Indigenous American Traditions

Hundreds of distinct nations sharing a sense of the world as a web of sacred relations.

c. 13,000 BCE → · The Americas · Indigenous & Animist

The Americas hold enormous religious diversity, from Andean and Mesoamerican temple cultures to the nations of the plains, forests, and Arctic. Common threads include a Creator or Great Spirit, reverence for animal and land powers, and ceremonies that renew balance with the living world. Knowledge passes through oral tradition, ritual, and specialists who mediate visions and healing.

Key figures

• Creator / Great Spirit
• Trickster figures (Coyote, Raven)
• Medicine people

Texts

• Oral cosmologies
• Wampum and codices
• Ceremonial cycles

Beliefs

• A sacred web links all relations
• Balance and reciprocity with nature
• Visions and dreams carry guidance

Rituals

• Vision quests and sweat lodges
• Seasonal and harvest ceremonies
• Pipe, dance, and offering rites

Grew from

• Animism & Shamanism

Connections in the atlas

• Supernova SN 1054 (the Crab)
• Frank Hamilton Cushing
• Dreamcatcher
• ? What happened to the Roanoke colonists?
• Mesa Verde
• Alcatraz
• The battle of Llao and Skell
• Chimney Rock Great House: major lunar standstill moonrise (north)
• The word totem
• The Trail of Tears
• Wendigo (windigo)
• Crops from a slain body