eBook

We Have a Religion

Wenger, Tisa

2009,2014

Overview

For Native Americans, religious freedom has been an elusive goal. From nineteenth-century bans on indigenous ceremonial practices to twenty-first-century legal battles over sacred lands, peyote use, and hunting practices, the U.S. government has often acted as if Indian traditions were somehow not truly religious and therefore not eligible for the constitutional protections of the First Amendment. In this book, Tisa Wenger shows that cultural notions about what constitutes \"religion\" are crucial to public debates over religious freedom.In the 1920s, Pueblo Indian leaders in New Mexico and a sympathetic coalition of non-Indian reformers successfully challenged government and missionary attempts to suppress Indian dances by convincing a skeptical public that these ceremonies counted as religion. This struggle for religious freedom forced the Pueblos to employ Euro-American notions of religion, a conceptual shift with complex consequences within Pueblo life. Long after the dance controversy, Wenger demonstrates, dominant concepts of religion and religious freedom have continued to marginalize indigenous traditions within the United States.

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press,Published in association with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University, by the University of North Carolina Press,University of North Carolina Press
• Subject: American Southwest / Anthropology / Christianity / Christianity and culture / Christianity and culture -- Southwest, New / Christianity and other religions / Christianity and other religions -- Southwest, New / Ethnic Studies / Freedom of religion / Indigenous populations / Native American Studies / Pueblo (ethnic group) / Pueblo dance / Pueblo Indians / Pueblo Indians -- Religion / Pueblo Indians -- Rites and ceremonies / Racism / Racism -- Religious aspects -- Christianity / RELIGION / Religious aspects / Religious practice / Religious tolerance / Religious tolerance -- Southwest, New / Rites and ceremonies / SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Southwest, New / U.S.A
• ISBN: 0807859354, 9780807859353, 0807832626, 9780807832622, 0807894214, 9780807894217