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"Col. John Johnston was the Piqua Agency Indian agent circa 1830 and probably gave more of himself to his Indian friends (children), than any other. The article below was developed by him.

John Johnston, Indian Agent  Wapaghkoneta, May 7, 1822

    The Shawnee believe that Religion is a very good thing, keeps them at peace with others, as well as peace in their own minds; all those who respect Religion prosper and are forever happy; believe that their Religion came down from Heaven, believe there are two roads; the Virtuous and good after death go to a place of happiness, where they shall want nothing that they can desire; the bad will go to the torment and endless misery; that their conduct in this life will be decisive of their state in the world to come. That there is one great and supreme God, the maker of all things, the master of life; they call him We-she-Ma-ni-tou, from We-she, something that is supremely beautiful, excellent or desirable, and Ma-ni-tou, God.

    Have the strongest confidence in their maker, believe that he constantly governs the world and all things in it, that they could not exist a moment without his power and goodness. They are in constant practice of praying for favours and assistance in making sacrifices and oblations to procure divine aid; but have no idea of a general judgment.

    The pleasure they anticipate in a future state of existence is more corporeal than mental. Their ideas on this subject are in a degree conformable to the doctrine broached by Baron Swedenbourgh.

    The Shawnee believing their Religion to be of divine appointment, and suited to their condition are opposed to receiving Christian instruction.!!!"

    The emphasis placed on the last line is mine. The Shawnee were among the very last of the Eastern Woodland tribes to begin the conversion to Christianity and there are many who resist it to this day.

Spider - Powerful image in Indian mythology    At the time of European contact, indigenous cultures in North America had developed coherent religious systems that included cosmologies—creation myths, passed from one generation to the next, which explained how thier society had begun.

    Indians worshiped an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator (a being that assumed a variety of forms and both genders [gender was very rarely an ambiguous state]).

    Most tribes believed in heaven where the Creator had provided everything they would need to continue in a life of abundance and happiness where they would live forever with all of their relations that had passed over before them.

  Tribal people everywhere believe in nature. There is a natural order to all things. God(s) is/are the Thunderbird
one(s) who bring(s) natural order. Breaks in that natural order are bad. Continuation of that natural
order is good. The tribes of the eastern woodlands believed that a Devine Being had created a world of plenty in which humans were only one part. All of nature contained this divine spirit and was to be respected. People were put on the earth only to manage the land so that it would be productive for all living creatures. "God" had made the land in perfect balance therefore, the people were to take only what they needed and leave the land as they found it. They thanked the spirit of a tree for dying and providing them with firewood and thanked an animals spirit for giving of its body to feed them and its hide for their clothing and shelter. The view of the Judeo-Christian community has always been that humans were to dominate nature and could change it for their advantage. This made no sense to the people of "the New World".

    The ceremonies of  tribal people are to keep that order in balance. Life among the people is kept in balance with their environment. The ideal for the individual is to find their place in the structure of the tribe and thereby maintain the balance of the community. For that to happen the individual must be internally balanced. They must be at peace within themselves and thereby contribute to the peace of the community.

    The term 'Shaman' is of Siberian origins and, in my opinion, should not be ascribed to Aboriginal Americans.  The idea of the "Medicine Man" is purely a White Man concept. Many of these holy people did not practice medicine at all. Priest is the more accurate term. Many of these priests were women, who seemed to be more in contact with the spiritual world because of their role in the miracle of childbirth.

    Access to the spirit world came through dreams, which their priests would interpret for them.


stone carving by The Old Ones    To the Puritans, Indians were heathens and savages. They had to be converted to the Christian faith and English civilization in order to save their souls. To these "savages" (see the Interesting Facts on the Home page) the Englishman’s God was just another name for their God, and their own culture was working quite well for them, thank you very much. However, the decimation that they suffered from smallpox and other diseases led them to view the English God with a healthy respect for when the white men prayed in their way they got better in greater numbers than the Indians did. 

    Colonial officials supported the missionary activities of such clergymen as John Eliot and Thomas Mayhew, who established more than fourteen “praying villages” where Indians followed an English life style and took religious training, often at the hands of an already converted Indian. Eliot even provided an Algonquian translation of the Bible for those who could not read English (But then, they had to know how to read English letters to use his bible, therefore making the translated Bible a moot point).

    The metal goods that the Europeans exchanged for Indian furs, were useful and necessitated some Silver Brooch
interaction with the Puritans. As the fur trade increased in New England, it demanded that Indians defy God by slaughtering many more animals than they needed. Such a heavy emphasis on furs disrupted their traditional culture and economy and fostered intertribal wars over trapping grounds. By 1675 tribal leaders were ready to push the Puritans out of their land and regain the integrity of their traditional religion and culture. In King Philip’s, or Metacom’s, War various tribes united in this mission. They destroyed outlying settlements, pushing the Puritans back to their coastal strongholds. At first the colonists attacked the 'praying' towns, which they believed were dens of spies and sympathizers of Metacom. Yet gradually these “civilized” Indians were used successfully against their hostile countrymen. In fact, it was a Christian Indian who eventually killed Metacom in 1676,
which ended the war.

    This pattern of Indians being forced into giving up their culture and then being used to force others into giving up theirs as well, continued right up to the close of the Indian Wars and right on through the 20th and into the 21st Centuries, although without the bloodshed that had been inflicted on the "Heathens" by the "Christians" in earlier days.

    Among the tribes of North America the basic tenants of their religion take many different forms. To think that all indigenous people of North America believe the same things in the same way would be like saying all Europeans go to the same church. The boundaries of Europe have to a large degree been shaped by religious wars.

    That is one thing unheard of among the tribes of  the Americas; Religious Wars. Here in the "New World", tribes may fight for territory. They may fight for revenge. They may fight over some slight that one tribe felt they had received from another, but you do not ever hear of a war fought over beliefs. It seems that each tribe understood that ones beliefs were ones beliefs and they did not have to be shared universally. Even within the tribe, each individual was free to believe or not believe as they wished and as long as it caused no disruption to the "natural order" of things it was accepted. If it did interfere, you were free to take others who agreed with you and start your own band, but never was it said that you were wrong for what you believed.  

    There are many similarities between the religion of Indians and Europeans and Americans of European origins. There were also very important differences. The most important is that to the Indians there is no difference between the natural and the supernatural. Indians perceived the physical world and spirit world as one. In their view, plants, animals, rocks, hills, mountains, streams, rivers, lakes and humans all had souls or spirits and there by had one foot in the physical world and one foot in the next. Jude0-Christian belief emphasized the vast seperation between pure spirit beings in heaven, God, the angels, saints and good and rightious people that had already been "saved", from sinful people living in a profaned world of temptation and evil where one must believe a certain way to make it to heaven.

    
    At the core of life for all Indians is the belief in the existence of spirit powers. These spirit powers are the superior qualities which exist in objects, animals, men, spirits, or deities. These superior qualities is what is called wakanda, by the Siouan tribes, orenda, by Iroquoians and manito by the Algonquian tribes, . The fundamental notion of all of them is that of a power inherent in the objects of nature which is more potent than the natural powers of man. 

     The "Mythology" for each tribe IS their religion. The Indian accepts the eternal existence of the world. Events which occured in the distant past determined how things continued for all time. When the bear scratched the back of a chipmunk producing the stripes on its back, all chipmunks would have such stripes. When the first dog howled at the moon in frieght, that determined that all dogs would howl at the moon. (Which was the case until man started messing with nature and bred dogs that rarely get outside to even see the moon.) When a person was taught a particular ceremony, that same ceremony must be performed by all future generations. 

     Within most tribal beliefs is the idea that transgressions of rules of conduct will bring punishment. That punishment may consist in the removal of the transgressor , who may be banished from the tribe or killed by members of their own clan. For another to carry out the execution would call for revenge. As there were no forms of incarceration, the only way one could avoid these punishments was by purifing ones self by fasting and ridding  the body of all impurities by vomiting, bathing, and participating in ceremonial activities like the Sweat Lodge. 

 

The Shawnee believe in Wishi-Moneto, a supreme being who ruled the entire universe and distributed blessings upon all who earned his favor, and desperate sorrow upon those who merited his disfavor. The Shawnee saw one manifestation of Wishi-Moneto as a Grandmother  who ruled the destinies of her children. She eternally wove a great net which, when finished, would be dropped over the world. She would then draw the net back up to the heavens. Those who had proven themselves worthy would be caught up in the net and taken to a better life, those who fell back through the net would suffer an unspeakable fate as the world came to an end. Each Shawnee was judge of his own conduct and was held accountable for it. They lived by their own standards, and shrugged off value judgments placed among them by people outside of their tribe. The "Golden Rule" of the Shawnees was: "Do not kill or injure your neighbor, for it is not him that you injure, you injure yourself. But do good to him, therefore add to his days of happiness as you add to your own. Do not wrong or hate your neighbor, for it is not him that you wrong, you wrong yourself. But love him, for Moneto loves him also as he loves you."

Tecumseh
"We must be united
We must smoke the same pipe
We must fight each other's battles
And more than that, We must love the Great Spirit."
--Tecumseh --
-His appeal to other tribes to join his confederacy-
 

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Shemaqua
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