Spirit Wars is an exploration of the ways in which the destruction of spiritual practices and beliefs of native peoples in North America has led to conditions of collective suffering--a process sometimes referred to as cultural genocide. Ronald Niezen approaches this topic through wide-ranging case studies involving different colonial powers and state governments: the seventeenth-century Spanish occupation of the Southwest, the colonization of the Northeast by the French and British, nineteenth-century westward expansion and nationalism in the swelling United States and Canada, and twentieth-century struggles for native people's spiritual integrity and freedom. Each chapter deals with a specific dimension of the relationship between native peoples and non-native institutions, and together these topics yield a new understanding of the forces directed against the underpinnings of native cultures.
Spirit Wars Native North American Religions in the Age of Nation Building
About the Book
Reviews
"Niezen's fascinating analysis explores indigenism as a key concept of present-day international relations."—Jean-Loup amselle, author of Mestizo Logics: Anthropology of Identity in Africa and ElsewhereTable of Contents
List of Figures
Preface
I. Introduction
2. The Conquest of Souls
The Pueblo Revolt of 1680
Epidemics and the "Black Robes" of New France
Puritans and "Praying Indians" in New England
Prelude to Nation Building
The Pequots' Conversion to Christianity,
by Kim Burgess
3. Learning to Forget
Enlightenment and Evolutionism
The Origins of the Indian Residential School
Residential Education in Canada
The Hidden Catastrophe
The Way of the Dine Still Sustains Us,
by Manley Begay Jr.
4· Medical Evangelism
Contrasting Styles of Healing
Mission Programs, Federal Intervention, and Regional
Autonomy
Sorrow and Forgetting
Hearing Voices: Gwich'in Athabaskan
Perceptions of Spirit Invasion and Recovery,
by Phyllis Fast
5. The Politics of Repression
The Ghost Dance Religion and the Suppression
of Prophecy
The Potlatch Laws
The Peyote Religion and Its Enemies
Transgressions of Sacred Space
Native Spiritual Traditions and the Tribal State:
The Oklahoma Choctaws in the Late Twentieth Century,
by Valerie Long Lambert
6. The Collectors
Ethnological Collecting
Desecration and the Growth of Museums
Bones and Spirits
Repatriation
Dialogue or Diatribe? Indians and
Archaeologists in the Post-NAGPRA Era,
by Michael Wilcox
7. Apostles of the New Age
Wild Men of Ideas
The Oral and the Written
Invention and Authenticity
Suffering and Redemption
Medicine Wheelers and Dealers,
by Bernard C. Perley
8. Conclusions
References Cited
Index