Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1989
Abstract
As Amerindian traditional religions gain legitimacy in the eyes of a world dominated by the "big five" (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism), they are coming in for more and more study. Unfortunately, New World belief systems as they existed at the time of first contact have on the whole been very poorly documented, a consequence of the Christian conviction that if they could be called religions at all, they were inspired by the devil. The best records that have come down to us were compiled by the Spaniards, who, in order to destroy the civilizations of Mexico and Central and South America, studied the religions that had given them coherence. In the north, informal native social organization led Europeans to assume there was little in Amerindian belief systems that would be worth the study, so at best they were given cursory attention. Even the small amount of information that found its way into the record has been largely ignored by scholars, who have tended to concentrate on social structure and lifestyle, mainly in the forms of trade, diplomacy, and war.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly SUMMER 1989 .Copyright 1989 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska—Lincoln.