Cree religion is the traditional Native American religion of the Cree people.
Definition and classification
[edit]The Cree traditionally had no cultural separation of the religious and the secular.[1] Native American religions more broadly have always adapted in response to environmental changes and interactions with other communities.[2] The Cree share many cultural elements with the neighboring Ojibwe people.[3]
Beliefs
[edit]Among the Cree, and the northern Ojibwe, the thunderbirds are sometimes called pinesiwak.[4]
The anthropologist Colin Scott characterised the Cree worldview as being animistic.[5] He noted that the Cree traditionally conceive "the world as a community of living entities and relationships".[6]
Success in a hunt is deemed to require the prey animal's cooperation, with the latter thus regarded as a gift.[6] The Cree traditionally believe that prey should be killed respectfully, without waste, and with consideration for the well-being of that species' broader population.[7]
Practices
[edit]Sun dance
[edit]Some Ojibwe living near the Plains region also engaged in the sun dance, a practice likely adopted from the Cree.[8]
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References
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ^ Scott 2014, p. 165.
- ^ Crawford 2007, p. 17.
- ^ Smith 2012, p. 4.
- ^ Smith 2012, p. 75.
- ^ Scott 2014, pp. 159, 160.
- ^ a b Scott 2014, p. 163.
- ^ Scott 2014, p. 164.
- ^ Vecsey 1983, p. 117.
Sources
[edit]- Crawford, Suzanne J. (2007). Native American Religious Traditions. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education. ISBN 9780131834835.
- Pomedli, Michael (2014). Living with Animals: Ojibwe Spirit Powers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1442614796.
- Scott, Colin (2014) [2013]. "Ontology and Ethics in Cree Hunting: Animism, Totemism and Practical Knowledge". In Graham Harvey (ed.). The Handbook of Contemporary Animism. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 159–166. ISBN 978-1138928978.
- Smith, Theresa S. (2012) [1995]. The Island of the Anishnaabeg: Thunderers and Water Monsters in the Traditional Ojibwe Life-World. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-3832-9.
- Vecsey, Christopher (1983). Traditional Ojibwa Religion and its Historical Changes. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. ISBN 978-0871691521.
Further reading
[edit]- Brightman, Robert. 1993. Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Dusenberry, Verne. The Montana Cree: A Study in Religious Persistence.
- Preston, R. (1976). Cree Narrative: Expressing the Personal Meaning of Events. Ottawa: National Museum of Man.
- Scott, Colin. 1988. "Property, Practice, and Aboriginal Rights among Quebec Cree Hunters". In Hunters and Gatherers, vol. 2: Property, Power and Ideology. Tim Ingold, David Riches, and James Woodburn, eds. Pp. 35–51. Oxford: Berg.
- Scott, Colin (1996). "Science for the West, Myth for the Rest? The Case of James Bay Cree Knowledge". In L. Nader (ed.). Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge. London: Routledge. pp. 69–86.
- Scott, Colin (2006). "Spirit and Practical Knowledge in the Person of the Bear among Wemindji Cree Hunters". Ethnos. 71 (1): 51–66.
- Scott, Colin. 2007. "Bear Metaphor: Spirit, Ethics and Ecology in Wemindji Cree Hunting." In La Nature des Esprits dans les Cosmologies Autochtones / Nature of Spirits in Aboriginal Cosmologies. Frédéric Β. Laugrand and Jarich G. Oosten, eds. Pp. 387–399. Québec: Les Presses del'Université Laval.
- Tanner, Adrian. 1979. Bringing Home Animals: Religious Ideology and Mode of Production of the Mistassini Cree Hunters. New York: St. Martin's Press.
- Tanner, Adrian. 2007. "The Nature of Québec Cree Animist Practices and Beliefs." In La Nature des Esprits dans les Cosmologies Autochtones / Nature of Spirits in Aboriginal Cosmologies. Frédéric Β. Laugrand and Jarich G. Oosten, eds. Pp. 133–150. Québec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval.