![]() Spiritual practices were a part of daily life, including those involving death. Illustration of the funeral scaffold of a Sioux chief. One common aspect is the idea that the spirit of a person lives on after their physical death and journeys into the afterlife, although there is no concept of heaven and hell. Native American beliefs are deeply rooted in their cultures and histories, and in the past spirituality would have been an integral part of daily life.Īs previously mentioned, each tribe has its own specific traditions regarding death rituals and funerals. There is no central set of rules or beliefs and historically spiritual teachings were never written down, only passed on from generation to generation. There is not really such a thing as an organised Native American religion in the way that Christianity or Islam is a religion. ![]() This means that Native American death rituals are widely varied according to different tribal traditions, though they may share some common beliefs. Today there are 562 different tribes recognised by the USA, though there is likely to have been hundreds, if not thousands more throughout the history of the continent. Although you may think of ‘Native Americans’ as one people, historically there was never a unified group of 'Native Americans'.
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