The Spiritual Journey

According to many American Aboriginal traditions, some people will never cross the inaccurate boundary that divides the world from the spirits of the human world. However, those who have special abilities or a characteristic that is valued in the spiritual world do not face this difficulty. Some groups fear the spirit world and strive to avoid it; on the other hand, others actively seek the contact and powers it conferred, while a third group believes that the power of spirits arises naturally.

Spiritual power is a mysterious force that comes from everything that exists in nature. According to the few Indian groups describing it, it is intangible and emits an intense white light comparable to the sun. They believe that those who possess spiritual powers are strong and skillful, while those who lack them are ineffective and weak.

It is often said that spirits and spiritual strength appear in visions. Most people seek these alone, especially among the natives of the plains. Participants in rituals such as sun dance can also receive vision through ritual purification, fasting, or physical suffering. As for the millennial movements such as the Dance of Spirits, some people manage to perceive a vision superior to that of today’s world by being physically exhausted during dances. The ingestion of peyote along with chants and tambourines can also cause visions.

Sometimes, power arises from having an object in possession. For example, many Indians in the plains and the southwest believed that the shield, made with the help of a sacred being and with a circular structure and coated in leather, represented the world and attracted the protection of spirits. To increase their power, they decorated the shield with feathers or other sacred objects or drew symbols that represented images of dreams or visions. The protective capacity of the shield was also affected by the manufacturing process.

Almost always spirits appeared in dreams that were not sought. Groups such as the southwestern Mohawks and the northeastern Iroquois believe that dreams can direct the power that emanates directly from the spiritual world and reaches the individual. All the dreams were important to the menominis of the Great Lakes region and respected literally the prophecies or warnings they contained. For example, if a person often dreamed that he was drowning, he chose a small canoe as a talisman and always carried it with him. If someone did not understand the meaning of the dream, he resorted to the interpretation of an elderly man because he was closer to the end of his life and was closest to the spirit world. He who did not dream or had a dream impossible to understand was considered isolated from the power of spirits.

The Shaman's Call

A British Columbia kuakiutl shaman tells his personal myth and the visionary encounter that his shamanic powers give him in this short story. We all suffered from virulence, and I thought he was dead. The wolves walked into the tent, grumbling and whistling, and I woke up. Two of them caressed my body as they expelled foam and tried to cover me with it, removing my ribs. The wolves rested when night fell.

I spent the night lying on a pizzeria while dragging me there. It was cold. The two wolves sat next to me, one on each side, and licked me again in the morning. Arponero-Corpo, a figure that had appeared in a previous dream, expelled foam as he pressed his nose against my sternum.

In a dream, he felt a magical power over me and laughed as I said, "Friend, be careful of the shamanic power that has come to you." Now you have the ability to heal the sick and sick those of your tribe that you want to die. Everybody's gonna see you scared.