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Introduction to American Indian Religious and Cultural Freedoms

Introduction to American Indian Religious and Cultural Freedoms. Three Situations of Entanglement. When Indians are accused of criminal activity

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Introduction to American Indian Religious and Cultural Freedoms

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  1. Introduction to American Indian Religious and Cultural Freedoms

  2. Three Situations of Entanglement • When Indians are accused of criminal activity • When revered artifacts are kept from the communities that use them religiously and are displayed against their will; or when bodily remains are taken from burial grounds and treated in a manner perceived by Indians as sacrilegious. • When Indians encounter governmental policies or private enterprises, the result of which may endanger Indian religious traditions.

  3. Accusation of Criminal Activity • Transporting or ingesting peyote • Hunting animals out of season or killing endangered species • Prohibition of expressing features of an Indian way of life or participation in Indian rituals • Braided hair • Sweats or pipe ceremonies • Especially within the confines of institutions such as schools or prisons.

  4. Artifacts and Bodily Remains • Museums • Private collections • Construction sites (reburial?)

  5. Governmental Policies/Private Enterprises • When a dam will make inaccessible a pilgrimage site or burial ground. • When a road, power line, or resort will create inappropriate activities on a sacred site.

  6. Endangered Religious Practices • Indians find their religious practices endangered in the following (six) situations:

  7. Situation # 1: • The degradation of geographical areas deemed sacred sites.

  8. Situation # 2: • The maltreatment of Indian burials, particularly bodily remains.

  9. Situation #3: • The prohibition against capture, kill, and use of endangered or protected species.

  10. Situation #4: • The regulations regarding the collection, transport, and use of peyote.

  11. Situation #5: • The alienation and display of religious artifacts.

  12. Situation #6: • The prevention of Indian rituals and behavior, particularly in authoritarian institutions.

  13. Today, Indian religious traditions are not regularly threatened in ways that were common earlier in this century. • No persistent prohibitions against Indian medicine people. • I.H.S. accommodates traditional medicine specialists. • No blanket prohibitions against rituals on reservations. • Sun Dances, ritual clowns, kiva services, and peyote ceremonies are usually allowed to flourish. • Indians have already altered many beliefs and practices to make them more palatable to non-Indians.

  14. Today, Indian religious traditions are threatened in other ways. • The United States Supreme Court has become a new way that Indian religious traditions are threatened. • Only if a sacred site’s loss will lead to the extinction of the people’s religion do the courts propose to protect Indian sacred sites.

  15. Why are Indian religious traditions threatened? • Perhaps because non-Indians do not understand the beliefs and practices that make up Native religious traditions.

  16. What do Indians believe and practice? • Traditional Indian complexes allow for diversity of belief and practice, within a single community. • In some (many) cases, Indian religions lack institutions of codification, such as credos, constitutions, and canons. • Indians belong to cultures that traditionally have been exclusively oral.

  17. Indian Beliefs and Practices, continued • Indian religions are historically permutable. • The question of what constitutes “traditional” Indian religions. • Tendency (of non-Indians) to equate sacrality with secrecy.

  18. Legislation • American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 (AIRFA) (Public Law 94-341) • Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act (1993): dropped • Public Law 103-344: Amendments to AIRFA (42 U.S.C. 1996) • Executive Order 13007 (1996)

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