indigenous Rituals

In today’s religious climate in North America and Europe, some people freely combine elements of indig- enous religions with their own religions or other beliefs. It has become popular in some circles, for example, to use sacred objects of North American indigenous reli- gions such as the stone pipe, medicine bundles, peyote, and sweat lodges in new religious ceremonies in non- Native American religions. This removes indigenous rituals from their deeply embedded cultural context and gives them a meaning that indigenous peoples wouldn’t recognize. Some indigenous groups are offended by this and view it as detrimental to their long-term spiritual and

cultural health. For example, some Lakota leaders opposed this misuse in a controversial 1993 resolution, “Declaration of War against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality.”

As you conclude this section, you might be wonder- ing: With all these problems in the study of indigenous religions, how can they possibly be studied well? The answer is that they can indeed be studied well, and are. However, the fi rst step in doing so is to recognize and deal with the obstacles to study that the past has put in your way. Now that these are in plain view, we can turn to a discussion of these religions, beginning with their most important common features.

LO3 Common Features of Indigenous Religions

In this section, we will discuss the common key charac- teristics of indigenous religions. But we must realize up front that there are many signifi cant differences among them. They are as diverse as the cultures and times from which they come. Africa has over three thousand eth- nic and language groups, with social organizations from

Indigenous empire: Mayan temple, Chichen Itza, Mexico

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Despite the terms Native American religion, Afr ican religion, or Aboriginal religion, no

such things as a whole ever existed.

36 C H A P T E R 2 E N C O U N T E R I N G I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S : WAY S T O T R I B A L L I F E

Algiers Rabat

Tripoli

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Dakar

Freetown

Abidjan Accra

N’Djamena

Bamako

Monrovia

Brazzaville

Cairo

Baghdad

Alexandria

Khartoum

Mogadishu

Nairobi

Dar es Salaam

Maputo

Kinshasa

Pretoria

Durban

Johannesburg

Antananarivo

Luanda

Lusaka

Harare

Addis Ababa

Cape Town

Kampala

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Lake Victoria

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Caspian Sea Persian Gulf

Canary Is. (Spain)

Madeira Is. (Portugal)

Zanzibar (Gr. Br.)

Cape of Good Hope

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CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

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(ANGOLA)

D E M . R E P . C O N G O

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NAMIBIA

BOTSWANA

SOUTH AFRICA LESOTHO

SWAZILAND

MOZAMBIQUE

MALAWI

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KENYA UGANDA

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Anticolonial revolution

Civil war

small tribes to large empires. Africa today has more than forty nations (see Map 2.1). In the Americas there have been more than two thousand tribes, some of them orga- nized in large nations or even empires such as those of the Aztecs and Mayans. Each of the world religions that we’ll consider in later chapters has some shared idea of

sacred history—of the tradition’s founders, sacred texts, rituals, and the like—that gives it unity. For indigenous religions around the world, diversity is the rule. Despite the terms Native American religion, African religion, or Aboriginal religion, no such singular things ever existed, and neither did indigenous religion. No single system of

Map 2.1 Contemporary Africa Africa contains more than forty nations. Six sub-Saharan African nations and Algeria in North

Africa experienced anti-colonial revolutions, and a dozen sub-Saharan nations have been racked by civil wars since independence. In 2011, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt experienced popular revolts.

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Movements toward Indigenous Unity

A recent development brings a surprising “twist” to diversity within indigenous religions. Indigenous peoples around the world are realizing that they are in a com- mon situation with regard to their dominant cultures and are beginning to act on this in ways that draw the people and the culture together.

For example, a Pan-Indian movement began in the early 1900s and is now prominent in North America. This movement is based on indigenous American peoples’ realization that they share many social and reli- gious concerns today. One example of this is the American Indian Movement (AIM) organization. Cross-tribal member- ships, powwow (intertribal gatherings, especially of lead- ers) networks among tribes, and national lobbying groups, are found in contemporary Pan-Indianism. Increasingly, rituals have been shared among the tribes. Their life has

become more Pan-Indian, with wider use of ritual pipe smoking, sweat lodges, vision quests, sun dancing, and the use of peyote. Pan-Indianism is also found in universities, prisons, military forces, and urban settings where general Native American identity is more important than one’s specifi c tribal identity. The Pan-Indian movement tries to respect local tribal iden- tities and traditions, but some tribes object to the sharing of rituals.

A Closer Look:

Native American dancers enter the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., as the National Powwow

organized by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian begins.

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belief or ritual unites all African, American, or Aboriginal religions. We present here the basics of indigenous reli- gions, but this doesn’t imply that all indigenous religions are the same. Nor does it imply that indigenous peoples have ever thought of their religions as the same.

The Importance of Place

Most anthropologists hold that the human race (Homo sapiens) gradually spread from one area of Africa across much of the globe beginning about 100,000 years ago (see Map 2.2). Many groups of humans have been on the move ever since, carrying their indigenous religions with them. This common origin helps to explain how modern humans are similar genetically but had some further genetic and cultural adaptations to their new environments. Despite all this movement, indigenous

Pan-Indian Movement begun in the early 1900s to bring more unity to North American tribes

Indigenous religions usually see

themselves as created in their own place,

despite what anthropologists think

about all humans originating in Africa .

39C O M M O N F E AT U R E S O F I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S

a harmonious balance. Many indigenous tribes displaced from their traditional lands in the Americas, Africa, and Australia have sought to reclaim them in some religiously meaningful way, even if they cannot live on their sacred ground. Other religions we will encounter in this book all have holy places, but they are typically not connected to specifi c places in the ways that indigenous religions are.

Global

Distribution

Indigenous religions are found around the globe today, not just

in North America and Africa. In Africa, indigenous reli- gions are spread through most of the continent south of the Sahara Desert. In general, more-traditional forms of indigenous religions are found in central Africa; in the northern and southern thirds of Africa, indigenous religions have largely been blended into Islam and Christianity, respectively. In the Americas, indigenous religions are also widespread: Native peoples with their distinctive religions inhabit the hemisphere from the Arctic to the southern tip of Chile. Many indigenous peoples in the Americas today combine their indig- enous religions with Christianity, in Central and South America particularly with Roman Catholic Christianity.

In Asia, the picture is the most complex. Indigenous religion persists almost undisturbed in some remote islands in south Asia, especially in Indonesia and Borneo. Polynesian and Micronesian cultures and reli- gions have spread widely, so that today they are found from Hawaii to Taiwan and south. In Tibet, the ancient indigenous Bön religion persists inside and occasion- ally outside of Tibetan Buddhism, despite persecu- tion in the past by the Buddhist government of Tibet. Folk religions emphasizing local spirits and gods have been common for millennia in China; sometimes these

peoples are deeply rooted in a place. Moreover, they usually see themselves as created in or from that place, despite what modern anthropologists think about all humans originating in Africa. For them place is much more than simply a location or even a type of geogra- phy such as forest, desert, plains, and so on. Instead, it is a matter of tribal and personal identity. Place has great practical and symbolic signifi cance for indigenous peo- ples and their religious beliefs and practices. What Vine Deloria Jr. says about Native American religion is true of all other indigenous religions, “The sacredness of lands on which previous generations have lived and died is the foundation of all other sentiments.”3

Stories about the land deal with myths of tribal origins, rituals, and patterns of everyday life. Because indigenous religions are typically rich in traditions that deal with their particular places, they often speak of being created not just from Mother Earth, but from the earth “here in this valley.” They communicate with spirits not just all around them, but “in a mountain cave over there” and reverence in particular a sacred animal “in that rainforest.” Sacred place has a per- sonal status in indigenous religions. For example, at their annual intertribal gatherings in the Sweet Grass Hills of Montana, the Chippewa-Cree people pray that owners of the mines in their sacred hills will see that

“these hills are just as alive as anybody, and they want to live too.” People and their places are meant to live together in

3 Vine Deloria Jr., God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (New York: Putnam, 1973), 278.

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Chapito, a Seri Indian shaman in northwestern Mexico, points to mountain caves, a place of power.

Indigenous religions are found around

the world today, not just in North

America and Africa.

40 C H A P T E R 2 E N C O U N T E R I N G I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S : WAY S T O T R I B A L L I F E

divine beings have become Daoist divinities. Japan’s indigenous religion of Shinto has played such a large role in modern world history that it is often treated sep- arately, as this book will do in Chapter 8. Islam mostly ended pre-Islamic Arab indigenous religion, but other

indigenous religions have been incorporated to some degree in some areas where Islam has spread. In Australia and New Zeeland, original forms of Aboriginal religions exist alongside Christianity, although the great major- ity of Aboriginal people self- identify as Christians today. In Europe, Christianity gradu- ally overwhelmed indigenous religions, but did so in part by absorbing some indig- enous practices such as ritu- als to counteract evil elves and bringing evergreens into homes at Christmas.

Many Gods and Spirits

A distinctive feature of indigenous religions, especially when compared to many other world religions, is that they aren’t typically focused on one deity. Some African indigenous religions claim to tend toward monothe- ism, usually because they have one high god, but most believe in many gods. High gods seldom fi gure into everyday religious life. Instead, they are remote gods, as we’ll see in our treatment of Lakota and Yoruba religion. Moreover, as we saw above, when high deities are regularly invoked, some scholars suspect infl uence from other world religions. For example, many Native American tribes believe in a high god such as the Great Spirit but don’t talk about him on a regular basis or have rituals addressed to him. Where there is more fre- quent talk of the Great Spirit, and where this Spirit is seen as a single personal Being, it may well be due to Native American accommodation to Christianity.

Deities or spirits are not worshiped in a detached way; they are ritually invoked and engaged as inhabit- ants and agents of the world itself. Some indigenous religions remember individuals from their past who were infl uential leaders, but none is seen as a founder of the religion. This emphasizes that native religions are less about human fi gures, or even gods and rituals, than they are about relationships. Relationships are shaped by prominent humans and gods and guided by mor- als, myth, and rituals, but they are ultimately about the people’s connection to one another and the group’s con- nection to the world around it.

Influenced by Other

Cultures

Many world religions have had to deal with competition and confl ict with other religions, but almost all indig- enous religions have had to deal with being surrounded and suppressed by alien nation–states with alien reli- gions. In Africa, for example, centuries of colonial rule by Europeans, and the Christian missionary efforts that went with it, changed some elements of many African indigenous religions. New gods came forth, and new rituals for worshiping them. Contemporary scholarship acknowledges that culture-contact changes are central to understanding indigenous cultures and their religions today. It studies their continuities and changes, and not simply their complete destruction. Indigenous religions as they exist today are worthy of study and apprecia- tion. We should not use our knowledge of post-contact indigenous religions merely to strip away perceived infl uences from other religions in order to arrive at

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Aboriginal rock art, Kakadu National Park, Australia

41C O M M O N F E AT U R E S O F I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S

hypothetical pre-contact religions. Scholars have little data about the past of indigenous religions that are free from non-native infl uence, so try- ing to get back to pre-contact religion is prob- lematic. Indigenous religions themselves often erase any evidence that suggests that some of their beliefs and practices are products of a particular place and time.

Based on Orality,

Story, and Myth

Indigenous religious traditions are oral, not written, because the cul- tures in which they are based are oral cultures. Orality can open up more room for adaptive change in religion because of not being bound in a book. Most importantly, orality entails skilled, compelling storytelling. As all skilled storytellers know, audiences must be “brought into the story.” In indigenous religions, this is done not just as entertainment. In the religion’s stories, each person’s life enters a larger group story, even a cosmic story that reaches backward and forward in time. Myths and their accompanying rituals have a critical role in maintain- ing good relationships between all sacred beings in the universe—human, divine, animals, and even plants.

Scholars have classifi ed different myths according to their form and function. Cosmogonic myths about creation help to explain the origin of existence. They tell how the whole world was created, and especially how the particular tribe telling a myth was created. An etiological myth is one that explains how things have come to be as they are now, as large as why the sun trav- els in the sky or as small as why the beaver has no hair on its tail. The semi-historical myth is the elaboration of an original happening, usually involving a tribal hero such as the nineteenth-century Lakota leader Sitting Bull. Telling these myths and stories is a means of com- munication between humans and other beings. The religious specialist of the indigenous society is often the keeper of these stories and can perform them with power. Animals, ancestors, spirits, and gods all com- pose stories, and people understand the beings through the stories. Narrative is the mode that brings these indigenous traditions to life, by songs, chants, prayers, ritual dances, folktales, and genealogies. Oral tradition has not been erased by modernity and literacy, though

it has taken new forms as sto- rytellers have found modern means (including YouTube) for its expression.

Oriented More to

Practice Than to Belief

Indigenous traditions are not belief based, and they have no formal “teachings” on which one

can do religious or theological refl ection. Belief in gods and spirits is traditional and assumed,

a part of the fabric of life, and children are rigorously socialized to know the moral

codes of their society. These beliefs are “more caught than taught,”

and they are reinforced in initia- tion rituals as children become adults. The emphasis is on practices. Indigenous religions around the world are dedicated

to maintaining personal, group, and cosmic balance through ritual actions. The purpose of this balance is that the group may thrive. The scope of rituals in indig- enous religions is vast. Some mark life-cycle changes at birth, beginning of adulthood, marriage, and death. Others are designed to bless people at trying times, heal them of diseases of the mind or body, attract rain, or produce a good hunt or good crops. Still others are for purposes of putting curses on people (sometimes called witching) and counteracting curses (unwitching). The purpose of most indigenous ritual is to control the power of the world—to attract good power when needed and to turn away dangerous power.

In-Group Based

Indigenous traditions around the world are commonly in-group based. Few indigenous religions seek converts or even allow full entry by people not of their group. As we saw above, they often don’t appreciate how others have recently adopted some of their beliefs and rituals or have come as “seekers” to explore their ways of life. This attitude can come as a surprise, even a shock, to well-intentioned outsiders who are on spiritual jour- neys that they believe lead to indigenous religions. (American popular culture sometimes portrays indig- enous societies as able to be joined by outsiders, as for

Painted tepee of a Plains Indian medicine man, with his grand- daughter in the doorway

YALE COLLECTION OF WESTERN AMERICANA, BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY

cosmogonic myth Story about creation that helps to explain the origin of existence

etiological myth Story that explains how things have come to be as they are now

semi-historical myth Elaboration of an original happening, usually involving a tribal hero

42 C H A P T E R 2 E N C O U N T E R I N G I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S : WAY S T O T R I B A L L I F E

example in the fi lm Dances with Wolves.) Unlike reli- gions that seek converts, indigenous religions are ethnic- ity based. Either one is culturally a part of the group, or one is not. If a person is inside the group, then the reli- gion of the group pertains to that person, for his or her place in the community and the world depends upon it.

In indigenous societies, extensive life-cycle ritu- als are employed to bring children to fully initiated membership in the group. Apart from this initiation, the group is closed to outsiders, and much of their reli- gious knowledge is secret, sometimes even to members

of the tribe. For example, the Dogon (DOH-guhn) people of Mali, West Africa, have many rituals that are done in masks, but the meaning of the masks is known only to those initiated into a society of specialists. Tribal members may regard others outside

the tribe as sincere, but they will not typically make them members of the community and give them access to religious secrets. The long oppression of indigenous peoples by others has made them even more wary of outsiders’ actions and intentions.

The Goodness of the World

Indigenous peoples believe that each and every part of nature has a spiritual aspect that makes it live and gives direction to its life. All things in the world are related to humans in a cosmic natural balance. American and African indigenous cultures often see this balance as a circle. The Sioux imitated this natural order by setting up their camp in circles, by sitting in circles for coun- cils and ceremonial occasions, and also by constructing circular tepees. Therefore, these traditions do not deal with “salvation,” “enlightenment,” or even “eternal life.” Means of transcending or transforming this world aren’t important to them, because the world does not need escaping. Its natural harmony needs only to be preserved and lived in. Likewise, these traditions aren’t typically future oriented—for example in believing that

this world is heading toward some large religious goal. Rather, the past is privileged for them. The past contains the model for identity, behavior, and blessing in the pres- ent and the future. This desire to make the idealized past ever present makes these religions deeply “traditional.” The point of indigenous reli- gion is to maintain the balance of life so that the group as a whole can thrive in the world.

The Role of Religious

Specialists

Most indigenous societies have religious specialists of some sort—people selected or trained to do a vari- ety of religious tasks at a higher level than do others. They are known by a variety of names: “holy men,” “medicine men,” “healers,” “priests/priestesses,” and others. T ricksters are gods, spirits, humans, or wily animals (often a coyote in North American lore) that play tricks on people or otherwise behave against con- ventional norms of behavior, often for the good of oth- ers. “Prophets” (a name, but not a phenomenon, drawn from contact with Christianity) arise from time to time to lead their tribes out of crisis. Perhaps the most nota- ble religious specialist is the shaman, an intermediary or messenger between the human world and the spirit worlds. Many types of shamans exist throughout the world, often varying by tribe, although the main model for shamans comes from Siberian tribes. They are the “spiritual leaders” of their tribes. Mircea Eliade identi- fi ed their main features as follows:

● The shaman communicates with the spirit world, where good and evil spirits are found.

● The shaman can treat sickness or deal with other problems caused by evil spirits.

● The shaman can employ trance-inducing tech- niques to leave his body and go to the spirit realm that surrounds this world, or his body can be possessed by the gods or spirits.

● The shaman evokes animal spirits as message bearers to other spirits.

● The shaman can tell the future by various forms of divination. 4

4 Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (New York: Random House, 1964).

trickster God, spirit, human, or wily animal that plays tricks on people or otherwise behaves against conventional norms of behavior, often for the good of others

Indigenous religion maintains

the balance of life so that the

group as a whole can thrive.

43C O M M O N F E AT U R E S O F I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S

Continuing Vitality

The imminent death of indigenous religions has been predicted in the past by politicians, missionaries, and even scholars. If we consider the dire straits of many indigenous religions a century ago, we can understand why some observers have thought that native tradi- tions were dying out. However, many indigenous reli- gions can now say, with the American humorist Mark Twain, when told that his death had been announced in a newspaper, “The reports of my death are greatly

exaggerated.” Not only have most native cultures sur- vived against great pressures over the last fi ve centuries, some are now thriving in ways that would have been unthinkable until recently. Native peoples’ numbers and cultural infl uence have risen dramatically in recent generations, in many but not all parts of the world. Improved standards of living have helped, but more important is that being “indigenous” is shifting in many places from being a social liability in wider society to being a point of pride.

We can point to ways in which indigenous reli- gions have fl ourished over the past half-century. In North America, many native ceremonies that were banned in earlier times are now protected by law. Native peoples have fought hard for these protections and continue to do so, and the wider society has seen the wisdom in preserving them. These include protec- tion of peyote consumption, the use of eagle feathers in rituals, burial protections, and rights to fi sh and hunt. They also include the return of human remains and traditional religious and cultural objects now in museums and in private collections. Various African- Caribbean religions that combine Christianity and native African religions are regaining their voice: Santería in Cuba, Candomblé in Brazil, Rastafarianism in Jamaica, and Vodou in Haiti. In Africa, a number of indigenous religions are more prominent today than in the past two hundred years, but many con- tinue to be hard pressed by Christianity and Islam.

Debate on Shamanism

Some anthropologists today are critical of the recent emphasis on “shamanism” and the work of Eliade and others. Alice Kehoe, in her 2000 book Shamans and Religion, argues sharply that shamans are unique to each culture where they are found and cannot be generalized into a global type of religion called “shamanism.”5 She also opposes

“neo-shamanism” in New Age, Wiccan, and other current Western religious movements. These not only misrepresent indigenous practices, but do so in a way that reinforces ideas such as the “noble savage,” an idea Kehoe argues is racist. She is critical of the recent claim that modern-day shamanism survives from the Paleolithic period.

A Closer Look:

5 Alice Kehoe, Shamans and Religion: An Exploration in Critical Thinking (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2000).

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Shaman emerging from forest in a trance after an initiation ritual, 1914

Reports of the death of indigenous

religions are, to adapt a quip by Mark

Twain, greatly exaggerated.

44 C H A P T E R 2 E N C O U N T E R I N G I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S : WAY S T O T R I B A L L I F E

Native African churches that combine Christianity with key aspects of indig- enous religions are thriv- ing, so parts of indigenous African religions survive within Christianity. The increased freedom of reli- gion in China has led to the widespread rebirth

and fl ourishing of suppressed folk religions that seem to have gone underground for more than fi fty years. Indigenous religious traditions have persisted because they are, in a word—as the Chippewa poet Gerald Vizenor has often said about his fellow indigenous Americans—“survivors.”

LO4 A Native American Religion: Lakota More than a hundred different Native American tribes are found in North America today. (See Map 2.3 for a historical overview of major Native American tribes, 600–1500 C.E.) The one offered here for study, the Lakota group, which fi gures large in his- tory and today, is meant to provide a more extensive

look into the religious life of that tribe and also as a more defi nite description of what indigenous religion is.

Name and

Location

The word Sioux (soo) applies today to seven tribal groups organized into three main political units. It dates back to the 1600s C.E. when the peo- ple were living in the western Great Lakes area. The Ojibwa (oh-JIHB-way) tribes called the Lakota Nadouwesou, meaning “poisonous snakes.” This term, shortened by French traders to its last syllable, became Sioux. They called themselves the Seven Fire Places People. The French Roman Catholic missionary Jean Nicolet fi rst recorded the

term Sioux in 1640. Wars with the Chippewas and the Crees resulted in the reduction of the eastern Sioux and gradual displacement of other Sioux. The western Lakota Sioux were the fi rst to arrive on the plains. Horses, which transformed Plains life, were obtained by the Oglala Sioux about 1750. They were not native to North America, but were introduced by the Spanish and later obtained by the Plains tribes.

Basic Features of Lakota

Religion

The Black Hills is the Lakota’s sacred place of creation and life. For the Lakota, they are the “heart of everything that exists.” A story says that the hills are like a reclining woman whose breasts gave life-giving power; the hills are a mother to the Lakota. The Sioux people were cre- ated in particular from the Bear Butte on the eastern edge of the Hills, and there the Creator fi rst gave his sacred instructions to them. Bear Butte is the most sacred of all their holy places, and both Sioux and Cheyenne come here each year for ceremonies. It has often been said that the spirits of the Sioux dead rest in the Black Hills.

The spirit world of the Lakota is called Wakan Tanka, which means “all that is mysterious, sacred.” This is a generic, not a personal name. Wakan Tanka is eternal. It powerfully created the universe, and par- adoxically it is the universe. The sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth and everything on it (including

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View from Harney Peak Trail, Black Hills, South Dakota

Wakan Tanka [WAK- ahn THAN-kuh] “All that is mysterious, sacred”; the spirit world of the Lakota that powerfully created the universe and paradoxically is the universe

45A N AT I V E A M E R I C A N R E L I G I O N : L A K O TA

160°W

180°

20°N

40° N

60 °N

140°W 60°W

40°W

20°W

120°W 80°W100°W

C a r i b b e a n S e a

H u d s o n B a y

G u l f o f M e x i c o

A R C T I C O C E A N

A T

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M ississippi R.

Rio G rande

Missouri R.

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Adena Cahokia

Mesa Verde

Chaco Canyon

Casa Grande

INUIT

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NORTHEAST

SOUTHWEST

SOUTHEAST

PLATEAU

G R E AT B AS I N

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500 1,000 Km.

CaCCaCaCaCaCaCaCaCaCaaCaaaaaaaaa GraGraGraGraGraGraGraGraGraraGrararGraGrarrr nnnnnn

SOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSSOSOSOSOSOOO

Approximate extent of mound-building cultures

Approximate extent of the Mississippian culture

Approximate extent of the Anasazi culture

Approximate extent of the Hohokam culture

Approximate extent of the Mogollan culture

60 °N

Map 2.3 Major North American Societies, 600–1500 C.E. Farming societies were common in North America. The Pueblo peoples in the southwestern des-

ert and the mound builders in the eastern half of the continent lived in towns. The city of Cahokia was the center of the widespread Mississippian culture and a vast trade network.

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46 C H A P T E R 2 E N C O U N T E R I N G I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S : WAY S T O T R I B A L L I F E

Sheyenne R.

Ja m

es R .

M issouri R.

Crow Creek (Dakota+ Nakota)

Yankton

Dakota Winnebago

Omaha

North Platte R.

Smoky Hill R.

Niobrara R.

M issouri R.

Minnesota R.

Jam es R.

Che yenn

e R.

Little M isso

u ri R

Mississippi

D esM

oines R .

M ouse R.

R ed

R .

So ut

h Pl at

te R

North Platte R.

Republican R.

Loup R .

Lake Traverse

(Sisseton)

Mile Lacs (Anishinabe)

White Earth (Anishinabe)

Spirit Lake (Yanktonai)

Turtle Mountain (Anishinabe)

Fort Berthold (Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa)

Standing Rock (Dakota)

Cheyenne River (Lakota)

Hunkpapa

Sans Arc

Sihasapa

Minneconjou

Two Kettles

Brule

Oglala

COLORADO

KANSAS

NEBRASKA

CANADA

NORTH DAKOTA

SOUTH DAKOTA

MINNESOTA

IOWA

Lakota

Yanktonai

Yankton

Dakota

Wahpeton

Mdewakanton

Sisseton

Wahpekute

Red Lake (Anishinabe)

Bois Forte (Anishinabe)

Leech Lake (Anishinabe)

Fond du lac

(Anishinabe)

Pine Ridge (Oglala Sioux)

Rosebud (Lakota)

Mandan

Hidatsa

Absarokee

Anishinabe

Cheyenne

Arapaho

Pawnee

Omaha

Iowa

Assiniboine

Grand R.

Location around 1770

Current Reservations

100 Miles500

0 10050 150 Kilometers

humans) are all within Wakan Tanka. This term has often been translated “the Great Spirit,” but this must not be understood as the one God of monotheistic reli- gions. Wakan Tanka is remote and unapproachable,

and rituals are not often performed for it. Included in Wakan Tanka are gods and spirits called Wakanpi, who exercise power and control over everything. Because the Wakanpi are incomprehensible to ordinary humans,

Map 2.4 Traditional Location of Sioux Tribes around 1770 and Reservations Today

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47A N AT I V E A M E R I C A N R E L I G I O N : L A K O TA

they enable certain human beings to know them and deal with them. Holy men and (rarely) women have fulfi lled this role. They obtain their special knowl- edge through direct contact with the gods and spirits through dreams and visions. They act as intermediaries through which the power of Wakan Tanka can fl ow.

The Sioux pass down their knowledge, rituals, and beliefs and moral code to the new generations in story form. Tribal history is also passed along orally, but it has always been guided by myths of origin so that the recent past doesn’t contradict the deep past. Elders often gathered the young around the fi re to impart important tales. Some of these tales, such as the stories of White Buffalo Calf

Woman, can take up to seven evenings to tell and traditionally can only be told when the moon was shining.

The Sioux look on death and the afterlife in the spirit world as a natural part of life. Death is painful in close-knit indigenous societies, but funeral rituals help mourners to cope with the pain of loss. The human soul is immortal; it comes from Wakan Tanka at birth and returns to Wakan Tanka at death. Because these spirits are one with Wakan Tanka, they are everywhere and in everything, even at the grave for a period after death. Before battle, Sioux warriors embraced their possible death openly, thus their famous saying “Today is a good day to die.” Death in warfare was preferable to that caused by old age. This heritage of brav- ery in battle has continued today, and Native Americans have been for almost a century the most highly decorated ethnic group in the U.S. armed forces.

Lakota Rituals

As with most religions, the Lakota believe that their rituals are given to them by the gods. Lakota myths tell of spirits such as White Buffalo Calf Woman, who brought them the sacred pipe and its ritual use. Holy men received other ritu- als during trance-like states. We now discuss Lakota rituals that are still regularly held.

Near the time of puberty, Sioux boys, and on occa- sion girls, go on a ritual of pas- sage to adult- hood called a vision quest, through which

they experience a symbolic death and rebirth and gain a vision of their guardian spirit. Through the vision quest, each male Lakota gains a personal religious vision that supplements the group-based religious understandings of the tribe. On returning from his vision quest, the vision seeker typically integrates his vision into the life of the community by performing it ritually in public. This integration of one’s per- sonal vision with the socially regimented roles passed down in tribal societies helps to make a good balance between individual and group life among the Lakota.

The modern healing ceremony is shortened from the traditional form. Prayer is still offered to the spirit of the stones, and spirit stones protect against danger or illness. This signifi es a belief in a spiritual force in all forms of Creation. It isn’t unusual to see a sacred stone at the bedside of sick or hospitalized Lakota even today.

The sacred pipe remains a key mediator between Wakan Tanka and humankind, reinforcing the kinship ties of the people with all spirits in the world. It has become so important as a symbol that it now unoffi - cially stands for the whole of Lakota life; indeed, it has become a Pan-Indian ritual implement. (Sometimes it is called a “peace pipe”; although it was used for peace ceremonies, its ritual use goes far beyond this.) Black Elk reported a common belief when he said that the red stone the pipe is made from symbolizes the earth; a buffalo or other animal carved in the stone represents all animals; the pipe stem, made of wood, symbolizes all growing things; and the feathers attached to it repre- sent the eagle and all winged creatures. All creatures in the natural world “send their voices” to Wakan Tanka when the pipe is smoked.

The sweat lodge is a ritual sauna meant to cleanse participants in their spirits. (It wasn’t done, as our saunas today, for muscle relax-

ation or cleansing of the skin.) It can

be a domed oblong hut or

vision quest Ritual of passage to adulthood, through which one experiences a symbolic death and rebirth and gains a vision of one’s guardian spirit

sacred pipe Pipe ritually used as a key mediator between Wakan Tanka and humankind

sweat lodge Ritual sauna meant to cleanse participants in their spirits

Indian ceremonial pipe

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DRÉ

Lakotas go on a vision quest to gain a

personal religious vision.

48 C H A P T E R 2 E N C O U N T E R I N G I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S : WAY S T O T R I B A L L I F E

a hole dug into the ground and covered with planks or tree trunks. Stones are heated in an exterior fi re and then placed in a cen- tral pit in the ground inside the lodge. Ritual activities inside and around the sweat lodge often include prayers, drumming, and offerings to the spirits.

The use of peyote, a mildly hallucinogenic but not physically addic- tive cactus bud, goes back for centuries among Native Americans in the

Southwest. It was used as a medicine in healing ceremo- nies before its more-modern and wider ceremonial use. It spread beyond the Southwest at the beginning of the twenti-

eth century, at a time when Native American culture was under much stress, and some Lakota today partici- pate in its use. Participants reported a spiritual cleans- ing and experienced some physical healing as well. The peyote movement was one factor in the rise of the Native American Church, a blend of indigenous North American religions and Christianity that is still strong today. This group has successfully fought the U.S. legal system to get an exemption to use the cactus, which is a controlled substance, in their ceremonies. Use of peyote began to decline in about 2009, because it has been poorly grown and over-harvested during recent years.

Finally, the sun dance cere- mony is practiced in almost twenty different North American tribes. It features dancing, singing and drum- ming, blowing on eagle-bone whistles, visions, and fasting. Some brave men known as sun dance pledgers come to the fes- tival having already taken a vow to offer their bodies as a painful sacrifi ce to Wakan Tanka for the ben- efi t of their tribe. This usually takes the form of being attached to a pole by hide thongs, which pierce one’s body above each nipple on the chest with a metal hook, and then

tearing oneself away from the thongs. The sun dance is ordinarily held by each tribe once a year at the height of summer when the sun is the hottest. It lasts from four to eight days, starting at the sunset of the fi nal day of preparation and ending at sunset. It shows and promotes continuity between life and death, and

offers a renewal of the life of the tribe as inter- twined with the life of the earth. This

ritual is still observed by many Native Americans and contin-

ues to be the most important ritual and festival for the Plains tribes.

Culture and

Religion

The buffalo holds a key place in Lakota life and history. From its hide they made clothing, ropes and snowshoes, and the round,

moveable homes called tipi (also

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peyote [pay-YOHT-ee] Mildly hallucinogenic cactus bud used ritually in Indian ceremonies

Native American Church Church mainly composed of Native Americans, featuring a blend of indigenous North American religions and Christianity

sun dance Main festival ceremony of many Plains tribes, often featuring self-torture

A Native American, probably from the Lakota Sioux tribe, blows an eagle-bone whistle while participat- ing in the sun dance during the Inter- Tribal Indian Ceremonial in the late 1940s in New Mexico.

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phonetically spelled tepee, the Lakota word for “dwell- ing”). The horns provided spoons, weapons, and cer- emonial articles. The buffalo’s sinew was used for bowstrings and sewing materials. The buffalo was the main friend of the Sun, and even controlled all affairs of love. Its spirit cares for the family, for the young of all beings, and for growing plants. Given the place of the buffalo in the life and thought of the Lakota, its extermination proved deadly for their traditional culture. Around 1800 there were possibly sixty mil- lion buffalo on the Plains; by 1884 the slaughter by hunters, encouraged by the federal government in part to break the power of the Plains tribes, led to less than one hundred buffalo being left. The Lakota Sioux,

along with other Plains tribes, were reduced to dependence on government rations on var- ious reservations of small size and few resources.

The sad story of gradual reduction of Native American life continued. Confi nement to reservations was soon followed by a government policy to “civilize” Indian peoples by assimilation into main- stream white culture— by coercion if necessary. (Voluntary assimilation happened as well, but on a smaller scale.) Rapid white expansion into west- ern North America meant that Indian confl icts had to end, and therefore much of their land granted by treaties was taken from them. Hiram Price, U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1881, said history shows that “Savage and civilized life cannot prosper on the same ground.” This was a wide con- viction among Euro-Americans, and by the mid-nineteenth century it was allied to a rac- ist theory of white superiority and the belief that it was America’s “Manifest Destiny” to occupy all the lands from the Atlantic to the Pacifi c. Because Euro-Americans as a group assumed that they were superior to

indigenous Americans, they knew what was best for them. In practice this meant the rapid elimination of native culture, language, and religion.

Much of the forced assimilation was targeted at children, because they were more changeable than their parents. In schools Indian children were prohibited from speaking their own language, living out their own culture, or having a tribal identity. Children in both the United States and Canada were separated from their families and sent far off to boarding schools if their family’s infl uence was viewed as “negative.” Some government offi cials did have second thoughts about this. For example, in his Indian Commissioner’s report for 1934, John Collier urged an end to this assault on native culture. “The cultural history of Indians is in all respects to be considered equal to that of any non- Indian group.” But this was not to become a widespread conviction until the 1960s. As late as the 1950s, it was U.S. government policy to promote assimilation toward the ultimate goal that Native American identity would disappear.

Violent confl ict continued in the 1870s. In the Sioux Wars of the 1870s, the Sioux and their allies did battle with the U.S. Army in the Black Hills. This cul- minated on June 25–26, 1876, with a battle at Little Big Horn in eastern Montana. Hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors under the command of Sitting Bull, a Sioux chief and holy man, met the Seventh Cavalry Regiment of the U.S. Army, commanded by General George Custer. Custer’s forces were quickly destroyed by Sitting Bull. Although Little Big Horn bolstered

Native American morale, it was not to last. The federal military presence contin- ued, as did increasing white settlement in the west, even on Native American reser- vations. In response to this

assimilation Entry of Indian peoples into mainstream white culture, either voluntary or forced

Little Big Horn Battle on June 25–26, 1876, in eastern Montana, in which Sioux and Cheyenne warriors defeated a U.S. Army regiment

Ghost dance shirt

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worsening situation, the ghost dance movement arose in the late 1880s. It would be the last militant attempt to preserve the cul- tural life and independence of Native Americans. The ghost dance movement was inspired by the vision of the Paiute prophet Wovoka (also known by his “white” name, Jack Wilson). Wovoka’s vision spread, and reached the

Sioux late in 1889. It spoke of dead native warriors coming back to life; the restoration of youth to the liv- ing; the return of the buffalo, elk, and other game; and the departure of whites.

When reports reached the U.S. Army that the Sioux were arming themselves, wearing their ghost shirts, and acting defi antly to government agents, troops arrived at the Pine Ridge reservation on November 20, 1890, and were deployed to other Sioux areas. Sitting Bull was arrested on December 15 and killed in the process, and his followers fl ed. Alarmed at Sitting Bull’s death and anxious at the troops’ presence on their reservation, the Big Foot band of Lakota, number- ing about 350, headed for Pine Ridge to confront the army. Intercepted by troops, they surrendered and were kept at Wounded Knee. On December 29, as troops sought to confi scate the weapons that some Lakota still possessed, a rifl e dis- charged and shooting immediately broke out on both sides. Most historians

conclude that what began as an accident immedi- ately turned into a battle and then quickly intensi- fi ed into what has become known as the Massacre at Wounded Knee. Of the U.S. Army troops, twenty-fi ve were killed; of the Lakota, eighty-four men and boys and sixty-two women and girls were killed—virtually half the prisoners. The ghost dance movement was now over. The ghost shirts worn by the Big Foot band had failed to protect them as it was believed they would. To use the words of Black Elk, “the dream died.”

Native Americans then settled down to a long period of slow decline on the reservations in the United States and Canada, but over time most left the reservations to assimilate with wider American culture. In the early 1970s, a social and political protest movement arose among Native Americans. At Wounded Knee traditional Indians and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) protested the appalling economic and social conditions on Pine Ridge reservation, which is today the poorest area in the United States. Wounded Knee was chosen for the protest because it symbolized continuity with the suf- fering of those who died there in 1890.

To conclude this section, the Lakotan culture involves living in a healthy, life-giving relationship with the tribe and the land. As we have seen, these relation- ships have been seriously damaged by forced assimi- lation, relocations, and government policies under a U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs that is widely recognized as incompetent. Also, high unemployment (up to an astounding 90 percent), poverty, domestic violence, and alcohol and drug abuse continue to take a toll on the

ghost dance Movement inspired by the Paiute prophet Wovoka in the 1880s, looking for the restoration of Indian life and the departure of whites

Massacre at Wounded Knee Killing of about 150 Lakota prisoners of war by the U.S. Army on December 29, 1890

“ The people were crying [in the ghost

dance movement] for the old ways of

living and that their religion would be

with them again.” —Black Elk

Ancient pueblo city of Taos, New Mexico

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reservations. Some signs of hope are appearing: Tribal identities are growing, reli- gious rituals are practiced and taught to new generations, tribal casino gambling rec- ognized by state and federal governments is bringing in fi nancial resources for tribal use (although some consider

casinos a mixed blessing) , and social ills are being more seriously attended to. Most Indian tribes are realiz- ing that if improvement in their condition is to come, they must bring it themselves. Many Lakota organiza- tions are dedicated to the continuation of traditional ways. The Lakota continue the struggle to hold on to the Black Hills, even refusing in 1980 a $100 million offer in return for giving up their claim to the Hills. This refusal is an indication of Sioux commitment to their traditional culture. The reestablishment of traditional Lakota ways of life requires no less than the rebuilding of the community from the family up, and much is being done to accomplish this.

LO5 An African Religion: Yoruba To take a closer look at African indigenous religions, we will examine the Yoruba (YOHR-uh-buh) religion of west-central Africa. Not only is the Yoruba religion important in Africa today, it is also important in the Western Hemisphere, because many Yoruba were taken in slavery to the Americas, where they were instrumental in the founding of new Afro-Caribbean religions. Like most indigenous religions that cover a wide area, the religions of the Yoruba peoples vary signifi cantly in different parts of west-central Africa today, especially in Nigeria. For example, the name of a god often has variations, or the same god may be female in one town and male in the next, and the rituals to worship them may vary as well. These differences inevitably arose as the myths were passed by word of mouth and as different tribes among the Yoruba made changes in their religion over thousands of years. When we add the infl uence of Christianity and Islam into the Yoruba religion—with some of these “post-contact” changes disputed by scholars—the religion becomes even more diverse and challenging to understand.

Despite this internal variety, all Yoruba religion shares a similar structure and purpose. A supreme but remote god rules the world, along with several hundred lower

gods, actively worshiped, each of whom has a specifi c domain of rule. These gods guide believ- ers to fi nd their destiny in life, a destiny that was determined at the moment of reincarnation of one’s soul into a new life but then forgotten. The rituals of the Yoruba identify this destiny for the individual, and this blesses the life of the Yoruba people as a whole.

High God and Other Gods

The Yoruba all have a high god usually known as Olorun (“the ruler of the sky”) or Olodumare (OH-loh-DOOM-ah-reh, “the all-powerful one”), but occasionally by many other names. They don’t worship Olorun or make sacrifi ces to him, and he has no priests and no places of worship. He is a remote high god. Although the Yoruba believe that he is the creator and continual giver of life, almighty and all knowing, the Yoruba ignore him in their daily lives. He is invoked only at times of extreme need, and even then with diffi culty. Some schol- ars argue that Olorun developed as a “post-contact” god through the infl uence of Islamic and Christian missionar- ies—as an imitation of the God of those religions, but one that could not be integrated into other Yoruba beliefs or rituals. However, belief in Olorun is widespread among the Yoruba, both in those tribes that have not had much contact with Abrahamic religions as well as those that have. Moreover, we can fi nd other African tribes and nations with remote high gods in their traditions.

The other main Yoruba gods controlling rela- tions between the earth and the high god are known as orisha. They are the gods with whom humans have contact through myth and rituals. The numbers, rela- tionships, and names of Yoruba gods are exceedingly complex; they form a vast group of supernatural beings numbering between 401 and 601. Some Yoruba myths have a pair of gods, Orishala (also known as Obatala and Orisanla) and his wife Odudua, as the gods who created the world. This association with the creator and high god Olorun gives them a higher status than that of the other orisha. In one myth, Olorun creates the main parts of the world and then has Obatala and Odudua fi nish the work. They are so close that some interpreters have consid- ered Olorun and Obatala

Olorun “Ruler of the sky,” Yoruba high god

orisha Yoruban main gods who control relations between the earth and the high god, and with whom humans have contact through myth and rituals

52 C H A P T E R 2 E N C O U N T E R I N G I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S : WAY S T O T R I B A L L I F E

one and the same. Obatala is often portrayed as a sculp- tor-god, having the responsibility to shape human bod- ies. The Yoruba consider physically different humans to be either his special servants or the victims of his dis- pleasure, leaving some room for interpretation.

The Yoruba see the god Ogun as among the most important of the orisha. The god of war, hunting, and ironworking, Ogun is the patron god of blacksmiths, warriors, and all who use metals. Yoruba religion has a high regard for metal as a combination of earth, wind, and fi re. Ogun also is the god of business deals and contracts. In courts in Yoruba areas of Nigeria, Yoruba swear to tell the truth by kissing a knife sacred to Ogun. The Yoruba consider Ogun fearsome and terrible in his revenge; if one breaks a pact made in his name, swift retribution will follow. One myth that illustrates Ogun’s importance tells of the orisha trying to carve a road through dense jungle. Ogun was the only one with the right tools for the task and so won the right to be king of the orisha. He did not, however, care for the position, and it went to Obatala.

Shango the storm god occupies an important place among these orisha. Shango creates and controls storms by throwing “thunderstones” onto the earth. When light- ning strikes, Shango’s priests search for the stone, which is believed to have special powers because of its origin. As the stones are collected, they are put in Shango’s shrines. A myth told about Shango provides a basis for his worship. When he was human and a king of an ancient Yoruba kingdom, he had a powerful charm that could cause light- ning, but he accidentally killed his entire family with it. He hanged himself in sorrow and became deifi ed when he entered the spirit world. He then gained more power over lightning, as well as over thunder, wind, hail, and other aspects of storms. Most scholars conclude that his popularity among the Yoruba peoples may result from a need to ward off the frequent violent storms that strike western Africa.

Shango came to the New World with newly enslaved Africans. In Annapolis, Maryland, a clay bundle about the size and shape of an American football was unearthed by University of Maryland and University of London archaeologists at an old crossroads. Dated to about 1700, it was fi lled with about three hundred pieces of metal and a stone axe sticking out through the clay. Archaeologists quickly identifi ed it as African in origin, and most likely used as an object of spiritual power by African slaves recently brought to America. Although almost all slaves were baptized into Christianity, they continued to secretly observe some “spirit practices” in healing and in worship of their

ancestors. The archaeologist who discovered the bundle concluded that it was connected with rites of Shango.

Trickster gods can blur the line between good and evil in Yoruban religion. One myth dealing with the god Eshu (EH-shoo) illustrates his trickiness. Pretending to be a merchant, Eshu sold increasingly expensive gifts to each of a man’s two wives, sparking a desire in each to outdo the other in purchasing. The battle for the husband’s favor after this buying spree tore the fam- ily apart. This story is told as a cautionary tale against the evils of greed and ambition. Eshu is also, but not in his trickster role, the divine guardian of houses and villages. The relationship between Eshu and many Yorubans is so close that they call him Baba (“father”) in worship. Because tricksters often blur the lines of good and evil, Islamic and then Christian missionaries among the Yorubans attacked Eshu as a demonic fi gure, even as a representation of the Devil. This of course betrays a misunderstanding of a trickster’s overall role to promote morality, not undermine it.

The history of Shokpona (shock-POH-nuh), the god of smallpox, is an interesting story at the intersection of religion and medicine. Shokpona became important in

the smallpox plagues that arose in inter- tribal wars in west Africa. The Yoruba also saw Shokpona’s wrath in other diseases that have similar symptoms. Shokpona’s wrath is so terrifying, and worshiping him is so chal- lenging, that the Yoruba are often afraid to say his name. Instead, they use expressions such as “Hot Earth,” referring to high fever, and “One whose name must not be spoken in the dry season.” Priests of Shokpona had great power; they could bring this plague down on their enemies, especially by making a ritual potion from the powdered scabs and dry skin

of those who had died from smallpox. They would pour the potion in an enemy’s area to spread the disease. Although this indirect con- tact with smallpox was less deadly than con- tact with living people infected by it, it worked

well enough. However, because smallpox has been eradicated worldwide since about 1980, the

Axes on this devotee's head are Shango’s thunderbolts.

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priests of Shokpona have lost power, and his worship has all but vanished.

In the long history of the success- ful human battle against smallpox, African religious practice had a role at a key moment in American his- tory. When a growing smallpox epidemic threatened the American revolutionary army encamped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, in 1777, George Washington ordered experimental inoculations based on an account by a famous Christian minis- ter in Massachusetts, Cotton Mather (1663– 1728). Mather detailed how his African slave named Onesimus had been protected from smallpox by vac- cination, probably in a religious ritual of body marking connected with the worship of Shokpona. A small bit of smallpox scab had been put on his cuts so that, as Mather later wrote, he “had smallpox and then did not have it.” Mather himself had successfully inoculated his sons with this procedure, minus the Yoruban religious elements, of course. The procedure was a success at Valley Forge, and the American army was saved.

Religious Specialists

With its many gods that must be attended to with rituals, Yoruba religion has a large place for religious specialists. These specialists don’t teach or administer religious institutions; rather, they preside at the hun- dreds of rituals. Their skills are passed down from gen- eration to generation.

Priests divine the future, offering advice for how to meet it. Male priests are known as a babalawo (buh-BAH-lah-woo), “father of secrets” or “father of the priest” and females as an iyalawo (ee-YAH-lah-woo), “mother of secrets/priests.” They help people to under- stand the destinies they chose in the spirit world but lost when they were reincarnated on Earth. The priests also give people power and guidance to make their destinies come true. Seeking a priest to help with one’s future is a common occurrence throughout life, but faithful Yorubas take their child to a diviner soon after birth so that the child’s destiny can be made clear.

The process of divination varies by priest and region, but this is perhaps the most common method. The believer, usually under some sort of duress, makes her or his way to a diviner. Contrary to many other systems of divination and fortune-telling, the believer doesn’t tell the diviner what the problem is. Instead, the diviner casts six- teen separate palm nuts or a chain of sixteen shells onto

a divination board. Depending on the results, the diviner then chants a group of poems

called Ifa (EE-fuh) verses, presided over by a god of the same name. The col- lection of Ifa verses is vast, and most diviners know several hundred of them by heart. These poems tell short stories of the gods and usually tell of some sacrifi ce, gift, or action

the believer must take. It is then up to the believer to discern which of the

poems and prescribed actions are correct in her or his situation. The Yoruba believer

is very active in this pr ocess; it’s not just a mat- ter of telling one’s problems to a priest and then getting

some quick advice. This system of divination has worked for centuries, probably millennia, and even today many Yoruba consult an expert in the Ifa before making any important decisions. Ifa poems are now being collected and published, but this takes them out of their living context in Yoruba divination.

Spirits of the Ancestors

The Yoruba treat their ancestors with great respect, which is typical of indigenous societies. Anthropologists debate as to whether the rituals dealing with ancestry—prayers, sac- rifi ces, and the like—are religious or cultural-traditional; but given the deeply enculturated nature of indigenous religion, we can safely conclude that a religious aspect is present. At least a few Yoruba groups believe that ances- tors, after death, become semidivine fi gures. This resembles another aspect of the Yoruba faith: possession of the body by the gods. In these possessions, priests acting as medi- ums take on the individual characteristics of the gods. The behavioral patterns of how each god takes possession of a medium are so entrenched that mediums as far off as Haiti roll their heads and cross their legs in the same way as mediums of Shango in west Africa.

LO6 An Afro-Caribbean Religion: Vodou Those who follow the Afro-Caribbean religion of Vodou number an estimated 5 to 7 million people today. Vodou is widely referred to in North America today, but with much misunderstanding, especially in American

A Yoruba divination board

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popular culture. In this section, we’ll put this religion in its African and New World contexts, and try to shed some light on its signifi cance for today. An important part of our study of Vodou will be to rehabilitate the name of this religion, so that it doesn’t always stir up negative emotions and misleading opinions. Although Vodou is not, strictly speaking, indigenous to Haiti, the centuries of its combination with Roman Catholicism in the setting of the New World qualifi es it in the minds of most to be an indigenous religion.

Location and Name

Like the Brazilian religions Candomblé and Umbanda, Cuban Santería, or Jamaican Rastafarianism, the Vodou religion is based on an African indigenous religion. An estimated 9 to 12 million slaves were brought to the New World between 1500 and 1850, most of them to Brazil and the Caribbean islands, and they brought their religions with them. Like other indigenous religions, Vodou is con- cerned mainly with bringing its followers into harmony with the gods that control the natural world, so that in this harmony their lives can be happy and blessed. These religions were brought to the New World by enslaved members of west African tribes, and there underwent an independent development to become Afro-Caribbean.

The word Vodou (or the lesser-used Hoodoo, which is often used on a popular level for the magical practices of Vodou) is from the Haitian Creole-French language. It is also spelled Voudon or Vodun in scholarship today. You may know it as Voodoo. Until recently, this was the accepted spelling of the word, but many Haitians and most modern scholars now acknowledge Vodou as the preferred spelling, because it is phonetically closer to the original African word. It originated in the language of the Ewe Fon west African peoples brought to Haiti as slaves from present-day Benin and Togo. Ultimately, it is from vodú, the Ewe Fon word for both “god” and “worship.” Beginning in the seventeenth century, Voodoo was used in the missionary literature about the Ewe people in Africa, who called a newly initiated member of their religion a vodúnsi or hunsi, a “bride of the deity.” Also, the use of Voodoo has too many preju- dicial and exotic overtones in the Western world today. In general, Vodou in Africa is an African indigenous religion, not combined with Roman Catholic Christianity as it is in the Americas.

In the Western Hemisphere, Vodou means various things. It most often refers to an Afro-Catholic religion that is widespread on the island of Hispaniola, especially in Haiti. It can also be applied to persons—for example, spell-workers are often called “hoodoo doctors” in the southern United States. In Haiti, Vodou is applied as an umbrella term to a large number of Haitian reli- gious groups with roots in African religion rather than Roman Catholic Christianity. In mainstream American usage, it has become a common pejorative for “decep- tive nonsense,” usually with no connection to religion. For example, when George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan were competing in 1980 for the Republican nomination for president, Bush called Reagan’s eco- nomic plan “Voodoo economics.” Other uses of Vodou center on the current popularity of zombies, especially “zombie walks.” Observers of American popular cul- ture say that in 2009 zombies replaced vampires as the leading symbol of supernatural threats. To those who engage in careful academic study of Vodou, however, this interest in zombies distorts and demeans the religion.

Divinities

Like other Afro-Caribbean religions, Haitian Vodou has authentic African traits. Vodou is a typical example of a religion centered on different groups of gods. These

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Another Call from Africa by Haitian artist Turgo Bastien has African-Caribbean religious themes.

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gods are called loas, meaning “divinities” or “myster- ies.” The gods, or groups of gods, are called “myster- ies” or more commonly “saints” (in the sense of “holy ones”). In Fon myth, there are three regions of the world, and various gods reign in each one: the sky, the earth, and, in between, the clouds. The creator god (Yoruba, Olorun; Creole, Bon Dieu Bon—literally “good God good”) lives in the remote sky. Because he isn’t involved with everyday life, he isn’t honored in everyday rituals. Through the infl uence of Roman Catholicism, Vodou believers also worship the Christian God. It is not uncommon for them to worship in a Catholic church on Sunday morning and in a Vodou sanctuary on Sunday evening. They also venerate two other kinds of spiritual beings who live between the sky and the earth: souls of dead humans that have become spirits and spirits that have never been directly tied to matter. Vodou gods live on the earth: in the sea, in waterfalls, in springs, in forests, at intersections of roads, in cemeteries, and in piles of stones. Many earth gods of Vodou correspond to Catholic saints, on whose feast days the Vodou gods are also celebrated. The recognition and worship of these gods helps to bless the lives of people on earth, so that they can be happy, peaceful, and productive.

Groups

Gods and rites are divided into groups according to the geographical regions of their origin. The two most important groups are the Rada and the Petro, who are found especially in urban areas. Rada derives from the old kingdom of Arada in Africa. Petro, more oriented to the indigenous Creoles, comes from the name of a Vodou priest, Don Pedro, who introduced a variant of the Vodou trance dance in the eighteenth century. The Petro group

is named after him, but he did not found this Vodou group. Petro gods and spir- its are invoked especially for magical or counter- magical actions that we will consider below. Vodou priests may support both groups, and a believer is usually either Rada or Petro but may likewise take part in ceremonies of the other type.

Worship

As with Candomblé in Brazil and Santería in Cuba, Vodou is a fusion of African religions with Catholicism. Some traces of Caribbean Indian religion can also be found in it. The religion of Vodou refers not to a body of belief, creeds, sacred scriptures, or the rest, but to ritual practice. Vodou is often described as a “cult religion” (cult here refers to a system of ritual worship, not to a dangerous group). In particular, it is a “possession cult” in which the gods inhabit people and speak through them, usually for a short period of time during rituals. Rituals of ani- mal sacrifi ce as well as trance dances forge and maintain a bond with the gods. The rites are practiced by initi- ated members called hunsi, “brides of the gods,” presided over by priests and priestesses called hugan and mambo, respectively. Initiates are introduced into the group by a complicated and spectacular ritual. Worship is held in sacred cabins or city temples, all with an altar for sac- rifi ce of animals and other offerings. They have a cen- tral post that enables the loas to descend to believers and mount believers in trance as their “riding horses.”

A few Vodou rituals tap into the power of the spir- its of the dead, and cemeteries have become important places of Vodou gatherings for worship. The head loa

Rev. Pat Robertson and Vodou On the day after an earthquake devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010, the Christian television evangelist Pat Robertson said on his U.S. television show that Haiti was struck by an earthquake and had long suff ered for other reasons, because its African slaves entered a Vodou “pact with the devil” two centuries ago to overthrow the French and their system of slavery. “They have been cursed by one thing or another” ever since, he claimed. These remarks cre- ated a storm of controversy in the United States and Haiti, where Vodou has been an offi cial religion since 2003.

On a strictly historical level, Robertson is correct on one point: Vodou followers did play a large part in slave upris- ings against the French and their eventual expulsion. But whether the continuing struggles of Haiti, which has long been the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, can be blamed on Vodou is another matter entirely. For many scholars of religion, this superfi cial and dismissive attitude toward Vodou is the most recent part of a long history of misrepresentation and quite literal “demonization” of Vodou in American popular culture, even in journalism.

A Closer Look:

loa [LOH-uh] “Divinity” or “mystery”; in west African and Vodou religions, a god or group of gods

56 C H A P T E R 2 E N C O U N T E R I N G I N D I G E N O U S R E L I G I O N S : WAY S T O T R I B A L L I F E

in the cult of the dead is Baron Samedi, the “Lord of the Dead.” His depiction and name vary, but he often wears a top hat, a black tux- edo, and cotton plugs in his nostrils, all of which are ele- ments of a corpse prepared in a Haitian style for burial. Baron Samedi has a white, skull- like face and is regarded by all as a fearsome presence. Although dead, he is very much alive. He is charged with sexual energy and is frequently represented by phallic symbols. He is known for obscenity and debauchery, and he enjoys tobacco and rum. He is worshiped and celebrated in order to keep him at bay, so that he won’t disturb the living.

Also connected to death—and the African experi- ence of deadly slavery in Haiti—is the fi gure of the zom- bie. As we saw above, Yoruban religion has a large role for the spirits of the dead, and Vodou further blurs the distinction between the living and the dead. It believes that a human body can be revived by an especially pow- erful magician after the spirit of the dead has departed and used as a slave for the magician’s purposes. They are the ultimate slaves, the worst possible kind of “life” for Afro-Haitian people. Zombies remain under the control of the sorcerer because they have no will, mind, or soul of their own. This is why in popular cul- ture zombies are usually depicted as mindless, almost robotic fi gures that shuffl e around. However, the notion that zombies eat human fl esh, thus making other people into zombies, is a mistaken view that taps into revulsion against cannibalism.

Spell and

Counter-Spell

Rituals

Like some of the world’s largest religions, Vodou has a place for “magical” prac- tices, and, also like other religions, this is found more often on a popular, not an offi cial, level. Magic is the preferred form of Vodou

practice of the lowest social class in Haiti—the small farm- ers, the urban working poor, and the masses of unem- ployed—although today some members of the upper class are also drawn to it. People use magic to seek deliverance from all the diffi culties of life, which for the lower classes in

Haiti are many. Diseases, poverty, and other diffi cul- ties are seen as the effect of demonic spells, which need to be countered with magic. Probably the magical prac-

tice best known in the West is the one performed with a small doll, through which certain magical actions are seen as being able to harm someone’s health or even cause death.

Also used are gris-gris, originally images of the gods in the shape of little dolls but now small cloth bags containing items such as herbs, oils, stones, small bones, hair and nails, and pieces of cloth soaked with perspi- ration, all gathered and bagged under the direction of a god for the protection of the owner. The gris-gris became traditional in New Orleans, the American head- quarters for Vodou, where they were used for attracting money and love, stopping gossip, protecting the home, maintaining good health, and for many other uses. A gris-gris is ritually made at an altar containing the four elements of earth (salt), air (incense), water, and fi re (a candle fl ame). The number of ingredients is always one, three, fi ve, seven, nine, or thirteen. Stones and colored objects are chosen to fi t the purpose for which the gris- gris is to be used. Legends of the most famous Vodou

Geoff rey Holder played Baron Samedi in Live and Let Die. His face paint suggests that he is both alive and dead.

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Baron Samedi [sah-MEHD-ee] “Lord of the Dead” in Vodou; head loa in the cult of the dead

gris-gris [gree-gree] In Vodou, small cloth bags containing items gathered and bagged under the direction of a god for the protection of the owner

A shop selling Vodou supplies in the French Quarter of New Orleans

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57A N A F R O  C A R I B B E A N R E L I G I O N : V O D O U

practitioner in the United States, New Orleans “Vodou Queen” Marie Laveau (1794–1881), claim her gris-gris contained bits of bone, colored stones, graveyard dust, salt, and red pepper.

Curse rituals, services of worship in cemeteries, use of snakes in worship, and zombies have made the Vodou religion a favorite subject of exoticism—portraying something in another culture as strange or exciting, and distorting it in the process. Ever since Spenser St. John’s 1884 adventure account Hayita or the Black Republic, new sensations about Vodou have continually sprung up. The Vodou religion, by way of Hollywood, became

an important part of the hor- ror fi lm genre. Filmmakers found that exotic presentations of Vodou could easily frighten and entertain audiences.

Political Influence in Haiti

Haitian Vodou has at times had an important politi- cal and social role. Its faithful were able to mobilize forces against the French colonialist rulers at the close of the 1700s; this led to the abolition of slavery and the country’s independence from France in 1804. Through the years, Vodou believers opposed various Haitian regimes that were devoted to their own power as the gap between the rich and poor masses grew. The last instance of such resistance was to dictator “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who ruled from 1957 to 1971. After the dev- astation of Haiti in the earthquake of 2010, Vodou remains powerful on a popular level.

Socially, rural and urban forms of Vodou dif- fer in Haiti. In rural areas, worship and belief are oriented to small farm- ers and are supported by extensive family alliances. Involvement with ances- tors and ritual practices to induce successful farming are the center of religious practice. Vodou believers in the cities have adapted their practice to urban relation- ships there. They fi nd a “second family” in the temple communities. This urban adaptation of traditional rural Vodou has found its way to the urban centers of North America.

Widespread continuous poverty and political insta- bility in Haiti have led to the need for a religion that can help the poor cope with their problems. Vodou offers this help; the other main religion of Haiti, Christianity, is tied in the minds of many Haitians to the social elites who oppress the common people. This dismal situation in Haiti has led to the emigration of many Haitians to North America. They have taken the Vodou reli- gion along with them to New York City, Miami, and Montreal, but especially to New Orleans, where today there is a museum of Vodou. (New Orleans Vodou tends to be more fi rmly attached to Roman Catholicism than other forms are.) Vodou is starting to get a foothold in some countries of Europe, but mainly as a magical practice adapted for those who are not initiates in the religion.

exoticism [egg-ZOT- uh-siz-uhm] Portraying something in another culture as strange or exciting, and distorting it in the process