Native American Spirituality

Hey, I did a DNA test to find where some of my ancestors came from, the four racial groups were European, East Asian, Sub Saharan African and Native American.

My results were 90% European and 10% Sub Saharan African.

So, I am not part Native American, but I have a huge interest in the beliefs of that culture. Sounds like a cliche but I feel a connection with it.

Do you think it is ok to follow this "connection" even though it is not in my blood?

Thanks, blessings xxx

 

yeah man

everyone is welcome to that relegion

even though you might run into the occasional racist native that might try and hog his own relegion and might think you dont belong

 

i am mainly white and very lil native american , but i follow the lakota , and the ppl around me feel that i am more lakota then those they have meet . u will find set backs by those like in every culture want it pure , but those that teach it with pure ways wants to share the road with all . i have learned that in my feeling of the lakota ways that they are open and willing to let in any one just that some want to keep it to them selfs .

 

most are very open to sharimng theyre spititualitysome though feel it is just another thing the whiite man wants to take frim them amnd currupt
i think many who follow the red road though atr more upset bu yheyre tribes members who choose to follow the white parg then they are aboiut white oitsiders who choose to follow the red road

 

I am appalled at what the native americans have been through because of what "white people" have done. It is beyond shameful.

I love the beliefs, the culture, the music of the native americans, just the feeling of it is beautiful.
I don't want to "become" a native american, I just want to know that I can explore it without offending anyone.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not rejecting my background, I love my culture to, proud to have celtic blood in me, but I am an eclectic pagan, so I go with what calls me I guess.

Thanks for your replies

blessings
xxx
xx
x

 

i totaly understand
many years ago i used to spend time in a native american chat room called the medicine sporit lodge run by a sweet woman named wa ta chee which was very open and accepting there i meyt a wonderful ilder man named iron bear and chief thunderhorse
iron bear and iu became good freinds and he sent me a book by john fire lame deer called lame deer seekrer of vissions which is a great book to read if yiur unterested in the path if the medicine man or shaman
maybe a year later at a gathering i met a woman named ghia o' o' wa (maybe spelled wrong? it means 4 owles) and got to spend a good bit of time with her over the next year or 2 (since we've lost contacxt and i really miss her) she was the 7th generation descendent of her clan mother so was passed down all of the senaca teachings that were in any way still complete (in her tribe only people over 80 or under 8 tend to know the complete langage)
when she was going through some hard times i went to stay with her awhile to help her through the tough times andf help her with her kids and got her back into teaching.. she taught classes in seneca spirituality and philosophy as well as ran a 12 step program for all sorts of addictions that was based on the 12 steps of the seneca medicine wheel
both her classes and her program were open to all people
and even though i only remember 1 of the chants she taught me and just a few of the symbols used in seneca stone reading and perhaps 1/2 of the steps in the medicine wheel (and id probly get the order wrong too) i still feel like i benifiterd so much from all i learned from her
on the wall above my bed i have a very old apache war drum the skin too dried out from age to play
but that was also a guft from someone i met in the medicine sporit lodge.. there was a cherokee/apache brother named running eagle who basicly abandoned his wife for a younger slittier chick leaving her to run a business he started but never followed through on she needed help with the website so i forst did most of the updates then taught her nephew how to do it himself and since she couldnt pay me she gave me the war drum hed left behind
i'm guessing its a couple hundred years old and probably worth something but i could never bring myself to part with it.
somewhere tucked away in a box i also have a headress made from bear buffalo and beaver (with the beavers face onthe front) given to me in oregon along with an eagle feather by a modoc elder (alrthough i found out later traditionaly the midoc donot make or use headresses)
back at that time in the spirit lodge there was a nother cherokee brother went by pipemaker who was going to honour me as a pipecarrier and gift me a pipe hed made for me, but unfortunately the lodge was closed and i lost touch with them all before he was able to send it to me
i believe wa ta chee does still run a new version of the lodge somewhere perhaps on tribes.com but i havent been abvle to find it since although i am still in contact occassionaly with 1 of the old members.

 

My family are Cherokee , and we got some land back from the Govt when they returned some to the native americans in what was supossed to be a kind gesture.
The land , though beautiful and located in New Mexico , has no ground water , and is too far away for the local power company to string electricity to it.
Still...it is pretty.

 

Thank you very much for sharing your story with me, i really appreciate it .

I know you dont have to be from a certain place to experience the magic of a culture, i guess its the child in me wanting what i cant have.

i am not native american, i wish i had some native blood in me but i according to the dna test i dont, wont stop me looking for it though.
maybe i was as native american in a past life.

Thank you for reassuring me that i can follow my heart with this, like you said in your post, we are all from one blood, we are all from one mother.

That is what they teach isnt it? that we are all brothers and sisters.

blessings
xxx
xx
x

 

P.S. Soaringeagle, only a few minutes after replying to your post i bought lame deer, seeker of visions off amazon. thanks for telling me about it, its looks like an amazing book.

blessings
xxx
xx
x

 

What are the beliefs of the Lakota?

 

i know a tipi builder in france who very much follows the red road i know many non native peoples who respect that culture and walk that path as much as possible
um about the all being brothers and sisters, and the lakota beliefs
you might say that mitakuye oyasinis at the core of the lokota beliefs translated it means all my relations, or all things are relsated not only all humans but all things from the worm to the butterfly to the bear to the tree, and yes the sun moon ands stars as well
thats at the core of as far as i know all tribes beliefs but each triube hastheyre unique stories cerimonies and practices
many of the prophesies and belifs have a simular flavor or feel toi them but the details varry tribe to tribe

 

What is so special about Native Americans?
Are they really that spiritual or just mad?

 

thet are probably the most spirutual people on earth i mean its oin all they do how they relate to everything
i mean how can they not be intenceluy spirutual when the very air they breathe is alive with sporitual power? when they have a spoirutual relationship with the dirt betweeen theyre tioes the wind the rain the river the sun moon and stars theyre food the bugs birds animakls and trees all have a spirutual bind..all things do all things are relkated to you through the grace of wankan tonka
how can they not be spirtriutual when spirit is a living brwathing thing all atiund them the earth itself amnd all things.. no stale holllow buildings with plastrer statues to repressent abstract dieties just pure liviung breathing connection with all that is

 

Really?

Ok, they spend alot of time outside.
They live off the land.
They are fairly untouched by modern life.

But...
They take drugs to lead them to "spiritualty" like our ancestors did...but unlike ours, the myth of a "shamen" was not extinguished when the general public realised it was a form of social control...(elders know more than the average Jo therefore shamen is king)

They can talk out of their arses on occasion.

They could be stupid and prejudiced.

wankan tonka !!

Lol,

They have you fooled don't they.

How can they not be spiritual?

Erm, well they are human beings like the rest of us.
Not special or profound.
Just people.

 

yoiu odviosly dont have a clue
traditionaly the best shamans come from troublked backgrounds if they didnt face the same strigles and ossues of the comon man theyd be unaproachable and aloof and therefore useless
also native people did not use drugs at all, untill the christian chirch came along
they came in told the people to sit in a stale empty room and prey and they'd find god, the native people already was in touch with the great spirit and had proufound relations to it
the chirch was losing members like crazy because the native s were preffering the quest for vissions (which involved enduring hardships not takinmg drigs) over sitting listening to a preist talk ..the church introduced peyote into the native american chirch as a way of giving them the vissions without the vissionquest only from there was it incorporated into sweat lodges and such
the christian church and peyote (and alcahol also brought in by the christain whites) were the beginning of the devastation of the nayive spiritualirty
odon i think you must be pretty damn predjudiced or something

 

i thought peyote was part of inipi in some tribes , i know that it comes from cati and that is from the southern usa and lower americas from those area, so it is linked to some form of native "chruch " i didnt know that Soaring Eagle" i try and do my best to walk the red road , i didnt know that about the culture........

 

im not sure? why people think the native american is so special

such as yourself

just because your asking why


might be because they were the only race over here on this side of the world

pure brown over this way

they were probably like "hey there is a big bunch of people of here on this side of the world"

"and there all copper skinned color"

"lets call them indians like the indians over on the other side because there brown"

probably because we had only one race

so we built one faith that was basically the same with a minor difference here and there

and stuff......


sorry i forgot what i was saying i totally just freestyle long posts like this...


as a matter of a fact i dont even think i was realizing what i was saying to begin with

 

yea peyote was introduced by the catholic chirch, the pure catholic church wasnt getting theyre attention so they altereds it creating the nativbe american church which combined catholiosism with some of the nativbe spirituality in a very watered down way
onsread of sitting alkone in the dessert without food to seek vissions they were drug undiced
it held a very minimal ressemblence to the vissionquest but was easier so many of the youth went along with the changes
most of theyre beliefs were mocked to near extinction but some like the seeking of vissions were still allowed through drug indiced states as long as iy meant they would accept the chirches teachings.
ofcourse at the same time many other aspects were made illegal even certain dances .. hundreds of thousands were slaughtered just for performing these dances
i believe the sundance was illegal as well up until recently i guess they found out they could use the sundance to get money outta tourists so starterd allowing it again
o'm not 100% sure on that though just think i heard that it was ullegal for a number of years
another interesting thing is how they generaly have very lil concept of personal property within the tribe youy could go to a neighboir and ask for anything and they;d just give it to you, you ciould go into a store tell them i have no money but i need this and they wouldnt care they share because they feel all are relsted. in fact often to celebrate an important event,m they'd give awauy everything they owned anddo without any possessions untill another trube member gave away everything they owned..

 

Apparently NA did not classify themselves as "shaman".
You speak of "tradition" but how far back are we talking 100 - 200 - 300 years?
As the further back you go the variances in lets call them "shaman" are apparent.
It is open to debate that "shaman" were purely selfless people and did what they did for the betterment of their peoples.

I think you have to concede every culture has a hierarchy of power.
Is it to far to assume "shaman" were not in some way in it for the power and prestige.
This just goes against all human nature...if you think this is not the case...this is my point...we raise NA peoples up above other cultures it seems.

Sorry, I did not mean all NA too drugs, that is just daft.
But, that is not true btw, they did.

I think you may have to show me where you get your info from.
It all seems wrong to me.
But, I could be wrong.

You do not have to look far to know this is not completelty true.
Peyote has been used in the Americas for atleast 5000 years and could go back 20,000 years.
I guess we have to be specific about which tribes we are talking about.

Something being way too flippant.

 

If you don't know how amI supposed to know?