The Religion of the North American Plains Indians

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Religion of North American Indians

• Humans came to North America 20,000 - 30,000
  years ago .
• They migrated from Asia by crossing over the
  Bering Strait, which was dry land at that time.
• They gradually spread out and eventually
  inhabited large regions of both North and South
  America.
• Numerous tribes migrated into the Plains region,
  and exchanged ideas by means of Sign Language
• All tribes performed two basic rituals, the
  vision quest and the Sun Dance.

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Basic Beliefs of the Lakota

• About 100,000 Lakota live on reservations in
  Manitoba, Montana, and North and South Dakota.
• The Lakota name for the supreme reality is Wakan
  Tanka which means most sacred.
• Wakan Tanka refers to 16 separate deities. The
  number sixteen is derived from the number four
  multiplied by itself, which is the most sacred
  number in Plains religion.
• It refers to the four directions which are
  especially relevant to people living in the wide,
  open regions of the Plains.

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Inktomi the Lakota Trickster

• Inktomi taught the first humans their ways and
  customs.
• He also was a example of behavior to little
  children.

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The Vision Quest

• It is a primary means for an individual to gain
  access to spiritual power that will ensure
  greater success in activities such as hunting,
  warfare, and curing the ill.
• Both men and women experience the quest, although
  it is more common for men.

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The Steps of the Vision Quest

• It is carried out under the supervision of a
  medicine man or woman.
• The participant first undergoes purification in
  the sweat lodge.
• Then the quester goes off alone to a place far
  from the camp, usually to a hilltop.

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• The quester endures the elements for a set number
  of days, without food or water.
• A vision comes to the quester, eventually,
  usually near the end of the stay. It arrives in
  the form of an animal or some other object or
  force of nature.
• A message is often communicated along with the
  vision.
• After retuning to camp. The vision and the
  message are interpreted by the medicine

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• Man.
• The lessons derived from the vision quest
  influence the rest of the persons life.
• The vision quest expresses two dimensions of
  religion the quest itself is a religious
  ritual, and the moment of receiving the vision or
  guardian spirit is a form of religious experience.

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The Sun Dance

• The vision quest focuses on the individual, but
  the Sun Dance is for the benefit of the whole
  tribe.
• It occurs at the beginning of the summer and
  celebrates both the new year and the beginning of
  the buffalo hunt.

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• The major task in preparing for the Sun Dance is
  the construction of the lodge in which the
  ceremony is held.
• A cottonwood tree is chosen and brought to the
  center of the lodge where it becomes the axis
  mundi - the center of the universe.
• It also represents the supreme being becomes it
  connects heaven and earth.
• The lodge is constructed of 28 poles representing
  the cycle of the lunar moon.

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Performance of the Sun Dance

• There are long periods of dancing while facing
  in the direction of the sun.
• Music and drumbeats accompany the dancing.
• Some of the dancers mutilate their bodies as a
  sacrifice to the supreme being.
• This practice led to the outlawing of the Sun
  Dance.

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Mesoamerican Religion The Aztecs and Their Legacy

• The Aztecs were a great civilization with a
  population of about 15 million.
• Many Aztecs lived in the city of Tenochtitlan,
  which is now Mexico City.
• The Aztec religion emphasized the
  interrelationship between myth and ritual, thus
  its practice of human sacrifice.

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• The Aztecs were primal because it predated
  Catholicism, which arrived with the Spaniards in
  the 16th century.
• What we call, Mesoamerica includes present- day
  Mexico as well as Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa
  Rica.

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• By the time the Aztecs arrived in Mesoamerica,
  great cultural achievements were in place.
• The greatest influence came from The Toltecs

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• The Aztecs believed that the Toltec god
  Quetzalcoatl (feathered serpent) had presided
  over an age of cultural brilliance.
• The gods earthly devotee Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl
  ruled as priest-king. He provided the Aztecs
  with the perfect role model for their own
  authority figure.
• The Aztecs look as this age as the mythic pattern
  for the ideal civilization.

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Teotihuacan
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Pyramid of the Sun
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Pyramid of the Moon
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Teotihuacan Place of Origins

• Located here is the Pyramid of the Sun and the
  Pyramid of the Moon.
• This is the most visited archeological site in
  the Americas
• It is considered, by Aztecs, to be the origin of
  the universe.

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Cosmology Time and Space

• The Aztecs cosmology was interrelated with their
  pessimistic view of time, their perspective on
  the human condition, and their ritual of human
  sacrifice.

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Age of the Fifth Sun

• The Aztecs believe that the sun was created in
  Teotihuacan.
• The present sun, they thought, was the fifth sun.
  The four previous suns have been destroyed and
  the same fate awaits this one.
• The only salvation was human sacrifice.

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• They believed that the fifth sun was the last
  that would ever shine.
• The Aztecs believed the universe was built around
  a center with the four directions out from it.
  The fifth sun occupied the east position.
• The Aztec cosmology features a close
  correspondence between time and space.

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Four Directions and the Axis Mundi

• The Aztecs understood the spatial world as having
  four quadrants extending outward from the center
  of the universe.
• At the point where the four points met stood the
  Great Temple, Serpent Mountain.
• Mountains typically are considered axis mundis

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Great Temple
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The Human Responsibility for Sustaining the Cosmos

• Two divine forces, once concentrated in the head,
  the other in the heart, were believed to nurture
  the human being with basic needs.
• Each human was regarded as an axis mundi
• The heart and head were regarded as nourishment
  for the sun and the cosmos itself.

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• The heart was offered as nourishment for the sun,
  the head was offered to the sky.
• Those who were sacrificed were thought to
  immediately enter the highest heaven upon their
  death.
• Sacrifices were carried out at least once every
  20 days. The victims were often captive warriors.

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The Mastery of Language

• A great deal of power was believed to be conveyed
  through the mastery of language.
• The Aztecs spoke Nahuatl, an expressive language
  capable of high achievements in poetry and other
  forms of speech.
• This provided a welcome alternative to human
  sacrifice.
• The Aztecs also favored riddles.

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Aztec Art
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From Aztec to Catholic

• Cortes conquered Tenochtitlan in 1521
• He wore a feathered helmet so he was greeted as
  the past king of the Aztecs.
• Our Lady of Guadalupe began in 1531 on the
  outskirts of Tenochtitlan - the hill on which she
  appeared was the sacred place of the Aztec mother
  goddess, Tonantzin.

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