How do traditional Native Americans explain their beliefs?
Traditional Native Americans have had little interest in developing what is thought of as religious doctrine. Their participation in nature and spirit does not lend itself easily to standing apart and analyzing. Inherited tradition, spiritual experiences of ordinary people and religious specialists, judgment of the elders, and the welfare of the people all interacted creatively in each generation to shape religious reality. Spirituality was a fluid thing, responding to changes in a variety of circumstances. Significant dreams and visions played important roles in shaping beliefs. The 19th century movement known as the Ghost Dance, culminating among the Lakota in the massacre at Wounded Knee, originated in the west with one man’s vision of the white race’s defeat and the buffalo’s return. The 19th century Iroquois prophet Handsome Lake almost singlehandedly halted the disintegration of his people’s religious traditions by his vision-led institution of the Iroquois Longhouse religion. Wh
