Tag: Cree

Shamanic initiation and the ways of the afterlife in the North American tradition

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Anthropology, Esotericism, folklore, Shamanism, History of Religions

Similarly to the European tradition, also the North American one recognizes in the period of the winter solstice the "gateway" to the world of the dead and of the spirits and, therefore, the suitable time for youth initiations and masked ceremonies, including the Iroquois one of the โ€œFalse Facesโ€ and the kwakiutl one of the โ€œCannibal Spiritโ€. These beliefs and practices, as well as the analysis of shamanic journeys to the "Village of the Spirits", allow us to understand the doctrines of the native peoples of North America on the various souls that make up the human being and on the relationship entertained by the living with the spirit world. .

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Jack Fiddler, Wendigo's last hunter

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Anthropology, folklore, Characters, History

(article by Gian Mario Mollar, originally published on Far west)

His name was Ojibwa Zhauwuno-Geezhigo-Gaubow, "He who stands out against the southern sky", and, in the Cree dialect, Maisaninnine o Mesnawetheno, "Man of Style," but the white men of the Hudson Bay Company nicknamed him Jack Fiddler. Born between 1830 and 1840 in the wild and lush land northwest of Lake Ontario, the son of a respected and feared shaman, he himself became the leader and shaman of the Sandy Lake Sucker tribe. At the time of his childhood, the region was deprived of animals and men, as the Hudson's Bay Company, dedicated to the fur trade, had now abandoned the outpost after years of intensive and indiscriminate hunting that had impoverished the territory. The Sucker tribe was thus forced to move further south, to Big Trout Lake, to trade and the young Zhauwuno-Geezhigo-Gaubow he worked for some time as a boatman, to transport furs to the York Factory.ย 

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The mysterious Natchez Indians, Children of the Sun

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Anthropology, folklore, Mito, History of Religions

Among the myriad of populations that once inhabited the vast prairies of North America, the Natchez of the Southern Mississippi Valley. In fact, although belonging to the confederation of Cree tribes of the Muskogee language, they spoke a peculiar dialect and very distinct from that of the other populations of the South-East, called Natchesan. From the few sources that history has handed down to us it seems that their culture, of a sedentary type, was born around 700 AD and that it was strongly influenced by the great Mesoamerican civilizations, especially as regards the cult of the Sun โ€” and of the deified ruler as his sonโ€”And the voluntary practice of immolation as a practice worthy of the highest honor.

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Psychosis in the shamanic vision of the Algonquians: The Windigo

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Anthropology, folklore, Mito

di Marco Maculotti

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The aboriginal peoples of Canada, often settled in the reserves bordering the border with the United States, are now divided into tribes that bear different names (Algonquins, Cree, Ojibwa), although they mostly continue to share a very similar vision of man and his relationship with nature and with spirits - and, as it is easy to imagine, the same mythology. In the magical-shamanic universe that founds the vision of these populations - today the last bastion of wisdom that characterized the entire native population of North America for centuries - the spirits with which man can enter into communication are generally called manita - the same word that, with a capital letter, identifies the universal divine Being, the sacred energy that permeates everything.

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