What do Native Americans believe in? Religiously speaking?

Question

I'm just curious cause even though I have Indian blood in me, I was never taught anything about what they (cherokee) believed.

Answer 1

it can't be generalized as there is a good amount of diversity, religious and otherwise, within the native population. many natives are christian, coming out of the forced conversion through missionaries and boarding schools imposed by the us government. despite this, many people incorporated many of their prior notions of spiritualism and nature and many practices such as sweat lodges, vision quests, sunrise ceremonies, etc.

Answer 2

What do Cherokees believe in, if you sort out their traditional basic culture from what Chistianity has been assimilated from Europeans?
First, that "religion" is not compartmentalized as a separate part of life. All life and all actions are connected to the spirit world. Leave aside the scientific definitions of the western world, and accept that animals, trees, and rocks have something that westerners call "spirit".
Second, "we are all related". There is a kinship between each being on earth and each other including humans, animals, bugs, birds, plants, rocks, moutains, etc on the earth.
Third, let's not claim that we know exactly what is right and wrong all the time. What is important is that we take care of our brothers and sisters.
Not every teacher tells that story the same way, but start there and you have some idea of how the Native American view is different from the westerners. The Native American is broad enough that it can take in Christianity without creating a conflict, they go together.
The stout Christian missionaries, on the other hand, could not accept the value of all the other beings in the world besides the humans, and could not accept the two beliefs side by side.

Answer 3

The Cherokee venerated the horned serpent Sint Holo, who appeared to extremely intelligent and resourceful male youths (although in general Cherokees viewed that snakes could block spiritual blessings to a persons home, therefore, it was traditional for Cherokees to never keep any object made from or resembling a snake, or part of a snake in their home), as well as Tsul 'Kalu, a god of the hunt and Oonawieh Unggi ("the oldest wind"), a wind god. The Ani Yuntikwalaski were people of thunder and lightning (the thunder beings); they caused fires in trees (usually hollow sycamore). Asgaya Gigagei (Thunder Beings of the West) was a thunderstorm spirit, also called Asagaya Gigaei. The Cherokee held that there were two classes of the thunder beings, those who lived close to the Earth, and the holiest and most powerful of the thunder beings who lived in the land of the west beyond the Mississippi, and visited the people to bring the rains and blessings from the South. It was believed that the thunder beings who lived close to the Earth's surface could and did harm the people at times. The thunder beings were viewed as the most powerful of the servants of the Apportioner (Creator Spirit), and were revered in the first dance of the Green Corn Ceremony held each year, as they were directly believed to have brought the rains for a successful corn crop. There were three Thunders Beings from the West in the ancient legends, a greater spirit and his two sons.

The Cherokee assigned a feminine personality to the concept of the personification of spiritual evil, and named her "wi-na-go" in the ancient language, and believe that mosquitos were created when she was destroyed in ancient legends. It was also believed that all human disease and suffering originated with the killing of animals for improper purposes, and that for each animal killed for pleasure or without proper ceremonies, it allowed a new disease to enter the physical world from the spirit world. It was also believed that the plants, in response to witnessing the suffering in the world, made a medicine to cure each sickness that entered the world in order to restore the balance of forces between the two worlds, the physical world and the spirit world.

Answer 4

I am a card carrying, voting member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and from my experience, Indian beliefs mirror the rest of the nations. Some are Baptist, some are Catholic, most are Christian of one form or another. A very small number follow either an updated form of their indigenous religion (as I do) or a mix of it and Christianity. Or at least, like other Americans, that's what they will cop to. Like most Americans, the Almighty Dollar seems to be the one true god. Go to an Indian casino on Sunday morning and you can see the altars at work.

Answer 5

How very rude Ashley!There are too many Native nations having different beliefs to be specific. i suggest you google the different tribes and find out what they believed. And by the way, ALL natives that I know, and that is quite a few, have jobs and make just as much of a contribution the EI as the rest of society

Answer 6

Their own cultures' beliefs... I know that's vague, but there are too many different cultures, with too many different beliefs, for there to be anything that's just common in general...

If you want to know of the Cherokee, then go find someplace online were you can legitimately talk to some Cherokee people (just beware there are websites of some illegitimate fake "tribes"), and see what you pick up. Be open to learn and understand, just don't go in with any intention of just wanting their ways. People who just want something for their own benefit are likely to get a cold shoulder..

Answer 7

Christians with "good intentions" have destroyed most of the Native American religions by having taken the children and placing them in boarding schools where they were not even allowed to speak their native languages or practice their religion.

In point of fact the Army of the United states disallowed most tribes the freedom of having religious gatherings at all.

However, the old religions are beginning to creep back because of the failure of Christianity to fulfill the promises and given words.

Answer 8

Somewhere just before or beyond this man made creation, as you ponder to provide answers to your innerness, can you surmise and be the same as you are here that you will be there. Without truth, beyond all understandings, of the illusion’s that taints one’s perception of the truth. Can you stand before yourself without denial within your spirit or soul? Can you answer to all your reactions that you back without really backing and understanding the reasoning behind your contact to this existence?
Can you say that only you know within, as truth, that your answer to your reason for being here is to continue the journey back home? Are you backing the thought of I’m not here to waste this journey.
Can you stand behind your reasons and say to Creator, God himself that you do not care what you will be beyond this short story. Or will the truth let the truth be your guide.
Are, will you laugh out loud as you damn yourself and all others that are on this same journey? With only an after thought in our minds, will we realize that we all look different from one another but are from the same beginning?
Can you believe that it could be that we are all relatives from the beginning of time? That it’s just that we are lost from whom we are and whom we are to one another while traveling through our eternity?
Is it true, somehow that we think we have it made because we know we are right and the rest of the world and eternity is wrong. Can we stay this way and still expect the rest of eternity to allow us to be the same all through time.
Should we ask, will we still be the same as we are here as we will be there?
Well grasshopper, if we cannot seek a change together as we try to understand the big journey, as we walk and talk and prepare to enter from where we began. Then the question is will we understand that the load we carry has been acquired and the balances will change all through eternity?
As we travel as a Spirit following the path of the Spiritual Creator, we will all need to seek a change to be welcome from the full circle journey that we will arrive from. For eternity lasts forever and we are within it now. For the longer the experience the more Creator knows of our ways.
Always ask yourself, will this journey last without strength and harmony with Creator and all of our relatives. Life’s experiences as the human experience unfolds demands that we don’t amuse ourselves by acting as a one act play, within a solo journey without the strength and harmony that is given by Creator. The answer lay’s within one’s eternal journey. Seek it and the illusion will be left behind and the truth will be found.

Answer 9

They believe in the Creator, who many (myself included) is just another name for God, or The Lord. The Native beliefs are very nature-oriented, but I am sure each individual has different ideas.

Answer 10

HI,
THE NATIVE AMERICAN WOULD BE CONSIDERED PAGAN UNDER CHRISTIAN CIRCUMSTANCES. THEY BELIEVED THAT ALL OF NATURE WAS THEIR GODS. THEY BELIEVED THAT IF THEY WERE TO PREVAIL IN THIS WORLD LISTEN TO THEIR CHIEF AND PROFIT FROM THE LAND THEY LIVED ON. NOW YOU SAY CHEROKEE IS IN YOUR BLOOD JUST ANOTHER SIMPLE FACT THAT MOST WOMEN IN CHEROKEE TRIBES WERE THE CHIEFS.