REL 51: Native American Religions
Spring 2007
Professor Helen Lee Turner, Dept. Religion, Furman University, Greenville, SC, 29613
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Description: While recognizing the great diversity in Native American religion, this course focuses on particulars of a few tribal groups and considers themes (i.e., the sacredness of nature) common to many traditions. The tribes for this term are the Hopi, the Navajo, and the Plains Cultures. Central to the study will be the nature of Native American myths and the ways in which these myths are enacted in rituals. Along with and through this study students will learn something of the academic theories about myth and ritual. Especially important will be the ways in which these phenomena interact with culture and individual experience to support and create religious worldviews, not only among Native Americans but in any tradition. |
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Texts:
1) Dream
Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality, Phillip
Jenkins, Oxford University Press, 2004
2) Religion and Hopi Life in the Twentieth Century, John
D. Loftin, Indiana, University Press, 1991.
3) Earth is my Mother, Sky is My Father: Space, Time, and Astronomy in
Navajo Sandpainting, Trudy Griffin-Pierce,
University of New Mexico Press, 1988.
4) The Animals Came Dancing: Native American Sacred Ecology and
Animal Kinship, Howard Harrod, University of Arizona Press, 2001.
5) The Way to Rainy Mountain, N. Scott Momaday,
University of New Mexico Press, 1969.
6) The Blessingway, Tony Hillerman
Additional Reserve and On-line Readings
Office Hours:
206 Furman Hall
