Indigenous Religion

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The various tribes of indigenous people of the world look at religion differently than the globalized whole. While only roughly four percent of the world population is comprised of indigenous people (1), those who still follow the “original instructions” believe in life ways over religion.

Religion is rooted in the meaning “to tie back”, most indigenous languages do not have a word for religion, because it can be argued that indigenous religions aren’t actually religions and instead indigenous spirituality and practiced through lifeways because the act of living and spirituality aren’t separate experiences (2). The practice of lifeway ties indigenous people to their ancestors and their natural environment through worship, kinship, respect
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“Because of the intimate relationship indigenous peoples have with their particular environments.”(4) “In contrast to the industrial world’s attempts to own and dominate the earth, native peoples consider themselves caretakers of their mother, the earth.” (5) Traditional people find it very important to care for their kin in animism, as this is the gift that they were given by the supreme being. Traditional people have been know to successive use sacred sites to capitalize on the energy and co-opt with preceding religions (6). This successive used of sacred sites displays the ritualistic use of high energy places that are important to the indigenous …show more content…
This bond is shown through the following quote from Contemporary Australian aboriginal else Bill Neidjie when he speaks of feeling the earth’s pain: I feel it with my body, with my blood. Felling all these trees, all this country… If you feel sore… headache, sore body the mean somebody killing tree or grass. You feel because your body in that tree or earth…you might feel it for two or three years. You get weak…little bit, little bit… because tree going bit by bit…dying. (9) This bonding has a clear emphasis on transcendent dimensions, kinship to the inanimate world and communication through oral transmission of