The Native American Culture and Burial Practices - Report Example

Lecturer The Native American culture and burial practices Native Americans is a group of the indigenous people of the united sof America, who existed before the influx of other groups of people who contributed to the culture and identity mixes that we have in America today. They majorly occupied, and still do, the states of Hawaii and Alaska, and prefer to be called American Indians or just Indians, as opposed to the most widely used ‘native Americans’ term (Thornton 118). They have a number of tribes and ethnic groups. These tribes and ethnic groups had firm cultures before the arrival of the Europeans and other immigrants from other parts of the world, which greatly corrupted some of it, in fact much. Such immigrations led to conflicts and times of trying to adjust the cultural ideals of the new world from those of the old. The Native American groups hitherto practiced hunting and gathering. Besides, they told their stories and conveyed their history through oral tradition. As opposed to the Europeans who had patriarchal cultures based upon individual property ideals, the Native Americans were basically matrilineal and as such, grounds for hunting and agriculture were meant for use by the entire community. They led socialistic lives and everything that was done was for the overall good of the community. The arrival of the immigrants led to culture variations and with such, America experienced centuries of political tensions, social disruption and ethnic violence. The Native Americans had religious practices, some of which have been retained by the currents generations of Native Americans. There was the Native American church which was syncretistic, and whose main rite was the peyote ceremony. There were ceremonies and belief systems on matters touching on theology. Some other traditional cultural practices included use of herbs which were termed as ‘sacred herbs’ such as tobacco, sage and sweet grass. Other ways in which religious indoctrinations manifested were fasting, praying, singing in many ethnic languages, and there was also the drumming practice (Shohat and Stam 63). Still on culture, there were gender roles that were differentiated among males and females. Both males and females had the powers to make decisions. Certain Native American tribes had deep matrilineal or the mother clan system in which the hereditary leadership arrangements were passed along maternal lines, based on the belief that children belonged to the clan of the mother and whatever status there ever were, they achieved it within the mother’s clan (Deloria 47). Even the husband could not command his family, which included the wife and the children because he belonged to his mother’s clan. The administrative chiefs in the Native American communities were appointed upon the recommendation of the women council of elders. It is thought no other groups in the American society have quite a rich cultural background that is storied as the Native American people. From stories of struggle, to tales of strife and triumph, the Native American groups are undoubtedly the richest in terms of cultural history. Many aspects of their modern life are adaptations of the old Indian ways that date centuries ago (Stephen 72). There are symbols today that originated from the ancient Native American families. For instance, we have the teepee, moccasins, peace pipe and totem pole; these are believed to be some of the symbols that served to weave together the tapestry of the indigenous American Indian life. They were actually an integral part of their lives. Virtually, everything had its significance. The housing, the native plants and animals, and weather were important aspects of the Indian culture. The animals were revered as spirits, even though they were hunted, killed and their skins and hides used as drums and clothing. Their meat, however, was never wasted. Plants were planted and harvested and put to uses such as making blankets and dyes. They believed that the sun and the moon were gods who were there to show them whenever seasons changed. American Indians use the month of November for celebration of their culture. It is the American Indian heritage month and is used to reflect upon some of the values that the native families have contributed to the mainstream American society (McLoughlin 92). One may perceive those values as deeply rooted in the native culture without realizing that they are the foundation upon which the present culture was founded. Some of these values included the following: 1. Respect for nature: there were people who had environmental conservation values at the centre of their hearts. Respect for nature may be traced to the respect that the Native Americans had for earth. They were convinced that people needed to use the earth’s resources wisely so that the future generations could still use them. As an environmental conservation measure, they made sure that they only took what they needed from the earth, and never touched anything they didn’t until it became extremely necessary. 2. The value of inclusion: they lived in some sort of a circle, with so much cohesiveness. Everyone in the community was an equal part of it, regardless of the abilities and disabilities of their family. Each one was treated with dignity because it was believed that they had something to contribute to the community, for the benefit of all. Differences were tolerated and people looked beyond them. There was the culture of ceremonies and festivals included chanting and singing which were accompanied by various types of dances. Some of the famous dances in the Native American culture included the deer dance, the pipe dance, the basket dance, the dog dance, scalp dance culture, the green corn dance, the hoop dance, the doll dance, the hopi snake dance, the ghost dance, the sun dance and the war dance. Any festivals, ceremonies and rituals continued for days and mostly took place during agricultural periods. There was a lot of feasting during such events, which were passed from one generation to another and this continued for centuries. Religiously, there is a belief in a supreme being, who is also thought to be the creator of life, and the divine power that created and controlled life in the world. There was the shamanism culture, based upon the ideals that were inspired by the religious leader called the shaman, or the medicine man. He acted as the link between the living man and the other beings that were unseen but controlled life in certain ways. He mediated between man and the spirit world. They carried special powers which enabled them to heal the sick, predict the future and control the hunt. There existed a religious belief called the animism, which was based on the spiritual belief that the universe and everything inside it, be they objects or living things, had souls and spirits, not just human beings. Rocks, thunderstorms, rains and a host of other geographical phenomena such as mountains, rivers and caves possessed spirits or souls (Calloway 29). There was no science that could be used to explain nature and this is what led them to believe that the natural bodies such as the sun and happenings such as the rains and thunderstorms were controlled by the spirits. They prayed to and worshipped these bodies, even offering sacrifices to them. Native American burial customs Different Native American tribes had different burial cultures. We had different tribes occupying different parts of America such as the arctic, the subarctic, the northeast, the Midwest, California, the great basin, the northwest coast, the plateau, the southeast. The arctic tribes, for instance, left the dead bodies on frozen grounds for wild animals to devour. Societies in the upper Midwest respected the dead spirits and therefore placed their bodies in furnished tombs. Tribes in the southeast had a practice called secondary bone burial in which after long periods of primary burial, they dug out the corpses when they had reduced to bones, cleaned those bones and then buried them again. Those in the northeast saved skeletons of the dead for a mass burial later on (Krech 30). During the mass burial, they included ornaments and furs that were meant to be used by the dead spirits in the afterlife. The northwest coast tribes placed their dead in canoes tied to poles or some mortuary cabins. Californian ethnic groups practiced cremation. The Indian burial sites A lot has been said and documented in relation to the burial sites that were established by Indians in the ancient America. A lot of haunting and ghostly happenings are blamed on the improper burial sites that were put up by the Native Americans/ the American Indians. People claim that they get funny experiences supposedly because they built their houses and homes on the burial grounds. A lot of people today have confessed to be hearing funny ghostly sounds in their compounds in the dead of the night when everyone else is asleep. They go further to explain the much that it affects their families in terms sicknesses that may not be treatable by any medical measures. This, they opine, is because they knowingly or unknowingly put up their homes on grounds that had been used by the Native Americans for burial purposes. It maybe hard to relate the dead spirits to the unfortunate things that happen to humans, but hearing the tales of those who have ever suffered from the dead spirit ordeals, you tend to believe that haunting is a reality. In fact, one’s family line can be so deeply affected that nobody born into it will never have luck for achieving some of the essentials in life, like getting good jobs or just being that person that commands respect in the society. Haunting is thought to happen when the dead are not happy with the manner in which they were treated in death, and therefore come back to make the living generation of their families pay for it. This is even thought to have a much worse effect if the burial sites were used for mass burials, because of the mix of a number of angry dead spirits (Krech 71). This is the hardest to control because their complaints are just so various, you just can never satisfy every dead soul’s need. This often compels people to shift home as a way of trying to run away from the wrath of the dead spirit, but in extreme cases, they follow you to those new places of living. From history, it is argued that the Native Americans never showed a great deal of respect to some of the people who had faithfully served the community while they lived. Their spirits, it is thought, are always the most bothering of all the dead spirits, because they feel they should be in death for the positive deeds they accorded the society while they lived. There are traditional measures that certain people resort to in order to turn the wrath of the dead spirits from them. They in fact may seek to shift it to other people who may not have anything to do with the dead spirit or any relation with it. Selection of the burial sites in some cases did not consider the wishes of the dead concerning where to get buried when they died eventually. They would do a lot of bad things to the living as a way of protesting, and in some cases, they would be exhumed and reburied in the sites they had preferred while they lived. If that was done, then people would not be surprised when peace returned because the ancestors were made happy when they were moved to burial sites that they had chosen. This however is only possible when there still lives a person who existed when the dead made the wish for a burial site, and who is able to interpret that the dead is only displeased with the selection of the burial site, which happens to have gone against their wish. Only in this case can the corrections be made. Unfortunately, most of the people living today may not be able to tell what the dead wants; obviously because they never lived at the time they died to be able to tell what they (the dead spirits) are unhappy with. The wish of the dead is considered in many parts of the world as something that should always be treated as a thing very serious and that is a part and parcel of humanity and serves as a connection between the living and the dead. Anybody who wants to be at peace with the dead man’s spirit must unconditionally respect the wishes he had when they lived. The Native Americans today are very defensive of those who lived before them especially when debates on haunting, with focus on burial site issues arise. Some would even get made at how generalizations were made. They say that there is no such a thing as Native Americans, mostly when bad tales are told with reference to the Native Americans. This has often led to fierce debates as to whether the wholesome reference as the Native Americans exists or should hold. This is why some people would favor to be referred to as the American Indians or just the Indians (Calloway 29). Those in Hawaii would rather be referred to as the Hawaiian Indians, and those from Alaska love to be called the Alaskan Indians. Some builders in the United States of America would never care if the place they are putting up the residential buildings were once burial sites. Schools have in many instances moved from one place to another after realization that the sites were old and faded burial sites. Laws have been passed and amended seeking to protect the indigenous American burial grounds and perhaps turn them into archeological sites for tourism. It is not uncommon for builders at construction sites that were once burial sites to unearth bones as they go about the diggings. Whenever such cases arise, it is advised that they take them to relevant authorities for heritage displays and for tourist attraction. There have been mass calls from particular sections of the United States for excavation of the ancient American Indian burial sites to give space for construction sites, but the remaining people of Native American descent, some of whom are highly placed in the American society by virtue of holding leadership positions, have constantly resented those calls, terming them as provocative and claiming it would amount to disturbing the resting souls of their people, which could cause them serious problems in terms of haunting (Krech 55). Haunting beliefs are so engrained even in the current generations of the Native American populace, more than it is in other groups of people living in America presently. There is fear for the wrath of the dead, apparently because they would be hard to take away once they started, and it is believed that making the dead spirit unhappy, especially by acts such as exhuming their remains for whatever reason is the sure way to start it. One would prefer to lose everything they had in life, but keep the peace between them and the ancestors. The experiences are said to be horrific and mindboggling according to those who have seen people who are haunted by the dead spirits. They lose their heads and may end up doing the most horrendous of things, including running around naked and speaking things that are never easy to understand or even put in context. Pressure groups have even come up with campaigns to terminate the displaying of Indian remains, but that too has been resisted, on an argument that it is part of the rich American past heritage. Modernism is trying to take away the belief in the ghost powers, but a section of the Native American people believe that burial site haunting are real and a common menace that continue to cause them very serious problems (Calloway 29). Despite the haunting claims by those living in the burial sites, it would only be proper to proceed with such actions as exhumations only when the families of those who had been buried there agree to it. if this is not observed, then there are likely to be very serious court battles which in most cases would favor the position of the families. Works Cited Calloway, Colin G. "Native Americans First View Whites from the Shore." American Heritage, 2009. Deloria, Vine. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. New York: Macmillan, 2007. Print. Krech, Shepard. The Ecological Indian: Myth and History, New York: W.W. Norton, 2000. Print. McLoughlin William."Experiment in Cherokee Citizenship, 1817–1829". American Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 1 (1981), pp. 3–25. Shohat, Ella and Stam, Robert. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. New York: Routledge, 2007. Print. Stephen Aron et al. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000, p. 274. Thornton, Russell. American Indian holocaust and survival: a population history since 1492. University of Oklahoma Press, 2008. Print. Read More