Unit 2: Aboriginal Spirituality
Introduction: Origins, Groups in Canada, Beliefs,
Creation Stories
Origins
 No single founder
 Ancient/beyond records
 Two theories of Aboriginal origin/history in the Americas:
1. They “came out of this ground,” meaning they were here before
any record.
2. They migrated from Asia to North and South America by
crossing a land bridge over the Bering Strait (between Alaska
and Russia) 35,000 years ago.
Origins
Origins
 Archaeologists have found Aboriginal artifacts dating back beyond
10,000 years
 Examples:Wampum (beaded belts), animals paintings on rocks,
bones representing burial rites, and wooden carvings.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULyRPpYHxdo
Aboriginal Spirituality Around the World
 Huge diversity of Aboriginal spirituality.
 Indigenous peoples live in every area of the globe.
 80% of world’s 300 million Aboriginal peoples live in Asia.
 13% in North and South America.
World Distribution of Indigenous People
Asia 80%
S. America 7%
N. America 6%
Africa 4%
Australia/Oceania 3%
Europe 0.1%
Aboriginal Cultural Groups in Canada
 Canada’s
Aboriginal
population just
passed 1
million!! (2013
data)
 Canada has 6
distinct
cultural groups
Cultural Groups in Canada
 Arctic: Inuit
 Snow, ice, seals, walrus, whales, caribou, harpoons, dog sleds, igloo,
clothing from animal hides and fur, waterproof boots with seal skin,
seal oil for heating and cooking, coats from polar bear fur, stone
carvings
 Subarctic: Cree, Ojibwa
 Thick forests, mountains, elders storytelling
 Northwest Coast: Haida
 Totem poles, yarn out of cedar bark, harpooned whale, trapped
salmon, dugout canoes, annual prayers for salmon swimming
upriver
 Plateau: Salish
 Foothills of Rocky mountains, log huts and pit houses in the
ground
 Plains: Blackfoot, Plains Cree, Sioux
 Bison used for everything - food, tipis, clothing, containers,
tools, etc.
 Northeast Woodlands: Iroquois, Algonquin, Mi’kmaq,
Mohawk, Cayuga, Seneca
 rich soil for excellent farming - corn, tobacco, squash, beans.
Longhouses, dome-shaped homes, bear, deer, moose, deerskin
for clothing, moccasins from buffalo
Beliefs - Animism
 Aboriginal spirituality and beliefs are a cultural extension of survival
interaction with their physical environment.
 Everything in the world is alive.
 All living things reside in close connection and harmony with one another
and move in cycles.
 Aboriginal peoples recognize the powers around them: in the heavens, in
human ghosts and spirits, in animals and plants, and in the weather.
 Animism: all things, human and non-human, have spirits or souls, and that
person or animal lives on after death through the presence of that spirit.
Beliefs - Animism
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Most Aboriginal peoples believe in a supreme Creator.
Other spirits have power to guide human activity.
Inuit call the sea “Sea Woman.”
Iroquois call the sky “Sky Woman.”
Algonquin call the sky “Grandfather.”
Beliefs - Animism
 Aboriginal spirituality turns to many spirits because
Aboriginal people believe they have more than one specific
need in nature/life.
 Example:
 A fisher strives to be on good
terms with the spirit of the sea.
 A farmer strives to please the
spirit of the rain or sun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkV-of_eN2w
Beliefs - Animism
 Black Elk, Sioux holy man from
Great Plains said,
“We know that we all are related and are
one with all things of the heavens and
the earth…May we be continually
aware of this relationship which exists
between the four-leggeds, the twoleggeds, and the wingeds…”
Beliefs – Death/Afterlife
 In general, Aboriginal religions have no precise belief
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about life after death.
Some believe in reincarnation as a human or animal after
death
Others believe humans return as ghosts, or go to another
world
Others believe that nothing definite can be known about
one’s fast after life
Combinations of beliefs are common
Beliefs – Death/Afterlife
 Example:
 Sioux of Great Plains believe that four souls depart from a person at
death.
 One of them journeys along the “spirit path,” and is judged by
an old woman.
 She determines whether the spirit should carry on to reconnect
with ancestors or return to Earth as a ghost.
 Other souls enter fetuses and are reborn into new bodies.
Beliefs – Death/Afterlife
 Example:
 Northeast Woodlands, Iroquois believe that souls/spirits can enter
man-made objects like fishing nets or spears.
 Inuit pay homage to the souls of killed animals by facing the animal in
the direction from which it came so that its soul can return. Upon
killing a seal they give it a drink of water so that the spirit can reenter the sea. Every year, they collect all the seal bladders caught
previous year and throw them back in the sea, so that the seals can
reproduce.
 Other groups believe the souls inhabit stars of the Milky Way.
Beliefs –Totem Poles
 Links Aboriginal peoples to their
ancestors.
 Represent their animal/spirit guide
 Protective entities – plant, animal, or
mythological being – of a clan or
individual.
 Totem poles can tell stories or
represent a clan or tribe.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH
GNnBqDCZc
Beliefs – Creation Stories
 Beliefs and creation stories passed
down through storytelling.
 Traditional Aboriginal storytellers earned the right to
be a storyteller. Usually Elders.
 They are important in teaching and in preserving the
history of the group.
Beliefs - Creation Stories
 Each Native American group has its own Creation story to
explain that group’s origins, which grew out of their experiences.
 Stories reflect their beliefs in the interrelationship of people,
animals, and the natural environment.
 Offers a response to questions of existence:
 Where do we come from?
 Why certain things in the environment are the way they are?
 Where we go when we die?
Creation Story – Northeast Woodlands
 The creation story of the Northeast Woodlands is the “Turtle Island” story.
They believe that after a great flood, water covered the Earth. Several water
animals and birds tried to bring some mud to the surface of the water.
Eventually the muskrat succeeded. Sky Woman (the sky) then spread the
mud on the back of a turtle and created North America, or Turtle Island.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX4GJTtSigY
Creation Story – Northwest Coast
 Their creation story is the story of the Raven. Where the Raven
coaxes the original people out of a clamshell onto the land.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ1khnqqhVM
Creation Stories
 Group work
 Assignment
 BUT FIRST, complete map!!!