Tradition of the hunt

The Naskapi Indians believed the whole universe has a soul, including humans, animals, plants, stars, etc. They have strong feelings that there is grace in the universe. They believe that animals give themselves to be killed so humans can have food and shelter. When humans sleep they believe that animals come to their dreams to let them know where to find them.

The tradition of the hunt is to have strong feelings of respect for all animals because without the animals, the natives would starve. They use every part of the animal without wasting anything, as a sign of respect. They teach their young at a very early age how to hunt and about the value of animals. They tell them that animals are like humans and that animals have feelings.

The Powhatans believed that medicine and religion were together. To cure somebody the priest, who kept the herbs gathered by the natives, gave the herbs to the sick to help cure them. Then they would be sent to the “sweat house” or sauna, to sweat out the illness. After the sauna the person would jump into the cold stream to wash out body after the sauna. If a person had a serious illness, the priests could perform minor surgery.

The Powhatans believed in life after death, or reincarnation. When a weroance (tribal leader) died, the body was wrapped and dried, then placed on a platform in the temples. They believed the soul of the person would live in peace and happiness until they entered into a woman’s womb on earth to be born again.

The Powhatan priests also practiced magic and divination by trying to predict the intentions of others. They used magic to help improve the odds over the enemies. The English settlers who intruded on the Powhatan land claimed the magic made by the natives was in league with the devil.

The east coast of the U.S. was the home of the Cherokees. This tribe expressed their hostility to the white settlers, who encroached on their land, by fighting on the side of the British during the revolutionary war. After the war, relationships improved for a while, but then gold was discovered on Cherokee land. The white settlers invaded the Cherokee land and marched the majority of Cherokees, on foot, to what is now the state of Oklahoma. In my opinion, this act of taking land from the Cherokees, is one of the many evil crimes the white settlers committed against the native Americans.

The Hopi lived in the Southwest part of the U.S. in adobe houses with many rooms. Underground chambers, known as kivas, were use for religious ceremonies. Kachinas were dancers who wore masks and costumes representing animals, ancestors and spirits. The Hopi were prohibited from seeing the kachinas without the masks. Until children are between the ages of ten and twelve, the adults would tell them that the kachinas were gods. This reminds me of the Christian tradition of adults telling children about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. The Kachinas played big roll in childrens’ lives because it taught them to behave according to the rules of the Pueblo. Parents and kachinas impressed on children the importance of following the roles of pueblo society.

Healing was an important part of the religions of native people in North America. They believed that physical illness meant spiritual disorder. In order to be healed, the natives would ask from the spirits to help them. People respected the healing plants and trusted the priests and people who were experts in medicine to master the use of the medication. The healers used their dreams to listen to voices of spirits, where they would receive directions on how to use herbal drugs and healing food.

Feathers played big role among all the native people of the Americas. The natives believed the spirits of birds and humans were similar and they wore at least one or two feathers in their hair as a symbol of unity with birds. I believe this tradition was adopted by the white settlers, and continues to this day, because feathers are used today in hats and on clothing.

Rites of the passage were very important because birth, puberty, marriage and death meant that the person had a good life and tribal success. Puberty for young adults was important. When a young woman reached puberty she had to remain separate from men because of the belief that menstrual blood was dangerous to men. When the young woman’s segregation was complete some tribes celebrated the new life of the adult woman. Young men who reached puberty had a more difficult time. They had to go on a vision quest alone, which could result in injury of even death.

Most native tribes believed in life after death, and they also believed in reincarnation, that the soul would be reborn as a child in the tribe. Some tribes believed the soul could inhabit the body of an animal. Ancestors were honored and the natives considered death a mystery. The concept of death among religions in North America today is similar to what the native Americans believed: that death is a mystery, that reincarnation is a possibility, and than there is spiritual life after death.

The religion of the Incas was the inspiration for their building of the city of Cuzco. They believed they were their god’s people who were called to rule the world. The Incas worshipped the sun and they had several deities, or gods. One was the god Inti, symbolized by a fetish (a symbol) in a woven basket, which was probably a hummingbird. Inti was carried by priests, who received instructions from Inti. Inti was the creator god, who was later combined with Viracocha. A second god was Viracocha, who was the creator and sustainer. He symbolized the sun. The emperor at that time, Huascar, had a gold image made and it was called Viracocha-Inti. Other gods were called huacas, which were believed to appear in stones, plants, animals, or people. Unusual rocks, for instance, could symbolize the presence of the gods. They could communicate with humans, who would then interpret what the gods had said.

Some of the Inca festivals were religious rituals. The Situa, which was the feast of salvation, was a great ritual of forgiveness and healing. The Festival of the Queen, the moon goddess, was celebrated after planting of seeds, to guarantee a good harvest. 

The belief was that they were the chosen people of the creator and they got rid of any disease or evil from among themselves.

The Incas had a very elaborate society. Some of their stone roads, magnificent buildings, and artifacts remain today. Machu Picchu, which is northwest of Cuzco, Peru, was the city of the Incas. The construction of this city shows how advanced the Incas were because they build a temple, a citadel, terraced gardens, and thousands of steps to connect different parts of the city.  When Christianity came, most of the beliefs and rituals faded away because they were different from Christianity.

I believe the rituals and traditions of the native American tribes are very interesting. They had a respect for all life and they lives in harmony with nature. I think if society today adopted some of the traditions of the native Americans, the world would be a better place to live.

Chapter 18

The transformation of Europe during the industrial revolution was because of the increase in technology because of new inventions and discoveries, which led to a huge increase of goods and services. New sources of energy such as coal-fired stream engines and then petroleum-fueled engines later were important because they helped to deliver goods and services to other parts of Europe. In Britain, where the industrial revolution began, the production of goods increased by about 50% between 1750 and 1900. Lying behind it was not simply one invention, but a culture of innovation, where people believed that things could be endlessly improved. Until 1750 or even 1800, Europeans did not have an advantage over other countries such as China, India, or the Islamic world.  The most important invention was the steam engine because it produced an almost unlimited ability to run many machines, as well as trains and ships.

There was always a lot of controversy about why the industrial revolution first occurred in Great Britain. Many people thought that Britain was superior to other people and countries, but that is not true because other parts of the world further back than 1750 had produced many superior things such as between 750 and 1100 C.E. the Islamic world made major advances in shipbuilding, and they used the power of water to generate power for papermaking and textile production.

For a long time India had been the world center of cotton textile production. They also discovered how to turn sugarcane juice into crystallized sugar. But China had been the world leader in industrialization since approximately 1200. However, many of the world’s previous discoveries had slowed down considerably by 1750, when the rate of British technology increased.

            What was different about Britain that led them to lead the industrial revolution was that Britain had better ways to increase agriculture by using crop rotation, lighter plows, and better seed production, which increased production and kept food prices low. This led to less labor for farmers, who were free to go into the cities to work in manufacturing businesses.

            For example, the British textile industry, which used 52 million pounds of cotton in 1800, increased its use of cotton to 588 million pounds in 1850. Britain’s output of coal increased from 5.23 million tons in 1750 to 68.4 million tons a century later. Most of the increased technology occurred in mining, manufacturing and services. In Britain, agriculture generated only 8 percent of national income and in 1914 it employed fewer then 8 percent of working Britons.

This industrialization caused a huge economic change and also transformed social life. The middle class people were the ones who benefitted the most from industrialization. They became doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, and other professionals that were required in the new society. But more than 70 percent of the people were not aristocrats or members of the middle classes. They were manual workers in the mines, ports, factories, construction sites, workshops and farms of Britain. Although their living situations were considerably different, the laboring classes were the people who suffered most and benefited least from the changes in society caused by the industrial revolution.

Karl Marx was a German who had spent much of his life in England. He saw that the revolution caused terrible living conditions for many people. He wrote the Communist Manifesto, a book about his belief that capitalism was against the human good and that socialism was the way for people to live equally instead of being divided into rich or poor. Working class frustration and anger gave rise to trade unions and socialist movements, starting new social conflicts in industrial societies.