Spirit Wars: Native North American Religions in the Age of Nation BuildingSpirit 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. |
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abuse Agency American Indian artifacts assimilation behavior belief biomedicine boarding schools Canada Carlisle ceremonies Chisasibi Choctaw Christian civilization collection colonial Cree cultural genocide Cushing domination efforts elders English established ethnocide ethnographic European evangelism experience federal Fletcher formal Frank Hamilton Cushing Ghost Dance goals Gwich'in healers human Huron ideas Indian Affairs Indian education institutions James Bay knowledge land leaders lives Manitoba Medicine Wheel medicine woman ment missionaries missions moral movement Museum nation building Native American Church native communities native North Americans native spiritual traditions Navaho nineteenth century non-native North America objects observation Ojibwa Peyote religion political Potlatch practices Pratt programs Pueblo Pueblo Revolt Québec remains repatriation reservation residential schools resistance result ritual savage seen Sioux social society Spanish strategies suicide teaching tion tribal tribe understanding village vision visionary Zuñi