I. Introduction

Native American Religions, beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes of the indigenous peoples of North America concerning the spiritual forces of the cosmos. These beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes remained an integral part of aboriginal North American culture from the Stone Age (30,000 BC-2500 BC) through the end of the 19th century, when the European settlement of North America was completed. Beginning in the mid-20th century, Native American religions underwent a revival, particularly among the Plains peoples. (For additional information on Native American cultures, see Native Americans.)

II. Origins and Development

From the Stone Age until the encounter with Europeans, the indigenous peoples of North America lived primarily as hunters and gatherers. At first, during the Stone Age, the peoples of North America shared a common culture with other peoples of the far north. As the ice caps retreated and the ecosystems of North America took on their present characteristics about 20,000 years ago, groups of people moved down the continent and settled in various environmental niches. These groups established culture areas (geographic regions populated by peoples having more or less similar ways of life) adapted to their physical surroundings. Eventually, millions of people were living in kinship communities throughout North America, producing their own food, clothing, and shelter and developing their own religious forms. Even in communities where farming replaced hunting and gathering as a means of producing food, more ancient activities persisted, including traditional religious practices. The hundreds of tribal groups of North America maintained individual traditions that were adapted to their regional environments, although elements of these traditions were sometimes passed from one group to another through trade, migration, and intermarriage. The resilience of local tradition is especially apparent in the Native American communities of the Southeast and Southwest, where the cultural influence of Mexico can be seen in such institutions as social stratification, cities, temples, and burial cults. The archaeological evidence also points to substantial continuity within cultures over thousands of years. Each community maintained its characteristic worldview, passed down its own myths, conducted its own rituals, and acted according to its own fundamental values.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, when the first European explorers and missionaries began to document the religious patterns of indigenous North America, they were confronted with cultures that had remained unaffected by developments in the civilizations of Europe and Asia. In particular, certain archaic religious characteristics were prevalent among the peoples of North America—namely, a preoccupation with the cycles of nature; a belief in the animate quality of all beings; the use of various techniques believed to control cosmic powers for personal and communal benefit; an emphasis on kinship as the metaphor for religious relations; a reliance on shamans (religious specialists thought to be capable of ecstatic journeys of the soul taken on behalf of others); and a unified view of physical and spiritual sustenance expressed in an equivalence between economics and religion.

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