My experience/research concerning Native American culture/spirituality suggests that they are not/were not polytheistic. That’s a huge misconception, Green Mountain. They saw pathways & energies in all things, …they did not pray to them. But I can see some English cat back in the good ol’ days of yore thinking this is what he spied with his own two eyes. If you ever met with the opportunity to pray in a sacred circle or to sweat (in a sweatlodge ceremony) with a small village clan of the Lenape or Cherokee or Lakota, you’d find that they celebrate one Creator & all creation. Although they honor & respect the pathways & life spirit in all things living, inanimate & dead, while celebrating & looking to their long dead elders and Mother Earth in prayer, they do this with respects to the Great Spirit, Creator. God was never used as a scapegoat for man’s inhumanity to man. They celebrated the passing spirit of animals killed for sustenance…& the passing spirits of their enemies out of respect; this was a culture built around beautiful human & compassionate wisdoms, really. That’s not to say they were without the heady foibles of advanced mammalian indulgences; although greed, the bane of civilization, was probably not one of them. They did not learn greed until the good lads came across the sea waving Bibles & property deeds. In so many cases these people were/are far more Jesus-like than way-too-many of the devout Christians I’ve met & read & listened to over the years. But they didn’t say the name, Jesus, when asked who their God was & therefore were defined as animist or heathenist or savage or pagan. It’s not truthful, though; not in my opinion. Perhaps it’s just the canopy assumptions of the single-minded doctrinaire; maybe a genuine conviction gone a little greed-insane with certain airs of superiority…& the cunning use of flags. I don’t know, …but I can see the good in someone’s eyes, …in their acts, …& I can see the vitriol in others.
Frankly, I’m not interesting in arguing points here; just to propose another. I’ve read your message, I see your conviction…& far better men than I, from as far back as Tisquantum (Squanto), have tried & failed to clarify the misconceptions therein. You speak well on behalf of your faith. It’s my faith too, as I do believe in the existence of All Creation. But until one has fasted for three days while ceremoniously sweating in a sacred (& not contrived) Inipi or Bagnio with weathered old gents of tremendous spiritual medicine just to brush even slightly with the truth of their ancient understanding, then it’s little more than allusion. & probably the truth will never be widely understood.
A good example of the sightlessness that defies Jesus’ best lessons, while claiming to be the steadfast voice of God’s Word, is portrayed in the character Reverend Spellgood in the movie The Mosquito Coast (1986). He’s a perfect metaphor [IMHO]. Make what you will of that; it’s a personal thing. Those clever teachers who callously took the moccasins from Native American Children upon arriving at the Carlisle [Indian Reeducation] School & forced them to wear hard shoes with soles claimed to be doing it in the name of benevolence…but were simply acting as yardstick-wielding enforcers of one rigid viewpoint; very similar with regards to the castigation of both the North American & Australian, etc. etc., aboriginal children for the use of their native languages, …called something to the likes of gibberish and ungodly sounds by those virtuous readers & infusers of the King James Bible; …my forefathers & foremothers, bless their souls.
