Indigenous Religious Traditions in 5 Minutes [Hardcover]

Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes aims to answer many of the questions that come to mind when we think about the religious lives of Native and Indigenous peoples of the world. Scholars from many fields answer dozens of questions about a wide variety of specific Indigenous religious traditions and an array of the ideas, practices, and beliefs many people associate with them. Do Native peoples havecreator Gods?What is shamanism? Why are there so many spellings ofvoodoo?Is Paganism considered an Indigenous religious tradition? We also interrogate the concept ofIndigenous religious traditions,by asking what the phrase means in relation to the larger fields of Native American and Indigenous Studies and Religious Studies, whether all religions were at some pointindigenous,and what the value of studying Indigenous religious traditions is today. Specialists respond to questions like these and many others in easily accessible language and provide references for further exploration, making this volume useful for personal study or classroom use. The numerous topics, traditions, and geographic areas from which the book's examples draw provide an extensive introduction for readers. . . . an approachable, introductory text to the complex and foundational questions within the field of Indigenous Religious Traditions. It is an important contribution and will prove useful in many contexts both within and outside of academia. Beckman, Cindy, Critical Research on Religion, August 2023