History/Religion 345 – RELIGION IN AMERICA – August 26, 2005  

Backgrounds & Beginnings  

I.                   Supplementary Reading: “Notes on Native American Spirituality”  

II.                Empirical data.  Be sure you can define EACH of the following:  

1. Tainos
2. Manitou
3. kinship
4. creation myths
5. Native American morality
6. ritual
7. myth
8. Changing Woman
9. kachina spirit
10. wholeness & harmony
11. Martin Luther
12. October 31, 1517
13. John Calvin
14. Council of Trent
15. Spanish Christianity
16. Bartolomé de las Casas
17. Franciscans
18. syncretism
19. Jesuit missions to the Hurons
20. Kateri Tekakwitha
21. Jean de Brébeuf 

III.             Critical thinking.    

1. “The cultural language of Native Americans … was not the language of Columbus” (Corrigan & Hudson, 21).  Note that this is a “compare/contrast” sort of analysis.  Do the analysis yourself – compare and contrast Native American & Christian-European-Spanish cultural language – how are the alike?  How are they different? 

2. The first Christians in the “New World” came NOT from England but from Spain and France.  Another compare/contrast question:  Both Spanish and French Christianity were similar in that they were both expressions of Christianity, but they were also quite different.  Focus on the differences – what were the distinctive qualities of each?

 

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