Native American Religion Essay -- Native American Culture

When Europeans first set foot upon the shores of what is now the United States they brought with them a social structure which was fundamentally based around their concept and pinch of Western European Christianity. That the indigenous peoples might already have a thriving civilization, including religious beliefs and practices, that closely paralleled the beliefs and practices of European civilization, was a concept non considered by these early explorers and settlers. This European insufficiency of cultural understanding created tensions, mingled with Native Americans and Europeans, and later between Native Americans and Euro-Americans, that eventually erupted into open disk operating system of war and resulted in great bloodshed between cultures. For the Lakota peoples of North America, cultural see culminated with Euro-American misinterpretation of the purpose of the Native American Ghost Dance with its link religious beliefs and the massacre of peaceful Native American Lakota people as they were attempting to flee to the safety of the Agency at Pine Ridge reserve near Wounded Knee Creek in what is now the state of South Dakota. When contact was made with indigenous peoples, Europeans discovered that the languages of the indigenous peoples did not include words for trust or for God as Europeans dumb these concepts. These Europeans considered themselves a civilized and pious people who lived according to the ways and teachings of the Christian Bible and believed that this was the only proper and correct code of conduct. Believing that the lack of Native American words to identify and describe God and religion meant that these concepts did not exist within the culture and society of the indigenous peoples, the European... ...itor footnote number 8, Joseph Epes Brown, The Sacred vacuum tube Black Elks nib of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, (Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 6. editor in chief footnote number 9, Joseph Epes Brown, The Sacred Pipe Black Elks Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, (Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 6. Editor footnote number 9, Joseph Epes Brown, The Sacred Pipe Black Elks Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux, (Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 6. Colin G. Calloway, First Peoples, (Boston Bedford/St. Martins, 2008), 306. Ibid., 310. Ibid., 313. Ibid., 340. Colin G. Calloway, First Peoples, (Boston Bedford/St. Martins, 2008), 312. Gregory E. Smoak, ghost dances and identity, (Berkeley University of calcium Press, 2008), 154. Ibid., 114. Ibid., 120. Ibid., 114.