North American Indian Ceremonies

Religious beliefs, which are the basis of all Indian ceremonies and rituals, were linked with supernatural and extraordinary forces of the spirit world (249). For the North American Indians, religion was as important in government and social control as in any other function of society. In fact, studies have shown that direct or indirect references to belief in the supernatural can be detected in all ceremonies, including the "cyclic group-rites," and the "crisis rites."

While "cyclic group rites" refer to the recurrent and fixed ceremonies held throughout the year, "crisis rites" mark special events in the life of each person: birth, puberty, marriage, and death (252). "These are the so-called biological crises, and the ceremonials connected with these critical but normally expectable events have been called 'the rites of passage' Van Gennep (1960)" (252). Involving a transition from one social status to another, crisis rites are imp

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In Hopi mythology, the spirits of the deceased played a role in many of the groups' rituals including the rainmaking ceremonies. It was believed that deceased Hopis who descended to the lower world of a two-part (upper and lower) cosmos were transformed into Kachinas (gods) and assumed the forms of clouds where they manifested themselves as rainfall. With rain essential to the growth of crops, this ceremony completed the ties between the living and the dead, the natural and the supernatural: "From life came death, yet from death came life" (258). The nonPueblo groups of the Southwest, which included mainly the Athapaskan-, Yuman-, and Piman-speaking tribes, practiced ceremonies very different from the Pueblos and from each other though some exchange did take place through trade and social contact. The River Yumans, who were traders and raiders, had very little ceremonialism in their culture. As a result, the life cycle did not receive much public attention, though their major ritual was a mourning ceremony, which was similar to those held by Southern California Yumans and all other tribes as far north as the Maidus (272-72). Mourning ceremonies were spread out over many days and involved all members of the tribe. These
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1465
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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