While reading a few of the myths in the Myths and Legends book I continuously ran across (what I considered to be an example of religion). This may be from my pre conceived notions that being raised a Christian gave me. Nonetheless I was interested in the idea of a “god like” figure that appears in some stories. For instance, in “Creation of the Animal People” (pg 14) there is a creator called the “Old One.” I assumed that “Old One” probably was a God or creator of some sort as he molded people and animals out of mud and clay.
I then ran into another creation story, “The Well-Baked Man.” (pg 46) This is another story involving the creation through clay molding of people. This was particularly interesting and comical story as the creator was known as the “Magician.” The “Magician” created whites and blacks by accident and then created the “perfect…belonging” Indian race. What confused me was that now a creator was called the “Magician.”
So in the book that Jasmine suggested, Everything You wanted to know about Indians, I found a question: “What is Indian Religion?” Here I learned that because of the mass diversity amongst Indian cultures and tribes that there is no specific Indian religion, or per say, there is no universal one among the race. I could have guessed this but thankfully found more. Now as we have seen, some Indian cultures were very in tune and one with nature. In some cultures this was there religion in a sense, which is pretty cool. There were also certain cultures / tribes that had more specific religions, and religious practices that turn out to be very similar to ours. ie. Baptisms and confirmations with more specific instructions on how an individual should live their lives and who to look to for guidance.
Another story that reminded of Christianity or a biblical tale was “Children of the Sun.” (pg 119) In this story, after flying up and meeting their father (the sun) and their mother (the moon) the Indians find themselves back to earth but are stuck in water. The Elk (inspiring confidence because of his being stately haha) jumped in the water and sank. The winds came and blew the water into mist in the air (MOSES PARTING RED SEA). This was a direct connection to me. The Elk then fell into the earth and his hair became grains and corn etc which I was a bit confused about.
Fun Fact: In 1883, interestingly, the federal government of the US forbade Indian religious practices and some of those traditions weren’t repealed until 1978.
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