Tradition, Performance, and Religion in Native America

Ancestral Ways, Modern Selves

Dennis Kelley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781135917128
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ethnic & Tribal Religion

In contemporary Indian Country, many of the people who identify as "American Indian" fall into the "urban Indian" category: away from traditional lands and communities, in cities and towns wherein the opportunities to live one's identity as Native can be restricted, and even more so for American Indian religious practice and activity.

Tradition, Performance, and Religion in Native America: Ancestral Ways, Modern Selves explores a possible theoretical model for discussing the religious nature of urbanized Indians. It uses aspects of contemporary pantribal practices such as the inter-tribal pow wow, substance abuse recovery programs such as the Wellbriety Movement, and political involvement to provide insights into contemporary Native religious identity.

Simply put, this book addresses the question what does it mean to be an Indigenous American in the 21st century, and how does one express that indigeneity religiously? It proposes that practices and ideologies appropriate to the pan-Indian context provide much of the foundation for maintaining a sense of aboriginal spiritual identity within modernity. Individuals and families who identify themselves as Native American can participate in activities associated with a broad network of other Native people, in effect performing their Indian identity and enacting the values that are connected to that identity.

1

REVITALIZATION, RENEWAL, AND REPRISE

On the Modern Expressions of American Indian Spiritual Culture

“The sundance (sic), and all other similar dances and so-called religious ceremonies are considered “Indian Offences” under existing regulations, and corrective penalties are provided. I regard such restriction as applicable to any (religious) dance which involves … the reckless giving away of property … frequent or prolonged periods of celebration … in fact any disorderly or plainly excessive performance that promotes superstitious cruelty, licentiousness, idleness, danger to health, and shiftless indifference to family welfare.”

—Office of Indian Affairs, Circular No. 1665, April 26, 1921

“Religion” has been notoriously difficult to define. This difficulty is not due to anything inherent in either the concept or the definitions, in my estimation, but in their heterogeneous employment. Multiple situations are necessarily going to require various forms of emphasis appropriate to the context at hand. There need not, to my mind, be one universal legitimating definition for religion, spirituality, or ritual at all. As Jan Snoek articulates in Theorizing Rituals, the notion that a definition must only utilize a set of discrete characteristics possessed by all members of the class is only one way to establish a homogeneous set.¹ Polythetic and so-called “fuzzy sets” are also employed by the natural sciences in classifying groupings such as species. Unlike monothetic classes wherein every member of the class must possess all of the characteristics that define the class, “fuzzy sets”² are appropriate when some characteristics of the members of a class are continuous, such as size or color, where any individual can range on either side of a mean, or, in the case of polythetic classes, where some defining characteristics may or may not be in evidence in individual members. For example, if an ornithologist defines a species of bird by size relative to a similar species, it is very likely that actual size distribution in both species would render an overlap (smaller members of one would be the same size as larger members of the other, and vice versa). It may be that the definitional issues that exist within the academic study of religion and its constituent components is one of focus. Rather than attempting to develop a master definition that unites all members of the class “religious” with characteristics all individual members share in common, perhaps a certain amount of flexibility is called for, wherein the analyst alerts the reader to their own defining features and proceeds with that caveat in place. I point these observations out in order to escape the usual discussion regarding the definitions of religion, spirituality, and ritual. It is, however, incumbent upon me to establish my use of these terms as well as my rationale for choices I make with regard to the religious studies discourse.

In addition, the concept “indigenous” draws specifically from the relatively new discourse on postcolonial issues. Therefore, at the outset, I must note that I will be employing concepts throughout this book that derive from outside of the cultures being discussed, a practice that can provide its own unique set of issues. However, these categories provide a common language from which to engage the religious studies discourse and will therefore provide an important touchstone. Still, these categories cannot and should not be used without explicit definitional parameters.

Religion and Spirituality as Functional Categories

While it may seem somewhat quaint to rely on the definition of religion so famously put forth by Clifford Geertz, I find it most helpful when attempting to confine the discussion to areas fruitful for the task at hand. As Geertz defines it, religion is

(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.³

Geertz’s emphases on the systematic nature of the symbols employed as well as the perception of a “general order” in the universe allows for the utility of the category “religion” as functioning to establish and maintain the parameters of a social group. Implicit in Geertz’s definition is a shared symbolic lexicon and the desire for a common understanding of the universe as perceived through that lexicon. Of course, this, like any definition of religion, should be used with care and caution, so one key caveat prior to my assumption throughout this work of a definition of religion that follows from Geertz is in order: While I find it helpful for cross-cultural comparison that Geertz does not specify the nature of these “symbols” (sacred beings, ancestral spirits, texts, the natural world, etc.), the broad strokes this allows one in the painting of this picture may be somewhat overinclusive. As previously stated, I view precision as key for the academic study of religion. Therefore, I will also assume a category for specifically “sacred” symbols that derives from Sherry Ortner and her definition of “key symbols.”⁴

According to Ortner, “key” symbols exist on a spectrum running between two ideal types: elaborating symbols and summarizing symbols. Summarizing-type symbols do just what the name implies in that they sum up what Ortner says are “relatively undifferentiated”⁵ thoughts and feelings and gives them a focus. Within the religious discourse, the icon would provide an adequate example of this type, as it is usually a representation of the sacred, in the form of a saint, for example, and requires nothing more from the viewer than to assume the adoration-inspiring presence of the sacred in that image. Elaborating-type symbols, on the other hand, function as metaphors, encouraging the viewer to utilize the symbol in the process of discerning aspects of the world around them, giving the viewer something to think with. Again, in the realm of religious discourse, the character Coyote in many American Indian cultural narratives can be seen as an elaborating symbol. In fact, the entire folkloristic category “trickster” qualifies as an elaborating symbol.

Thus, the definition of religion offered by Geertz and augmented by Ortner renders this basic formulation regarding religion:

A system of key symbols that through elaboration, summarization, or both, persuades the adherent of the unique truth found in the group’s conceptions of the universe, therefore motivating them to behave in a way consistent with the import of the conceptions which brings the adherent into compliance with a social order organized around those conceptions.⁶

Given that the concept “religion” is, at base, what this book attempts to interrogate, an elaboration of this category will unfold throughout. At this point, however, it should be clear that the key features of this basic definition will be the communal nature of the symbol system, the active nature of that system, and the supportive rather than central role that internal qualities such as “belief” and “understanding” play in moving the religious adherent from the actualization of the symbol system through active practice to internalization of group identity.

“Spirituality” is another term for which the definition has proven elusive in academia but remains fairly consistent in its vernacular use. Often placed in juxtaposition to “religion,” the term has been used in the conversations I have had in my research to refer to a more personal and evocative form of interaction with the sacred, as opposed to a more rigid and controlled structure associated with religious institutions and their hierarchies. “I am not ‘religious,’ but I am ‘spiritual’ is often heard by many researchers in the field of religious studies, with much the same connotations, and the academic discourse on spirituality has followed this path in that “spirituality” tends to privilege the individual experience, while the use of “religion” tends to be more structural. Sebastian Kappen characterized the term this way:

… the manner in which humans transcend themselves and reach out to the ultimate possibilities of their existence. As such spirituality entails both an understanding of the deepest meaning of human existence and a commitment to realizing the same.⁷

However, much of the discourse on Native American sacred ways, and indeed those of indigenous groups in general, points to a spirituality achieved through structures—structures of communal values, ancestral traditions, ceremonial responsibilities, and spiritual leadership. Individual interaction with the sacred in these contexts tends to be overtly mediated through communal structures via interpretations of experiences by holy people or a collective ceremonial structure within which the experience occurs. These interactions with the spiritual realm are meant to be realized in a communal context, and often this is the very reason for the revelations in the first place.

It is my contention that the significance of embodied practice in the formation and maintenance of religious identity cannot be overestimated and that the contemporary expression of American Indian spirituality provides an ample focusing lens through which to view the role of religious action in the processes of sacred identity negotiation in modernity. Both following and critiquing the social constructivism of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann expressed in their seminal text The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge,⁸ I suggest that contemporary American Indian communities are aware of the institutionalization of some key images associated with “the Indian” as a social construction, a construction that exists in the larger storehouse of American social knowledge, and engage these images noetically in an ongoing effort to gain and maintain agency with regard to their individual tribal identities. In other words, in the cultural context I am exploring here, namely, urbanized American Indian communities, it is often necessary to engage these images when forming collectives with purpose and planning. The desire to address the needs of what are frequently multitribal constituencies requires decisions with regard to the practices engaged in and, therefore, the overall spiritual goals of the group. As these choices often produce and represent both individual and communal identities, the formation of intentional communities in urban settings such as resource centers, cultural collectives, clinics, and the like that have multiple tribes as constituencies include symbolic elements associated with traditional Native identity that are specific enough to engage an authentic Indianness but inclusive enough that particular tribes aren’t alienated.

Berger and Luckmann introduce the concept social construction⁹ into the social science discourse and use it to reference the adoption of institutionalized views regarding reality by the social collective. For their purposes, social interaction between and among actors establishes a communal reality—a reality constructed by societies—wherein customs, norms, roles, and symbols form a common vocabulary of meaning. While perhaps ignoring the often unique experiences of individuals (as a counterpoint, one might consider the insights of Pierre Bourdieu, which I will in later chapters), the Berger-Luckmann thesis nonetheless provides a useful antidote to the Marx/Weber emphasis on privileged knowledge. Much of the meaning making in any given society relies on the everyday interactions between actors in the navigation of mundane aspects of social life, and it is in this area of the discussion that I find a key idea, namely, that pantribal American Indian identity relies more fully on a common sense of what it is that makes indigeneity unique as a personal identity rather than on any esoteric knowledge of particular tribal spirituality. People with whom I have spoken are often reluctant to make any claims to religious knowledge at all but, when given the space, will draw from a collective storehouse of traditional imagery. One elder with whom I spoke at length regarding the history of the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre (VAFC) addressed this issue directly, telling me that no one would ever claim to be a “spiritual leader,” but events associated with the center include prayers and ceremonies that emerge from the common experiences of the organizers of the event. We sat at a table where she and several other elder women were making a quilt specifically for a giveaway at one such event, a summer solstice gathering and feast, and all there agreed that, even though the VAFC caters to Musqueam, Squamish, Nanaimo, Saanich, and other British Columbia First Nations, there was an overarching sense of Aboriginal identity and that much of the representation of this identity drew from a common set of traditional imagery. Art, dance and music styles, traditional crafts (in particular wood carving and canoe construction), and regalia all allowed the center to create events and outreach systems that met the spiritual needs of Natives from all around British Columbia.

Religion and Performance

I have found that my explorations have, to a large extent, confirmed insights central to the discourse on performance theory, which often places its genesis at the collaboration between Richard Schechner and Victor Turner, resulting in Schechner’s Between Theater and Anthropology and Turner’s The Anthropology of Performance, published posthumously. Turner, an anthropologist, based his studies on the observation of rituals and ceremonies, especially those of the Ndembu, arguing for the view that rituals are communicative and functional, operating to mend ruptures in the continuity of communal life. Schechner, on the other hand, drew specifically from the language of theater criticism, attempting to unpack issues of efficacy and authenticity of individual performances. Drawing on both of these overlapping elements, scholars such as Jeffery Alexander¹⁰ have deepened the connections between artistic performances associated with theater and religious performances associated with rituals.

For Alexander, the theoretical language used to discuss performance is particularly well suited to the analysis of religious rituals, especially the assumption within the performance studies discourse that incorporates the performer/audience binary. For a performance to be successful, Alexander asserts, it needs to resonate with the audience, a “fused” performance,¹¹ in a way that the actors are identified with, and “the cultural scripts achieve verisimilitude through effective mise-en-scène.”¹² The ritua...