James Walker Sacred Pipe Analysis
Recommended: Importance of sacred pipes in Lakota culture
In the article, the Energy Transfer Partners company is building a pipeline on top of Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s sacred burial ground. Tribal activists say that the construction of the pipeline would destroy their historic burial ground. In the book, Dan says, “Those damn heads are the worst thing that the white man ever did […] Blowing up the sacred mountains to put a bunch of white faces on them” (Nerburn 325). He says this in response to what he thought about Mount Rushmore. This shows that Natives do not like it when white people destroy things that Indians consider sacred.
The movie Smoke Signals is a great representation of Durkheim’s theory of religion and the sacred as being social and serving society. As well as a culture’s sacred beliefs and rituals being a symbolic way of a person aligning themselves with their society. Smoke Signals focuses on two individuals, both of whom are Indians of the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation, on a journey where they struggle to hold on to the beliefs and traditions that have enabled them to cope with their difficult pasts. The first part of this essay will provide evidence from the movie to explain how the first individual, Victor Joseph, holds to the belief that an Indian must act like a warrior to receive any respect. Second, this essay will then provide evidence to explain
In the documentary, “The Split Horn: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America,” portrays the journey of an immigrant Hmong family battling to maintain their cultural traditions alive in the United States. In the Hmong culture, it is believed that every individual has seven souls and if they have an illness, for example sickness, it means that their soul has departed or taken by evil spirits. Hmong people believe in Shamans, who are gifted and respected people who can make contact with their ancestors and return the lost souls of people. In this documentary, the main character Paja Thao is a shaman who is challenged by American customs to keep his cultural Hmong traditions alive and pass it down to his children. Paja becomes sick because he feels like his children don’t care about the Hmong tradition anymore because they don’t participate in his rituals and realizes his children have assimilated to the American culture.
The perpetuation of the Lakota people reveals the American religious experiences through the stratification of social inequality through the eyes of Lame Deer. Lame Deer provides a personal narrative that landscapes native religion through social injustice inflicted on the Sioux nation. His stories provide a personal interpretation of what it is to be Native American or Indian living in the white man's world. Lame Deer Seeker of Visions, provides the context of religion from the journey of the Medicine Man. Being Indian embodies myth, ritual, and symbolism of religious tradition as a way of cultural and individual identity.
His Aunt believed that because, “the experience had killed the spirits of so many people. She didn’t want me to be infected by its insidious force. She worried it would drag me down, and would never produce anything positive. She gave me this counsel over twenty years ago” (Borrows 486). Despite this advice, Borrows was unable to stay away from the topic, like many other Indigenous scholars.
The Bakongo believe that the great god, ne Kongo, brought the first sacred medicine ( or Nkisi) down from heaven in an earthenware vessel set upon three stones or termite bounds. A nkisi (or minkisi) is loosely translated a ‘spirit’ yet it is represented as a container of sacred substances which are activated by supernatural forces that can be summoned into the physical world. Visually, these minkisi can be as simple as pottery or vessels containing medicinal herbs and other elements determined to be beneficial in curing physical illness or alleviating social ills. In other instances minkisi can be represented as small bundles, shells, and carved wooden figures. Minkisi represent the ability to both ‘contain’ and ‘release’ spiritual forces which can have both positive and negative consequences on the
In chapter 3 of the “Sacred Quest” the book discusses “the ways in which the Sacred is manifested in the world of human experience” (39). In particular, the book discusses examples of sacred persons, objects, time, and space. The Sacred Quest states that there is a pattern in religions and breaks them up into 3 types of sacred appearance: prophetic, sacramental, and mystical. The first, prophetic, is associated most with Judaism and Islam, focusing on a person or prophet. The second is most apparent in Christianity, which emphasizes the presence of the sacred through aspects of material reality and stresses the role of priests.
Many aspects of today’s America are governed by the logic of scarcity, as there is not enough wealth and jobs to go around, causing many people to struggle in competition to gain needed resources. Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel, Ceremony, showcases the pernicious effects the scarcity logic has on Native Americans, who are cast aside and forgotten in unfertile reservations. Silko contrasts the logics of scarcity in her book with harmony by sampling poems that pertain to the Native American culture. In the Arrowboy poem at the end of the book, sampled during the book’s climax, the main character, Tayo, comes to face the “witchery” of harmful logics and has the chance to combat and overcome them, succeeding in doing so by later sharing his
Is the right of passage for native american tribes different from each other? This essay will explain the differences, similarities, and the advantages/disadvantages of watching the video young apache girl's rite of passage and The Medicine Bag And see which one explains the rite of passages importance more clear. The similarities between the story the medicine bag and the video young apache girl's rite of passage like in both stories the person in the passage goes through something special to that culture. In apache girls rite of passage she goes through the apache ritual of becoming a woman in order to grow up.
My most valuable secondary sources, which most helped me understand the chronology of events relating to my topic, have been Bosque Redondo and The Long Walk, both written by Lynn R. Bailey. I’ve attempted to divide my primary sources into Navajo and Anglo-American accounts of events, with many Navajo histories having been passed down orally over generations. The letters of James H. Carleton have presented valuable insight into the intentions of overseer of the events detailed in my paper, while transcriptions of testimony by Navajo Chiefs have aided me with insight regarding the outlook of Navajo leadership. The compilation of oral stories which have been passed down in Oral History Stories of the Long Walk has presented me with a great deal of how members of the Navajo (at the time of the book’s recording) remember the Long Walk and Bosque Redondo, granting insight into how those events live in Navajo
The Choctaw people were once a prosperous Native American tribe in the United States of America that settled in more than 50 villages in an area now known as Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Southern Mississippi.. The tribe believed that their people were created from a large mound in their territory known to them as the mud of Nvnih Waiya (“Choctaw”). Their society and culture was deeply rooted in agriculture. On their fertile lands in Mississippi the Choctaw grew crops of corn, beans, and pumpkins. Their culture is filled with capacious beliefs and traditions surrounding child birth, medical care, spirituality, and death.
Animals in native American culture have a much greater meaning than just their physical being. Each animal in their stories in on this earth for a specific reason that is all for the betterment of each and every living being. Animals in this culture are very prominent because many natives are named after and animal and are given a spirit animal that will watch over them for their entire journey. This animal has the same traits that they do which mean that they are even more connected to each other. However in Ceremony by Leslie Silko, the main character Tayo isn't given or it is unknown of this animal this possibly because Tayo is considered a “half-blood”.
Native American values are seldom practiced in today’s day and age. Respect still hangs on by a thread that is gradually disintegrating over time. It is held crucial by multitudinous amounts of people today, but it is not practiced enough satisfactorily . All Native American values are important, but this one still holds today
Ceremony and rituals have played a vital and essential role in Native American culture for a long time. Often referred to as “religion,” most Native Americans did not think their spirituality, ceremonies, and rituals as “religion,” the same way that Christians do. Instead, their beliefs and practices form an integral and seamless part of their being. Like other aboriginal people around the world, their beliefs were heavily influenced by their ways of getting food, – from hunting to agriculture. They also did ceremonies and rituals that gave power to conquer the difficulties of life, as wells as events and milestones, such as puberty, marriage, and death.
Something called “Medicine Men and Women” are spiritual leaders who use herbs to heal sick people. It’s very important to have spiritual leaders because they are the one’s to provide for the sickness of people, they play a huge role in people's lives so that’s why they're so important to the Native Americans religion. Now in closing, I have learned a lot of new things that I have never seen or heard of
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