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RCMP Native Spirituality Guide in .pdf form

The Australian Aborigines

An African Tradition

Religion of the North American Plains Indians

Read the accompanying Hyperlink and answer the following questions in full sentences unless otherwise directed.

The Australian Aborigines

Question. What elements of the natural and human world did the Ancestors create or establish in the period of the Dreaming?

Answer. They gave shape to the landscape and created the various forms of life, including the first human beings. They specified the territory each human tribe was to occupy, and determined each tribe's languages, social rules, and customs. They also left behind symbols of their presence in the form of natural landmarks, rock paintings, and so on.

Question. What survives in the symbols left behind by the Ancestors?

Answer. The spiritual essence of the Ancestors. The sites where the symbols are found are charged with sacred power.

Question. What is a totem?

Answer. The natural form in which the Ancestor appeared in the Dreaming. The totem may be an animal or a rock formation or other feature of the landscape.

Question. Why is ritual essential if Aboriginal life is to have meaning?

Answer. It is only through ritual that the sacred power of the Dreaming can be accessed and experienced.

Question. How did Aboriginal rituals originate?

Answer. Aborigines believe that the rituals were taught to the first humans by the Ancestors in the Dreaming.

Question. Explain the concept of taboo.

Answer. Taboo dictates that certain things and activities, due to their sacred nature, are set aside for specific members of the group and are forbidden to others.

Question. What purposes are served by Aboriginal initiation rituals?

Answer. They serve to awaken young people to their spiritual identity with their totemic Ancestor, and at the same time, to redefine their social identity within the tribe. The rituals prepare the way for the spiritual rebirth that is a necessary step toward adulthood. Also, during the rituals, young people learn the essential truths about their world and how they are to act within it.

Question. Identify two acts of Dieri initiation rituals that are symbolic of death.

Answer. Circumcision, knocking out a boy's two lower middle teeth and burying them in the ground, and inflicting wounds intended to leave scars on a boy's neck.

An African Tradition

Question. In what part of Africa do the Yoruba live?

Answer. The western regions of central Africa—Nigeria, Benin, and Togo—mostly in cities.

Question. Why has the city of Ife always been the center of Yoruba religion?

Answer. The Yoruba believe it was there that the god Orisa-nla first began to create the world.

Question. Briefly describe the Yoruba understanding of the cosmos.

Answer. The Yoruba regard the cosmos as being divided into two separate worlds: Heaven—the invisible home of the gods and the ancestors—and Earth—the visible world and home to human beings, who are descended from the gods. Earth is also populated by a perverted form of humans, the witches and sorcerers, who can cause disastrous harm if not controlled.

Question. Who is Olorun, and what is his role in Yoruba religion?

Answer. He is the supreme god of the Yoruba, the primary, original source of power in the universe to whom all other life forms ultimately owe their existence. He is distant and not involved in human affairs, so he is hardly worshiped at all, except in prayer.

Question. What are the orisa? Explain their significance in the religious life of the Yoruba.

Answer. The orisa are lesser deities who are sources of sacred power that can help or harm humans, depending on how well the rituals designed to appease them are carried out.

Question. Name and briefly describe the orisa.

Answer.  Orisa-nla is the supreme deity who most Yoruba believe created Earth. Ogun, the god of iron and war, was originally the first king of Ife. He occupies the borderline be­tween the ancestors and the rest of the orisa. Esu, who is both good and evil, mediates between Heaven and Earth.

Question. What is a trickster figure?

Answer. A sort of mischievous supernatural being.

Question. Describe the two types of Yoruba ancestors.

Answer. Family ancestors, who gained their supernatural status through having earned a good reputation and having lived to an old age, and deified ancestors, who were once important human figures known throughout Yoruba society.

Question. Describe the role of Yoruba ritual practitioners.

Answer. They perform the vital function of mediating between Heaven and Earth.

Question. What is divination, and why do the Yoruba regard it as being so essential?

Answer. Divination is learning or interpreting someone's future. It is considered essential for one to determine how to proceed with life.

Religion of the North American Plains Indians

Question. When and how did human beings first come to North America?

Answer. Humans first came to North America some forty to sixty thousand years ago. They migrated from Asia by crossing over the Bering Strait (which at that time was dry land) between Russia and Alaska.

Question. Why is the religion of the Plains Indians of vital interest among native peoples throughout North America?

Answer. It serves as the model for pan–Indian religion, a recent and popular movement uniting many tribes from across North America.

Question. What is Wakantanka?

Answer. The Lakota name for the supreme reality, sometimes translated as "Great Spirit" or the "Great Mysterious," but literally meaning "most sacred." It actually refers to sixteen separate deities.

Question. Who is Inktomi?

Answer. The Lakota trickster figure who mediates between the supernatural and human worlds. He taught the first humans their ways and customs, and he also serves as an example of how not to behave.

Question. Briefly describe Lakota beliefs regarding death and the afterlife.

Answer. The Lakota believe that four souls depart from a person at death, one of which journeys along the "spirit path" of the Milky Way. The soul meets an old woman who judges it and either allows it to continue on to the otherworld of the ancestors, or sends it back to Earth as a ghost. Meanwhile parts of the other souls enter fetuses and are reborn in new bodies.

Question. What do individuals try to gain access to by going on a vision quest?

Answer. Spiritual power in order to assure greater success in activities such as hunting, warfare, or curing the ill.

Question. Briefly describe the structure and function of the sweat lodge.

Answer. The structure of the lodge, a sapling but covered with animal skins to make it dark and airtight, is representative of the universe. Heated stones placed in the center and sprinkled with water give off intense heat, causing the participant to sweat profusely, which leads to both physical and spiritual purification.

Question. Describe a typical vision experienced by a person who undertakes a vision quest.

Answer. The vision arrives in the form of an animal, bird, or some other object or force of nature, and is often accompanied by a message.

Question. Among the Blackfeet tribe, who presides over the Sun Dance?

Answer. A woman of outstanding moral character.

Question. In general, what is the axis mundi? What is the axis mundi in the Sun Dance?

Answer. The center of the universe. In the Sun Dance, it is a cottonwood tree around which a lodge is constructed so that it is representative of the universe with its four directions.

Question. Why do some participants in the Sun Dance skewer their chests and dance until their flesh tears?

Answer. Because they believe that their bodies are the only things they truly own, the dancers regard bodily mutilation as the only suitable sacrifice to offer to the supreme being.