What are the Navajo's religious beliefs?

Answer 1

The Sioux believed that everything had a spirit or god. The main god that was worshiped was "The Great Spirit", which was most powerful. They worshiped gods through dances, spiritual trances, and religious journeys.

Answer 2

In traditional belief, a Creator (neither male nor female), which is beyond human comprehension but is manifested in natural phenomena, made the world. Portions of the Creator may be seen in the natural universe (thunder, wind, and so on)

Answer 3

They followed no single religion, but Animistic beliefs were important to them.

See the related link below for more information on the archetypal culture of the Great Plains Native American Peoples, the Plains Indians.

Answer 4

The comanches are vicious warriors.

When they would win a fight the men would go around the field and scalp the losers heads and tie it around thier belt. The scalped skin would be a trophy for the Indians.

Answer 5

There are 300,000 Navajo tribal members. About one third practice traditional Navajo beliefs and another third practice traditional beliefs with a second religion. Attached are several links to books on Navajo philosophy.

About one third are one of many Christian religious denominations. Catholic, LDS, Presbyterian, Four Square Gospel, Dutch Reformed, Pentecostal, Seventh day Adventist, Lutherans, Episcopals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Nazarene, Baptists, Mennonites, Ba'hai, Congregationalists, etc. Tent revivals in Navajo language with healing are increasingly popular. They fit into the model of traditional beliefs somewhat and many are led by Navajos instead of outsiders.

About one third are Native American Church which is a pan American Indian religious movement that is about 120 years old. Many practice traditional beliefs as well.

Most Navajos, except those who belong to Christian sects that severely forbid it, practice several things.

Traditional Navajo philosophy and religion are part of a complex world view and ceremonies that are hard to summarized in a short answer. The beliefs focus on restoring and keeping intact the central concept of Hózhǫ́. This roughly means beauty and harmony, peace, balance, happiness and contentment, wholeness, goodness and health in one concept not many separate ideas as it is in English. There are about 60 chantways that are performed by Hataałii (medicine men). Many focus on healing. The Navajo concept of sickness is broader than ours commonly is. For example, if last year you broke your arm, had a lot of colds, had trouble sleeping and lost your job, a traditional Navajo might say you need to go to a diagnostician to figure out what ceremony you need. You still would go to a western doctor to set your arm and for cold medicine and try to find a new job but the underlying problem would not be solved. The diagnostician would, using a sort of trance, figure out what ceremony you needed. Then you would go to a Hataałii to perform the multiday ceremony. He is more like a highly trained priest and doctor. He must lead the ceremony exactly. If done correctly, Hózhǫ́ will be restored.

Hataałii also perform house blessings and female puberty ceremonies and many others.

Traditional Navajo belief also has a complex creation story which has been published in English by U of New Mexico Press, called Dine Bahane translated by Paul Zolbrod.

Traditional Navajo belief had many deities and spiritual beings called Holy People. Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé, Changing Woman, is one of the most important and completely benevolent deity and the creator of the Navajo clans.

The four sacred mountains and the two center ones are very important symbols in Navajo thought. Dynamic symmetry and holistic asymmetry are very important too.

In day to day practice, many people carry a pouch of corn pollen for prayer, get up before dawn to pray and try to be careful and balanced in their speech, thoughts, feelings and actions.

Answer 6

Several questions of this nature have been asked here and the problem with them are you Must know and understand the beliefs before you can know and understand them. Several of these answers make reference to web sites that claim to know and explain them; please note that this very attempt is a violation of the belief system. The only way I know to answer this is to say that the Cherokee (and most other native tribes) belief system is based on a set of stories much like the teaching stories told by american's - the one large difference is the native stories don't give the answer (Moral to the story), it is required that you discover the answer. So the belief system becomes self taught to a great degree. As an example:

The Woman & the Snake (a short version).

A woman was working at home while her children played outside and her man was away hunting. Suddenly a child runs in and tells her of a snake that has scared them. The woman goes outside and finds the snake so she grabs a large branch and kills the snake. Suddenly the man, who is very far away, hears crying all around him. When he investigates he finds a snake crying. He asks the snake what is wrong and the snake tells him what his wife has done. The snake then tells the man that when he takes his evening meal he should send the woman to the creek for fresh water. That night as he ate, he asked his wife to bring him fresh water. His wife tells him the skin is fresh, and he asks her to get fresh water anyway. After she stepped outside she cries out, and the man rushes to her side to find a snake has bitten her heal. He then tells her the story of meeting the snake in the woods. She understands and dies happy.

This is the story of the woman and the snake. Now, there is only one answer to this story although it can be said in a thousand ways. It is your understanding (your journey) in finding the answer that has meaning.

This is the best example I can give you of how the belief system works.

Answer 7

they think that animal spirits that like them will protect them and that protective spirits live in rocks and thunder

Answer 8

god