Encounters of the Spirit Native Americans and European Colonial Religion [Hardcover]

Historians have long been aware that the encounter with Europeans affected all aspects of Native American life. But were Indians the only ones changed by these cross-cultural meetings? Might the newcomers' ways, including their religious beliefs and practices, have also been altered amid their myriad contacts with native peoples? In Encounters of the Spirit, Richard W. Pointer takes up these intriguing questions in an innovative study of the religious encounter between Indians and Euro-Americans in early America. Exploring a series of episodes across the three centuries of the colonial era and stretching from New Spain to New France and the English settlements, he finds that the flow of cultural influence was more often reciprocal than unidirectional.

In my view, [t]his book . . . has the potential to spark extensive reevaluation of a subject that (particularly in the case of the English colonies) remains curiously taboo even among scholars committed to exploring the mutual impact of Indian and European peoples in the Americas. Scholars in the fields of ethnohistory, religious studies, literary studies, and other disciplines will all benefit from discussion and debate of Pointer's valuable work.V.113.5 Dec. 2008

Contents<\>
Foreword
Acknowledgments

Introduction
1. The Sounds of Worship
2. A Language of Imitation
3. A Scene of New Ideas
4. Poor Indians and the Poor in Spirit
5. Martyrs, Healers, and Statesmen
6. Encountering Death
Epilogue

Notes
Bibliography
Index

In recent years, historical investigations have emphasized not only the European impact on American Indians (e.g., their religions), but also the agency of Indians in resisting and redefining European paradigms. In order to demonstrate the efficacy of Indian agency, some historians have heralded the influence of Indians on Euro-American ideas, institutions, and behaviors. In this spirit, historian Pointer (Westmont College) aims tls;