Religion and Culture in Native America - by Suzanne Crawford O'Brien (Paperback)

About the Book

Religion and Culture in Native America provides a contemporary and comprehensive introduction to the variety of Native religious and cultural practices in North America.

Book Synopsis

Religion and Culture in Native America provides a contemporary and comprehensive introduction to the variety of Native religious and cultural practices in North America.

Review Quotes

Religion and Culture in Native America is an indispensable addition to the literature, liberating varied Native American spiritual traditions from the tyranny of overtrodden themes found in standard religious studies texts written from a Western perspective. As a "starting place," each chapter ends with a list of references and recommendations for further reading, a springboard for teachers and students to explore rich (and neglected) insights from Indigenous researchers, writers, culture bearers, and those who work with them. . . it is a critically urgent introduction, demonstrating that without the ongoing protection and stewardship of Indigenous spiritual traditions, we risk losing our collective connection to our Mother Earth while inching ever closer to the end of the Anthropocene.

Religion and Culture in Native America serves as a nice primer for academics to utilize in their introductory course materials and for students to gain a good grounding in the vast oeuvre that is Native American Studies literature. Noteworthy and extremely useful are the maps provided by the author at the beginning of each chapter, which locate the tribal communities, nations, and groups discussed throughout the volume. I recommend this text to instructors and undergraduate students who are looking for a brief but useful introduction to more detailed course materials in Native American Studies.

With Religion and Culture in Native America, Suzanne Crawford O'Brien, in collaboration with her doctoral mentor, Inés Talamantez, has produced one of the best introductory textbooks to Indigenous religion and culture in North America (primarily the contiguous United States and Canada)... Religion and Culture in Native America represents a mature collaboration between seasoned scholars that has produced a much-needed work for those introducing North American Indigenous religions and cultures to undergraduates... I deeply appreciate that this textbook opens with story and that stories, both ancient and contemporary, animate, illustrate, and saturate each chapter. The book begins with a creation story shared among tribes along the Columbia River that emphasizes humans' (inter-)dependence upon the gifts and generosity of other living beings such as salmon, without whom humans are quite pitiful. I can't recommend this textbook enough for undergraduate and

graduate settings.

A critically important book in which readers are provided with powerful stories of how Indigenous peoples have sustained our cultures, communities, and sacred connection to place. In this challenging contemporary moment, Religion and Culture in Native America is a precious gift that can help all readers, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, critically understand the past and draw inspiration to build a better future.

Suzanne Crawford O'Brien provides a sensitive, indigenously-centered tour de force primer, rich with fresh vignettes of imagery and insight on the contemporary world of Native America. A book destined to be a classic, setting the bar high for subsequent scholars.

The major contribution this new volume on Native American religious traditions makes is to discuss religious life in relation to the most pressing issues impacting Native America today. It is organized thematically and, importantly, centers land, challenging scholars of religion to rethink the relationship between the material and immaterial as well as the categories of analysis we've been accustomed to exploring.

About the Author

Suzanne Crawford O'Brien is professor of religion and culture at Pacific Lutheran University. She is the author of Native American Religions Traditions, Coming Full Circle: Spirituality and Wellness Among Native Communities in the Pacific Northwest, and Religion and Healing in Native America: Pathways for Renewal, as well as co-editor of American Indian Religious Traditions: An Encyclopedia.

Inés Talamantez was professor of Religious Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara and founder of their doctoral program in Native American Religious Studies. During her years at UCSB she mentored dozens of graduate students, profoundly shaping this field of study. Her own research centered on her Mescalero Apache community, with particular emphasis on girls' coming of age ceremonies. Her publications include: "In the Space Between the Earth and the Sky," in Native Religions and Cultures of North America: Anthropology of the Sacred; "The Presence of Isanaklesh. The Apache Female Deity and the Path of Pollen," updated and reprinted in Unspoken Worlds: Women's Religious Lives; and Teaching Religion and Healing, co-edited with Linda Barnes. She has a forthcoming book on Isanaklesh Gotal, the coming of age ceremony for Mescalero Apache girls.