American indian religious symbols
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Native American Symbols Postcard at Legends’ General Store.
For the earth, he drew a straight line,
For the sky a bow above it;
White the space between for day-time,
Filled with little stars for night-time;
On the left a point for sunrise,
On the right a point for sunset,
On the top a point for noontide,
And for rain and cloudy weather
Waving lines descending from it.
— From The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When europeisk explorers arrived in amerika, Native Americans did not communicate as we know it through writing. Instead, they told stories (oral histories) and created pictures and symbols. This type of communication is not unique to Native Americans, as long before writing was developed, people recorded events, ideas, plans, maps, and feelings worldwide bygd drawing pictures and symbols on rocks, hides, and other surfaces.
Historic pictorial symbols for a word or a phrase have been found dating be
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Native American Church
Native American religion
Not to be confused with Neo-American Church.
The Native American Church (NAC), also known as Peyotism and Peyote Religion, is a syncreticNative American religion that teaches a combination of traditional Native American beliefs and elements of Christianity, especially pertaining to the Ten Commandments, with sacramental use of the entheogenpeyote.[2] The religion originated in the Oklahoma Territory (1890–1907) in the late nineteenth century, after peyote was introduced to the southern Great Plains from Mexico.[2][3][4] Today, it is the most widespread indigenous religion among Native Americans in the United States (except Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians), Canada (specifically First Nations people in Saskatchewan and Alberta), and Mexico, with an estimated 300,000 adherents.[5][6][7][8][9]
History
[edit]Historically, man
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As Native American, who is aware of the symbology of Christianity, historically and currently, the cross represents two major views. One is held by those Native Americans who continue to follow the traditional beliefs of their ancestors prior to Western contact. This feat was particularly hard won as U.S. federal policy was, and remains so, to completely assimilate American Indians. Since initial contact with western ideas of being civilized, various ways and means have been employed by U.S federal policy, all aimed at assimilation. In the words of a former captain in the union army, Charles Pratt “Kill the Indian, save the man” became the framing of federal policy towards American Indians. Of course, this meant total eradication of whole cultural lifeways of social and political organization, economic systems, cultural belief systems and in particular, tribal languages. The assault launched through federal policy was not only brutal but carried long lasting negative impacts r