Native North American Spirituality of the Eastern Woodlands: Sacred Myths, Dreams, Visions, Speeches, Healing Formulas, Rituals, and CeremonialsElisabeth Tooker "For sheer publishing courage and imagination, what can surpass...The Classics of Western Spirituality(TM)." Publishers Weekly "...of fundamental importance to any student or scholar interested in the development and dimensions of the religious ideas and experiences of man." Mircea Eliade Native North American Spirituality of the Eastern Woodlands: Sacred Myths, Dreams, Visions, Speeches, Healing Formulas, Rituals and Ceremonials edited by Elisabeth Tooker preface by William C. Sturtevant "The people moving about on the earth will have love; they will simply be thankful. The will carry it upward, ending where I dwell. I shall always be listening carefully to what they are saying, the people who move about. And indeed I shall always be watching carefully what they do, the people on earth." Seneca Thanksgiving Address This work makes available for the first time in a single volume a representative collection of the major spiritual texts from the Native American Indian peoples of the East Coast. Elisabeth Tooker, professor of anthropology at Temple University and an editor of The Handbook of North American Indians, presents the sacred traditions of the Iroquois, Winnibego, Fox, Menominee, Delaware, Cherokee and others. What makes this volume so unique is that it gives the reader direct access to the original works (in the words of the Indians themselves) rather than having them filtered through some interpreter. Included here are cosmological myths, thanksgiving addresses, dreams and visions, speeches of the shamans, teachings of parents, puberty fasts, blessings, healing rites, stories, songs, ceremonials for fires, hunting, wars, feasts and the rituals of various spiritual societies. The Preface to this volume is by William C. Sturtevant of the Smithsonian Institution, who is General Editor of The Handbook of North American Indians. + |
Contents
| 31 | |
Dreams and Visions | 69 |
Delaware Big House Ceremonial | 104 |
Winnebago Night Spirits Society Ceremonial | 125 |
Menominee Bundle Ceremonials | 144 |
Fox Clan Ceremonials | 164 |
Winnebago Clan Ceremonials | 217 |
Iroquois Ceremonials | 268 |
Southeastern Indian Formulas | 282 |
| 294 | |
| 296 | |
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Common terms and phrases
American Ethnology animals beliefs Big House Ceremony birds body buckskin bundle owners called Cherokee Chiefs clan clan festival counted coup Creator dance deer Delaware desire Disease-Giver dream drum dwell earth Earthmaker east enemy Ethnology evil fast father feast fire four give thanks given grandchild grandmother Green Buffalo Green Corn ceremony guests handful of tobacco Handsome Lake heart honor host impersonating the spirits Indian invited Iroquois kettles kill kindred leader live lodge manitou Me'napus medicine Menominee moccasins mother Night Spirits night-blessed North obtain offer tobacco offerings of tobacco Ojibwa orenda person Radin religions ritual sacred seated sing Siouan sitting smoke songs south band speak speech spoke tell texts Thanksgiving things thought Thunderbirds Thunderers told translation tree vision wakanda walk wampum warpath warriors west band Winnebago Winnebago Tribe wish woman women worship young
Popular passages
Page 14 - Everything as it moves, now and then, here and there, makes stops. The bird as it flies stops in one place to make its nest, and in another to rest in its flight. A man when he goes forth stops when he wills. So the god has stopped. The sun, which is so bright and beautiful, is one place where he has stopped.
Page 27 - Ojibwa recognize quite as much as we do that dream experiences are often qualitatively different from our waking experiences. This fact, moreover, is turned to positive account. Since their dream visitors are other-than-human persons possessing great power, it is to be expected that the experiences of the self in interaction with them will differ from those with human beings in daily life. Besides this, another assumption must be taken into account: When a human being is asleep and dreaming his otcatcdkwin...
Page 15 - ... of man. This hypothetic principle was conceived to be immaterial, occult, impersonal, mysterious in mode of action, limited in function and efficiency, and not at all omnipotent, local and not omnipresent, and ever embodied or immanent in some object, although it was believed that it could, be transferred, attracted, acquired, increased, suppressed, or enthralled by the orenda of occult ritualistic formulas endowed with more potency.
Page 15 - Orenda. The Iroquois name of the fictive force, principle, or magic power which was assumed by the inchoate reasoning of primitive man to be inherent in every body and being of nature and in every personified attribute, property, or activity, belonging to each of these and conceived to be the active cause or force, or dynamic energy, involved in every operation or phenomenon of nature, in any manner affecting or controlling the welfare of man.
Page 16 - Kwakiutl, and tamanoas, by the Chinook. Notwithstanding slight differences in the signification of these terms, the fundamental notion of all of them is that of a power inherent in the objects of nature which is more potent than the natural powers of man. This idea seems adequately expressed by our term "wonderful"; and it is hardly necessary to introduce an Indian term, as has often been attempted.
Page 25 - Ojibwa characters, is completely misleading, if for no other reason than the fact that the concept of supernatural presupposes a concept of the natural. The latter is not present in Ojibwa thought. It is unfortunate that the natural-supernatural dichotomy has been so persistently invoked by many anthropologists in describing the outlook of peoples in cultures other than our own. Linguists learned long ago that it was impossible to write grammars of the languages of nonliterate peoples by using as...
Page 24 - ... set." It does not involve a consciously formulated theory about the nature of stones. It leaves a door open that our orientation on dogmatic grounds keeps shut tight. Whereas we should never expect a stone to manifest animate properties of any kind under any circumstances, the Ojibwa recognize, a priori, potentialities for animation in certain classes of objects under certain circumstances.10 The Ojibwa do not perceive stones, in general, as animate, any more than we do. The crucial test is experience....
Page 21 - The conception involved in its use can best be shown by taking up some features of Algonkin religion. "The essential character of Algonkin religion is a pure, naive worship of nature. In one way or another associations cluster about an object and give it a certain potential value; and because of this supposed potentiality, the object becomes the recipient of an adoration. The degree of the adoration depends in some measure upon the extent of confidence reposed in the object, and upon its supposed...
Page 18 - always referred to definite spirits, not necessarily definite in shape. If at a vapor-bath the steam is regarded as wakanda or manitu, it is because it is a spirit transformed into steam for the time being; if an arrow is possessed of specific virtues, it is because a spirit has either transformed himself into the arrow or because he is temporarily dwelling in it; and finally, if tobacco is offered to a peculiarly-shaped object it is because either this object belongs to a spirit, or a spirit is...