English11
Ms. Fordahl
5 February 2014
Native American Religion
In this section we learned many things about Native Americans and what they believed in. In the video "Native Voices" soon tied the short stories together "Way to Rainy Mountain" Scott Mommaday, and "Saint Marie" by Lousie Endrich. How are they alike? How can all these stories tie together about one subject but two totally different authors? Well lets find out.
In the "Way to Rainy Mountain" Mommaday discusses his grandmother and her believes. As stated in the text "My grand mother as a child she would go to sun dances" (53) In the Native American culture they believe if you dance around a fire the sun will come out and stay out. As they are doing this dance they could possibly be telling their creation stories and emergence stories.
In many believes in our culture we have our believes and creation stories written down in a book but the Native Americans share them through oral stories. The grandmother will pass down the story that their grandmother told them but slowly add in what they believe happened. They are emerging their stories. One of their believes according to "Native Voices" is that they originated from the land, they also believe they can be born many times. Now when they add what they believe happen it becomes an emergent religion. Since many Native Americans believe they came from the land they worship it so much.
"The plains stars of the Big Dipper, I then look up and see something strange"(53) says Mommaday. Many Native Americans love to look up at the sky and down at the earth from a high peak. They feel like they have to respect the land because if it wasn't for the land they wouldn't be here right? Well that is what they believe is how they came here. And if it wasn't for the earth they wouldn't have food. In this short story he says the summer are dreadful, but the winters are worse. I relate to this because I grew up in North Dakota and the summers are so humid your skin sticks together. The winters are so cold that sometimes is you just step outside you could get frostbite on what ever you don't have covered. Also in North Dakota many farmers and people in the community respect the land.
Many Native Americans believes tie in together and the way they worship always has another reason behind it. In the video and they short stories they told us that. The Native Americans strongly believe in their religion and their creation stories. They do believe in many things that we wouldn't think of. Their culture is very unique and I loved learning how they pass their religion down and how they pass things along.
