Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [231]
Once past these stereotypes, the challenge comes in getting a handle on who the North American natives were and what they believed. One of the problems is sheer numbers. There are almost as many traditions and deities as there are tribes—and there are hundreds of tribes. Even so, as Native North American myth authority David Leeming points out, “As various as Indian cultures had become by the time they moved into North America, they had and have in common an identifiable collective mythological tradition…. These common themes, in many cases, can be traced back probably not only to Asian roots, but also to the process by which the various people migrated across the continents….”
A fundamental connection between many of these tribes is the idea that everything in life has a spiritual component. Not only was there a supernatural power or spirit present throughout the Creation, this power is also present in daily life—in the preparation for planting or hunting, constructing a home, or settling a dispute. Another common idea is that the creation of the earth and its people involves a supreme god, usually a male sky god, sky father, or “all father,” but often a Mother Earth or great goddess as well. When the supreme deity is male, the messy details of Creation are often left to a helper, such as the “earth divers”—usually animals who create the earth by bringing up pieces of dry land from beneath a primal ocean. In other traditions, the helper deity is a goddess. A number of scholars point out that this scenario is a lot like “the men bring home the bacon and the women run the household.” In what tribe have you heard that?
Other common threads that run through the North American traditions include shamanism, drumming, chanting, sweat lodges, and pipe smoking. All of these traditions are believed to stem from the prehistoric roots that are widely shared by the people of North America. But perhaps the most familiar “public” face of the North American native traditions is sacred dancing, a form of communal prayer that brought spirituality to life in pulsing, rhythmic performances—some outdoor, some indoor; some very secret, others public—that connected the people with the “mysteries” surrounding them. The vivid image of Native Americans dancing in a circle in a parched field as they look to the sky and implore the Great Spirit to send rain to nurture the wilting corn crop is almost iconic. But the rain dance is only one of a wide range of sacred and secular dances that exist throughout many tribes. One of many others is the feather dance, a rite held whenever an eagle feather from a ceremonial dress accidentally fell to the floor. Because the eagle was considered a sacred bird, its feather would be retrieved and “reconsecrated” in a group dance. For the Iroquois, the feather dance was also a sacred expression of thanksgiving.
Perhaps the most famous “dance” from Native American tradition is the sun dance. Typically a four-day rite, the sun dance usually took place to welcome the revival of nature after winter. In preparation for the dance, a tree was cut down and erected as a sacred pole. After two or three days of feasting, sweat lodge purification rites, and fasting, the dancers attached themselves to the pole by piercing themselves with pegs secured by long grass ropes. They then danced, straining against these tethers until their skin broke or they collapsed to the ground from exhaustion and hunger. When the ordeal ended, it was believed that the dancers had absorbed the pain and suffering of the tribe for the year to come. Missionaries and government agents eventually banned the dance in the nineteenth century.
Dancing was also typically linked to fertility rites. Among many of the southwestern tribes, there was a corn dance,