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5: Tribal Traditions- Africa, Australia and the Americas

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    Pair of Esu figures Thunderbird image Inca Sun (Sun of May) Death or Glory [Aboriginal figures fighting] Date circa 1860 s - 1901 at Library of New South Wales

    It is really too big of a topic to try and discuss traditions of tribes in this textbook, as not only each continent, but each country, each tribe, and each ethic group has a rich, diverse, and important story to tell. One can only apologize and say that this is a very traditional “world religions” book, and we have been looking at religious traditions that are global in nature, and which have a more formal organization to them.

    However, some attention to the kinds of traditions, rituals, beliefs and practices of our indigenous people across these specific four continents informs us as to how spirituality eventually emerged in those places.

    So we are going to look at the North American Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) from the Great Lakes area of the US and Canada. This group has a rich tradition of spirituality, of belief, and of ritual.

    According to the Pluralism Project of Harvard University,

    One of the few common elements within the diversity of Native traditions is the idea that all dimensions of social life are profoundly integrated. Instead of “religion,” the broader term “life-way” is often used to describe the traditions of Native peoples.

    This page titled 5: Tribal Traditions- Africa, Australia and the Americas is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Jody Ondich via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.