Sacred History

Western anthropology uses the term "mythology" to refer to stories that explain the interactions between the natural and the supernatural. Native Americans prefer to refer to "sacred history" because in popular culture, the term "myth" refers to "fiction". The stories that tell the history of the earth, the origin of the people and the life of ancestors and sacred beings are very real to many indigenous people. The landscape has been marked by these figures and the important events of their time, which are strongly remembered in the painted and carved images, as well as in the songs, dances and stories.

Some cultures believe that the earth was formed from the union of cosmic giants, while others believe that a small animal extracted it from the infinite ocean.

The great heroes, supernatural beings who often took animal form, often appear in the accounts of the difficulties of the early humans. These heroes provided light and fire or protected the people from the destroyers or helped them on their long and difficult journey from their place of origin to their homeland. Dangers also wore in the form of unpredictable timers that caused problems with their tracks, although they also contributed to creating today's world.

The First American Peoples

The sacred beings claim that North America has never been an uninhabited territory. It came to life when the first human beings came to the surface, coming from other worlds that were inside the Earth's womb or from parallel worlds which existed beyond the sky. Each group, whether they lived on the rocky shores, on the extensive and almost infinite prairie, in the forests of the northeast or in the deserts of the southeast, had a spiritual homeland where the people saw the proof of their origins.

Archaeologists studying the foundations of early American cultures have found remains of homes, animal bones and fine stone tools dating back more than 10,000 years. They were left by hunters whose ancestors brought mammots and other large animals from the last glacial period from Asia to America. At that time, the sea level dropped significantly, leading to the union of the present-day regions of Siberia and Alaska by a land language known by experts as Beringia.

It is possible that groups of hunters crossed Beringia without restrictions before the sea covered it again. Although hunters gradually arrived in America around 8000 BC, humans had established their presence virtually throughout the continent.

Historical Records

The North American Indians had no writing and almost all of the story was transmitted orally through narrators who used non-technical rules to remember often complex details. However, this does not mean that the Indians lacked a method of recording historical events. Several groups in the plains used the "winter computing" mode of permanent archiving. Every year, almost always during the cold season, they painted a symbol or a realistic figure in a large-sized, specially processed bison skin to commemorate the most important event that affected the community that year.

According to the set-t'an calendar of the kiowas of 1882, the sacred being Patepte tried to recover the herds of bison that quickly disappeared from the plains at that time.

On the calendar you can see a wizard sitting in the sacred place, dressed in a red ceremonial blanket, surrounded by eagle feathers and with a bison next to him.

Although it could vary, the arrangement of the winter computing images was almost always in the form of a spiral, with the oldest image located in the center. Some skins have a tribal history of more than two centuries. Only a few record the constant succession of events, and the people carried the count of winter to the extent that they were able to refer to the facts they represented.

Animals from the southwest, such as maricops, pimes, and O'odham toons (papages), indicated the advance of time by creating symbols on the flat side of the "calendar sticks", which were wooden strips of about a meter in length. Each symbol represented a specific event for a specific year, which was remembered by the “conserver of the calendar sticks”, an expert in the same position as the healers, singers, and alpharers. Each year a new symbol was created during the harvest season. Conservatives in each community exchanged information, allowing them to be informed about events that occurred outside their immediate surroundings.

The older members of the tribe could accurately identify the date of birth thanks to the accuracy of the sticks. Like winter calculations, the effectiveness of frames as historical documents depended on the memory of people. From time to time, Conservatives were sold to death, but the most common way to do so was to eliminate them.

In the northeast, the most significant events were used to be grouped into shell counts. The conservatives of these belts kept in their minds the details of the documented events. They were used as documents to keep treaties, such as the one established by the Iroquois League.

Walum Olum was a pictorial record of the northeastern lenni-lenapes (delawares). He painted in the bark of a tree and described more details than others, but still depended on the memory of a skilled narrator. The ceremonial narratives lasted weeks and required a great effort of memory on the part of the narrator to remember the events represented. A fragment that talks about the period of contact with the Europeans, spanning from approximately 1600 to 1818, is still preserved.

The Earth

Native identity has always been centred on the earth. The Indians had a close connection with the physical world, as did other peoples, especially those living in tribal societies. This was reflected in their actions to search for plants, sew prey, cut trees, tear land, cross the forest or cross a field. The structure of indigenous life and the characteristics of Indian cultural expression were more than anything influenced by the inevitable natural rhythms of the specific environments in which they lived.

The relationship between the Indians and the landscape, however close it may be, is an easy peculiarity to alter or break. The drought forced the ancient Anasazi to abandon their luxurious cities and settle in simpler places. The introduction of weapons and horses by the white in the plains and surrounding areas established new connections between the hunter peoples and the hunting territories. However, these changes were more gradual than the traumatic breakdown caused by the arrival of white settlers to the west in the 19th century and the expulsion of Indians from their traditional territories. Despite all this, the lives of the Aborigines continued, as always, to be determined by what each people took from the land and gave in return.

Origins of Mythology

Myths about the activities of the gods are the most important from a spiritual point of view, especially those about the creation of the universe and man, the origin of death, animals and plants like corn and tobacco.

Only at specific times of the year and in special situations, people told these myths. The whole-year myths were more of entertainment or education, they were told as moral lessons and fun, so they were more adaptable in their interpretation and elaboration.

All the tribes believed that everything that moved was alive. For animists, there is always a being hidden in every stick, stone, tree and animal, and any object can easily be transformed: the young woman hiding under the moon is transformed into a mound of earth and a candle, into a rock, a hammer, a tent hanging, a hair or a grain of earth. Each object has its own existence and can act according to its own will.

This form of understanding arose as a direct expression of human powerlessness before the mysterious, powerful and terrible forces of nature.

Fear caused them to attribute supernatural powers to natural phenomena, as they depended entirely on it. They can confront natural objects and overcome them; they can offer sacrifices and ask for their protection. The smallest can be used as amulets. If used on the body, these amulets or spirits of objects, such as a bear or bear's tail, a piece of a buffalo horn or a morse hook, can protect against hostile forces.

In such precarious conditions, life would have been plagued with constant fears due to the lack of protection against evil spirits. The sortileges, songs and sacrifices, as well as the recitation of myths, gave hope to overcome the forces of destiny.