Native Religions and Cultures of North America: Anthropology of the Sacred - Tapa dura

Analyzing the terminology of the sacred in cultures around the world, religious anthropology shows how "homo religiosus" has created distinct vocabularies suited to the lived experience of the sacred in diverse ecological, historical and social settings. These vocabularies have disclosed remarkable differences among them but also striking patterns of similarity. They also reveal the deeply religious nature of many of the key expressions of culture, whether in art, music, performance, life passage, social transformation, or simply in how we tell the time. Using the perspectives and methods of religious anthropology, this text provides a summary of the indigenous religions and cultures of North America. It describes the modalities of the sacred among the Absaroke/Crow, Mohawk/Iroquois, Creek (Muskogee), Abenaki, Oglala, Navajo, Apache, Inuit, Kwakiutl and the natives of North-Western California.

Lawrence E. Sullivan is Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University.