The culture history of
Native North America as a whole

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The history in general of Native Americans in the U.S. as a whole

Tradition

Rainbow Walker, 6 January 1995. While it is necessary and desirable to retain certain forms intact, in the way they have been passed down to us, but it is neither necessary or desirable to become so obsessed with these forms that they overshadow the substance they are meant to embody.

Medicine Wheel

By Will Powel, 13 January 1995. The general idea of the medicine wheel is simple, but the variations are kind of endless. With each of the different cultures, you deal with a number of different interpretations.

Teaching Native American Religions

By Ronald L. Grimes, [29 January 1995]. Anguishes over whether European Americans teach cources on Native American religions? The question of academic cultural imperialism. Some have given up the teaching about Native American, Black or Feminist religion. Rather than intellectual paralysis, what form should such teaching take? We must accept the moral burden of our choices.

New Agers and native wisdom

A dialog on the NATCHAT list, February 1995. Native beliefs are as opposite from the New age beliefs as any one can get. There is no way that there can be any merging of the two without one group giving up their basic fundamental beliefs and adopting the other's beliefs. What the new agers do to our beliefs is another form of genocide that my people have had to endure.

Whenever you dance, wherever you dance, dance to heal the earth!

From Dee Smith, soc.culture.native, 19 February 1995. Dancing is power; dancing is prayer; some say that all is dance. A big dance coming to heal the earth; take part whenever you do whatever you do to help heal the earth.

Powwow general rules for first timers

Compiled by White Coyote, [20 April 1995]. 16 general rules and addenda. Pow-wows are not traditional in any way. The modern day pow-wow was formed in Oklahoma after the traders decided that they could bring tourists into their areas by having the people play Indian.

The Eagle Feather

3 January 2000. The Eagle is a messenger to the Creator. To wear or to hold the Eagle Feather causes our Creator to take immediate notice. With the Eagle Feather the Creator is honored in the highest.

The Crucible of American Indian Identity: Native Tradition versus Colonial Imposition in Postconquest North America

By Ward Churchill, 8 May 2002. A vexed and divisive issue at the dawn of the twenty-first century is the question of who it is who has a legitimate right to say he or she is American Indian. The options of extermination or racial absorption. By 1860 Euro-American academicians had forged tools necessary to the rapid division of native society, fragmentation and ultimate dissipation in toto. A national consensus that this represented the solution to the Indian Problem.