A. Runehov & L. Oviedo (eds.), Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Native American Religions John J. McGraw, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Religious Studies Department of Central American Studies California State University, Northridge Synonyms Native American spirituality Description Any statements about Native American Religions must begin with a disclaimer: the religious practices of the indigenous peoples of North America are remarkably varied and have undergone profound changes since contact with European civilizations. The effects of European colonization upon indigenous American ways of life, thought, and ritual practice are so profound as to render a discontinuity between life before colonization and life afterwards. One thing is particularly clear — effects on population were vast; it has been estimated that fewer than 10% of indigenous Americans survived the first century of European presence. This rampant devastation and the perennial conflict that ensued have transformed indigenous American civilizations, the full extent of which it is impossible to assess [1]. The summary that follows presents a few themes common among the many tribes of North America. It is a distillation of patterns often present in the hundreds of traditions whose particularities have been transmitted across generations in distinct ancestral languages. These spiritual legacies represent the local histories and delicately balanced ecological relationships among people, animals, plants, places, and the values that sustain them [2]. As is true of all religions, especially indigenous ones, belief, ritual, and everyday practice are never as standardized as people might be led to believe by reading about them. For Native American Religions, variation is the standard [3]. This variation can be attributed to three basic causes: first, institutional hierarchies, where they exist, are typically weak — there is no Pope in Rome who makes infallible statements ex cathedra; second, for the majority of their history, these practices have been based in an exclusively oral tradition — no Bible, Torah, or Qur’an could be consulted to determine a precedent or adjudicate disputes over subtly different beliefs and practices; and third, the ritual specialist depends on his or her own observations and revelations in the elaboration of ritual. These three factors tend to produce religions that are pluralistic and inclusive in nature. Borrowing from other traditions, responsive to contemporary situations, and expressed in idiosyncratic voices, Native American Religions engender a dynamic sensibility that would seem to be at odds with the conservatism and mutually exclusive character of European faiths. Whether it is due to or in spite of this flexibility, these religious traditions demonstrate long term patterns of practice that are confirmed in the accounts of foreign observers who have recorded similar myths and rituals in Native American communities over long periods of time [4].