Native American Religion

8 Pages 2039 Words

bes are a war with each other, and that yours was the aggressor. You have found the Indians too powerful for you, and you have gone around sneaking in the woods, stealing their hogs; perhaps at this time you have the hog’s flesh in your belly. Had you conquered me, I would have borne it with courage and died like a brave warrior; but you, bear, sit here and cry and disgrace your tribe by your cowardly conduct.”

That was how life was for the Indians, a constant battle of the fittest. It was believed that by approaching the animals in that way, a hunter would have greater success in finding and shooting prey. When an animal was killed there were two ways to convince the creatures spirit that he had acted in a morally justifiable manner. One way was for a hunter to apologize to the victim and laminating the necessity of killing for meat, with this they would assert its innocence and its sorrow. The other way was to try and blame the animal, justifying the killing by saying that it belonged to an enemy tribe.
The animals carcass also had to be handled with extreme care. If they mistreated the animal or didn't respect its spirit that a horrible disease would come about. As a Cherokee story concluded “No hunter who has regard for his health ever fails to ask pardon of the deer for killing it.”

There is a story about a boy by the name of A-sun Ke- pon, he abused a bear by wounding it and then letting it go. The bears sought revenge on the boy by messing with his mind and body. When he reached home all of his limbs fell off. The moral of the story ...