From the outset, the formal interaction between Indigenous peoples and European colonizers was more often contentious and brutal. Settlers, wanting to prove their legitimacy, created treaties with local tribes as a way to demonstrate to other countries that the budding political statehood of colonists had formally recognized power. Time and time again, these treaties were violated and over time Indigenous peoples were displaced from their lands via war, famine, forced removal, as well as a lack of immunity to European diseases.
Again, it should be noted that Congress has never, in its entire history, kept any treaty it has made with an American Indian tribe.
In 1824, President James Monroe expedited "the handling of the affairs of the tribes and with the concept of protecting them...initiated the formation of a fiscal bureau in the War Department called the BIA(Bureau of Indian Affairs) (Coffer, 1979)." The formation of the BIA further confirmed the U.S. government was expecting to manage AI/AN folks in a hostile and paternalistic fashion.
An example of a prominent treaty violation that you may be familiar with concerns in the Dakota Access Pipeline (further discussed in Chapter 11.4).
Religion and Spiritual Beliefs
The origin stories of Indigenous peoples throughout North America are also quite different from each other. Each Native American society has its own origin story; there is no one story as there is in Christianity and Judaism. Origin stories are just one aspect of religious or spiritual beliefs for any society.
In many Indigenous origin stories, animals, plants, and even forces of nature like the snakes that ate the disrespectful young man, are active participants in the story. Unlike the Judeo-Christian story in which the serpent is the only animal to have a part mentioned, in Native American stories the animals are very important to the action of the story; often they help humans to survive. Animals may sometimes be tricksters, like Coyote of southwestern stories or the Great Hare of the Southeast, but even they sometimes help humans. You may notice from many of the stories mentioned, humans and animals cooperate and work together. Many Native American societies believe that all things in the world have souls or spirits: therefore all things in the world must be treated respectfully. Social scientists call this animism, the belief that key parts of nature have spirits. In foraging societies, there are thanksgiving rituals for the animals that give their lives for us to eat. Failing to enact the rituals may result in the animals withdrawing themselves. For all living things there are expectations of behavior, and when humans or animals do not meet these expectations, there are consequences.
Rituals and ceremonies have important social meaning--for example, horticultural or agricultural societies have ceremonies or rituals to ensure the growth of their crops. Among the Haundenosaune of the Iroqouis Nation in the Northeastern U.S., there are ceremonies for the coming of maple sap and strawberries. There are several for corn: the planting of the seeds, the “greening of the corn,” when the plant “tassels,” and the harvesting of the crop. Many societies also have rituals that renew the earth itself, such as the Hidatsa’s Naxpike or the Sun Dance practiced by many Plains societies. The Naxpike or Sun Dance may be done to fulfill an individual’s vow or to invoke a vision. In addition to offering thanks, these ceremonies were and are also an opportunity for the community to come together, iron out grievances, have a good time, and look for potential marriage partners.
Modern-day pow-wows function in a similar way for contemporary Native American communities. While the traditional ceremonies are still practiced by many societies, pow-wows are an opportunity for those who no longer live on the reservation or reserve to come home to celebrate their culture and family connections. At a modern pow-wow, community members share in prayer, traditional foods, dance performances, traditional music and drumming, storytelling, and often indigenous vendors are brought in to sell their goods to the community. Pow-wows are also used to honor respected members of the community, and currently are often held to welcome returning war veterans and incorporate them back into the community. These gatherings are an example of how rituals function on a societal level, bringing the community together for mutual purposes and benefits.
Native American societies believe all people—indeed, all living things—have access to spiritual power. One of the ways spiritual power is attained is through dreams. Revitalization movements were often started in response to dreams. Dreams are seen as a conduit between people and the spirit realm. Through dreams the spirits tell people how to live their lives, what they’re doing wrong, even warning them of danger. Many Native American societies have rituals in which people seek advice about their dreams. The Iroquois, and many other Native American societies, believe the messages of dreams must be acted upon or there will be negative consequences for the individual and the entire community.
Among the most important rituals for any individual are coming of age rituals. Coming of age rituals mark the transition from childhood to adulthood. As mentioned before, the vision quest is an example of a coming of age ritual for young men. Often, for the first time, they must go into the woods, mountains, or desert by themselves, fast, and try to stay awake until they receive a vision. The young man’s family will hold a feast and give-aways in which goods and resources are given away, to mark his transition to adulthood.
Like birth and adulthood, death is a transition, so anthropologists often call rituals that mark them as rites of passage. For many Native American societies, birth is the transition from the spirit world; death is a transition back to the spirit world. Death rituals may be started before the individual dies to help in this transition. Among the Dine’, for example, a night ceremony may be held to help prepare the individual and his/her family for the death. The Dine’ have a great fear of ghosts; so, much of the behavior at the funeral ritual is to ensure the ghost of the dead does not stay around kin members. The body is carefully washed and dressed by kin members, but the left moccasin is put on the right foot and the right moccasin is put on the left foot, to make it difficult for the ghost to walk. If the person dies at home, the body is carried out through a hole cut into the wall so as to not contaminate the usual paths of the living. If the deceased dies in a hogan, the traditional house-structure of the Dine, the hogan is abandoned or burnt down. The body is transported in silence to a remote spot. Burial typically takes place in the ground, or a rock niche that is then sealed. The mourners return by a different path, go through a purification ceremony, and never speak the name of the deceased. These observances help to ensure that the ghost of the deceased does not follow or return to haunt family members (Bonvillain, 2001). The Dine believe the deceased must become part of nature or the cosmos, “as a drop of water is part of a rain cloud.”
Mass Media
Since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has been campaigning against the use of such mascots, asserting that the “warrior savage myth . . . reinforces the racist view that Indians are uncivilized and uneducated and it has been used to justify policies of forced assimilation and destruction of Indian culture” (NCAI Resolution #TUL-05-087 2005). The campaign has met with only limited success. While some teams have changed their names, hundreds of professional, college, and K–12 school teams still have names derived from this stereotype(Chapter 4.2). Another group, American Indian Cultural Support (AICS), is especially concerned with the use of such names at K–12 schools, influencing children when they should be gaining a fuller and more realistic understanding of Native Americans than such stereotypes supply.
In 2020, amidst the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd, the Washington Redskins retired their mascot. The Washington Football Team has since followed suit (Rathborn, 2020). Finally, the 2018 NCAI Resolution for National Football League (NFL) teams to discontinue promoting institutional racism and disparaging and diminishing terminology has been realized.
On a final note, there have been some incredible documentaries regarding Indigenous peoples created by and/or from a Native perspective. On the topic of mascots, More Than a Word and In Whose Honor? are remarkable documentaries. Powwows.com and Indian Country Today are contemporary Indigenous media sources.
