Native American Worship

Christian Native Americans bring to worship the riches of the Christian tradition, as well as a worldview shaped by their own rich cultural history. This article describes how these two influences shape worship in some Native American Christian communities.

. Worldview: the Basis of Ritual

Ritual may be defined as an external expression of an internal reality. Ritual, which in Native American culture takes the form of elaborate ceremonies, is intimately related with the land. Our "traditional" ceremonies are founded in our myths, which narrate the way we as humans view the creation. Our ceremonies and stories show us how we are a part of the whole family of creation and how and why we act as we do. The spirituality of our people has to deal, first of all, with the "worldview" of our people, on which all ritual must be based. The worldview of a person, or a society, is the basic view of the reality that is around that society or person. It touches the how and why things came to be as they are and the how and why they change. It is the theology of the individual and of the society. A worldview of an individual judges and evaluates the values and goals of society. It is the bases from which a person thinks about the supernatural (Charles Kraft, Christianity in Culture [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1979], 55–57). A worldview gives meaning to a host of life experiences: birth, death, illness, puberty, marriage, planting and harvest, uncertainty and elation. This is often experienced through ritual or ceremony, in which many people participate—some by prayer, some by trance. The society is provided security and support for their behavior. A worldview integrates, systematizes, and orders a person's or society's perception of reality. It shows what reality should be like. It understands and interprets the many events of life. In all this, it establishes and validates basic premises about the world and men and women's place in it. A worldview also relates the striving and emotions of each person to his or her perceptions of reality. How we as individuals look at reality determines how we approach God and how we see God. It also determines how we are going to celebrate this relationship to God in our daily lives as individuals, as a community or as a society. In Western culture, which brought the truth about Jesus and Christianity, there is a worldview of creation and land that describes the relationship of humans to it as a subservient and dominant relationship. The worldview of Native American individuals and society, in contrast, describes this relationship as a relationship of equals. The world and all of creation is a family together. Creation is not to be controlled, but empowers us in our daily life and relationships. The sacred history of Native American peoples contain many creation stories, which Christian spirituality and ritual has to deal. There are not many teachings, in all the tribes, that are similar. How each tribe celebrates these teachings differs.

Native Ritual: Native Ceremony

For the native person, ceremonies are not occasions for display; instead they are a necessity. The prime reason for having a ceremony is to restore or ensure the health of an individual. The mystical spillovers from the ritual benefits the health of everyone who attends. The ritual heals the spirit as well as the body. It heals the community, drawing those in attendance together into the mystical body of the people. The description of ceremony brings out a worldview of a people, who have a close relationship with the land. Liturgy (ritual and ceremony) has to do with the expression of ourselves and our way of being religious. It draws us to become who we really are in relationship to God and to each other as a community. It is the external expression of our internal relationship to God and neighbor. This external expression of our internal relationship should both assist us and empower us to become who we are to be in the family of creation. In our native ceremonies, therefore, we allow our relatives of the world to assist us. We do not use the "things" we use in our ceremonies as objects. We pray in thanksgiving as with a relative who shares of self and life to empower us to become who we should be in relationship to God, to self, to community. Even when we go to gather the medicines (our prayer objects) of the people, we give thanks for the life of what we have picked. We pray for the continuance of the life of the family of the sweet-grass, the tobacco, the sage, and the cedar. I mention these because these are four of the medicines that I use when I pray. Every tribe has medicines that are proper to their ceremonies. Ceremonies in our tribes are owned by certain people. The person who has the right to conduct a certain ceremony is gifted with this or that ceremony by the people because of a certain respect they have in the community. Among the Navajo, as in many of our tribes, it takes a lifetime of prayer and learning to own even one ceremony. It requires, as one author noted, "an incredible feat of memory to hold clearly in mind to the last detail the symbols and their position, the colors and materials of the dry paintings, the equipment, the elaborate rituals, the dances, the hour long chants." Certain people are given the right to conduct a sweat, to carry a pipe, to perform the many ceremonies of our Native American life. In all the ceremonies, there are different people who have the right to do certain ceremonies that make up the total ritual. Take for example, my medicine lodge. There are certain people who drum and sing, certain songs to be sung. There is the oshkahawis, who is the helper in the ceremonies. There is the botaweinini, who is the fire tender. There are the teachers, the elders. Each person has special ceremonies which are proper to each thing he or she does.

Ritual: Our Way of Being Christian

Richard McBrien says that Christian spirituality is "the cultivation of a style of life consistent with the presence of the Spirit of the Risen Christ within us and with our status as members of the Body of Christ. Christian spirituality has to do with our way of being Christian, in response to the call of God issued through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit" (Catholicism, vol. 2 [San Francisco: Harper, 1980], 1057ff). Western Christianity has been brought to the Native American in the Western worldview and has done violence to the spirituality of the native peoples of the Americas. The rituals that have been given to us are foreign to how we as Native Americans experience our view of the world. Perhaps this is why we see the great dichotomy of 80 percent of some tribes being baptized Catholics and only 5 percent living the sacramental life of the church. How can the native peoples respond to "this call of God issued through Jesus Christ .…" In the document on liturgy, the council fathers clearly state:

[Liturgy] is made up of unchangeable elements divinely instituted, and elements subject to change. These latter not only may be changed but ought to be changed with the passage of time, if they have suffered from the intrusion of anything out of harmony with the inner nature of the liturgy or have become less suitable .… Christian people, as far as is possible should be able to understand them with ease and take part in them fully, actively, and as a community. (S.C. 21.)

The elements of Christian liturgy that can be changed need to be translated into the worldview of the Native American people. I have explained some aspects of ritual, ceremony, as it exists among our Native American peoples. This is not an exhaustive treatment of the subject. There are many different ways of existing and many possible rituals that can be drawn from the many tribes of the Indian people. One example of a Christian use of Native American ceremony can be found in the native ceremony of purification, which can easily be used as the reconciliation rite in the Eucharist (see John Hascall, "Native American Liturgy," Liturgy 7:1 [1988]: 34–39).

Native American Ritual

Spirituality is the heart of the struggle of our native people to be strong and proud as individuals and as a people. This spirituality is closely tied to the land and to all of creation. The land gives us strong religious experiences, which nurture and renew our experience of God and our relationships with each other. In the past, we have been forced to separate from our reality what spirituality is. What was sacred to us was seen as pagan. The loss of a strong spirituality among the native peoples can be attributed to our being alienated from the land and being put on reservations. Many have rejected their spirit ways and are now lost in the rapidly changing world. Instead of full, conscious, and active participation in the rituals of the church, which the council fathers envisioned, we see alienation. Those people, who try to adapt their worldview to this new worldview, struggle in their faith. If we as Native Americans are to come to this "understanding with ease and taking part fully, actively, and as a community," there has to be sincere dialogue between the two worldviews of reality. We must search the rituals, ceremonies, myths, and legends of the native peoples and find Jesus, who is the truth, find Christ, who is already present in the ceremonies and teachings of our peoples. We must look at the sacred history of all the tribes of our peoples to see how our reality of God has taught us and led us to worship, which is the purpose of all religious ritual. We must search the ceremonial celebrations of life that are already present in the native peoples' lives and draw forth the Christ, who is already there. I cannot tell what these rituals will be or who will perform these ceremonies. That is in the future. What can we do today to allow the people to grow into that which the Father wants us to be?