Teaching spirits : understanding Native American religious traditions

Description: Teaching Spirits offers a thematic approach to Native American religious traditions. Within the great multiplicity of Native American cultures, Joseph Epes Brown has perceived certain common themes that resonate within many Native traditions. He demonstrates how themes within native traditions connect with each other, at the same time upholding the integrity of individual traditions. Brown illustrates each of these themes with in-depth explorations of specific native cultures including Lakota, Navajo, Apache, Koyukon, and Ojibwe. Brown demonstrates how Native American values provide an alternative metaphysics that stand opposed to modern materialism. He shows how these spiritual values provide material for a serious rethinking of modern attitudes - especially toward the environment - as well as how they may help non-native peoples develop a more sensitive response to native concerns. Throughout, he draws on his extensive personal experience with Black Elk, who came to symbolize for many the greatness of the imperiled native cultures. -- from publisher

Table of Contents: Back to back
Changeless at the heart of change : concepts of time and process
Fixing a center : Native American sacred geography
Silence, the word, and the sacred : evoking the sacred through language and song
"There is no word for art" : the creative process
Relationship and reciprocity : a metaphysics of nature
A unity of experience : purification, expansion, and identity through ritual

FY2010