The rich religious beliefs and ceremonials of the Pueblo Indians of Arizona and New Mexico were first synthesized and compared by ethnologist Elsie Clews Parsons. Prodigious research and a quarter-century of fieldwork went into her 1939 encyclopedic two-volume work, Pueblo Indian Religion. The author gives an integrated picture of the complex religious and social life in the pueblos, including Zuni, Acoma, Laguna, Taos, Isleta, Sandia, Jemez, Cochiti, Santa Clara, San Felipe, Santa Domingo, San Juan, and the Hopi villages. In volume I she discusses shelter, social structure, land tenure, customs, and popular beliefs. Parsons also describes spirits, cosmic notions, and a wide range of rituals. The cohesion of spiritual and material aspects of Pueblo culture is also apparent in volume II, which presents an extensive body of solstice, installation, initiation, war, weather, curing, kachina, and planting and harvesting ceremonies, as well as games, animal dances, and offerings to the dead. A review of Pueblo ceremonies from town to town considers variations and borrowings. Today, a half century after its original publication, Pueblo Indian Religion remains central to studies of Pueblo religious life.

Provides an overview of the past and present lives of the Pueblo Indians, covering their daily activities, customs, family life, religion, government, history, and interaction with the United States government.

For Native Americans, religious freedom has been an elusive goal. From nineteenth-century bans on indigenous ceremonial practices to twenty-first-century legal battles over sacred lands, peyote use, and hunting practices, the U.S. government has often acted as if Indian traditions were somehow not truly religious and therefore not eligible for the constitutional protections of the First Amendment. In this book, Tisa Wenger shows that cultural notions about what constitutes "religion" are crucial to public debates over religious freedom. In the 1920s, Pueblo Indian leaders in New Mexico and a sympathetic coalition of non-Indian reformers successfully challenged government and missionary attempts to suppress Indian dances by convincing a skeptical public that these ceremonies counted as religion. This struggle for religious freedom forced the Pueblos to employ Euro-American notions of religion, a conceptual shift with complex consequences within Pueblo life. Long after the dance controversy, Wenger demonstrates, dominant concepts of religion and religious freedom have continued to marginalize indigenous traditions within the United States.

Here is a thorough, and long-needed, presentation of the nature of the Pueblo gods and myths. The Pueblo Indians, which include the Hopi, Zuni, and Keres groups, and their ancestors are closely bound to the Plateau region of the United States, comprising much of the area in Utah, Colorado, and–especially in recent years–New Mexico and Arizona. The principal god of the Hopi tribe was and is Masau'u, the god of death. Masau'u is also a god of life in many of its essentials. There is an unmistakable analogy between Masau'u and the Christian Devil, and between Masau'u and the Greek god Hermes, who guided dead souls on their journey to the nether world. Mr. Tyler has drawn many useful comparisons between the religions of the Pueblos and the Greeks. "Because there is a widespread knowledge of the Greek gods and their ways," the author writes, "many people will thus be at ease with the Pueblo gods and myths." Of utmost importance is the final chapter of the book, which relates Pueblo cosmology to contemporary Western thought. The Pueblos are men and women who have faced, and are facing, problems common to all mankind. The response of the Pueblos to their challenges has been tempered by the role of religion in their lives. This account of their epic struggle to accommodate themselves and their society to the cosmic order is "must" reading for historians, ethnologists, students of comparative religion, and for all who take an interest in the role of religious devotion in their own lives.

Dispelling myths, answering questions, and stimulating thoughtful avenues for further inquiry, this highly absorbing reference provides a wealth of specific information about over 200 North American Indian groups in Canada and the United States. Readers will easily access important historical and contemporary facts about everything from notable leaders and relations with non-natives to customs, dress, dwellings, weapons, government, and religion. This book is at once exhaustive and captivating, covering myriad aspects of a people spread across a continent. Divided into ten geographic areas for easy reference, this work illustrates each Native American group in careful detail. Listed alphabetically, starting with the tribal name, translation, origin, and definition, each entry includes significant facts about the group's location and population, as well as impressive accounts of the group's history and culture. Bringing entries up-to-date, Barry Pritzker also presents current information on each group's government, economy, legal status, and land holdings. Whether interpreting the term "tribe" (many traditional Native American groups were not tribes at all but more like extended families) or describing how a Shoshone woman served as a guide on the Lewis and Clark expedition, Pritzker always presents the material in a clear and lively manner. In light of past and ongoing injustices and the momentum of Indian and Inuit self-determination movements, an understanding of Native American cultures as well as their contributions to contemporary society becomes increasingly important. A magnificent resource, this book liberally provides the essential information necessary to better grasp the history and cultures of North American Indians.