Traditions
Teachings, figures and works — each one dated, and its claims attributed
Where to begin
Book · North American Traditions○
God Is Red
Vine Deloria Jr.'s 1973 book arguing Native and Christian religion structure time and land in fundamentally incompatible ways.
SignificanceIt is the intellectual source most of this catalogue's own critique-entries about Native religion ultimately draw on — and the rare case, in a field dominated by outside researchers writing about Native traditions, of the critique coming from inside them.
Thread · Symbols of the Religions○
Casting Lots
Divination by randomly drawn objects, from biblical sacred lots to Roman dice oracles to the yarrow stalks of the I Ching.
SignificanceThis is likely the single divinatory technique attested on every inhabited continent, appearing independently in biblical, Roman, Chinese and West African sources. Some living forms of the practice, including the sixteen-fold Yoruba Ifá corpus, remain initiatory knowledge with recognised living custodians, and are reported here as such rather than reproduced.
Practice · Modern Currents○
María Sabina and the Velada
An all-night Mazatec healing ceremony using psychoactive mushrooms, led by a specific named healer whose 1955 ceremony became internationally famous.
What it isHer own account, later recorded directly in her native language and published under her own name, states plainly that the ceremony lost its power once outsiders began arriving in large numbers seeking the experience for themselves — a rare case where the very person whose practice was studied left her own recorded verdict on what that attention cost her.