Cree religion

Cree religion is the traditional Native American religion of the Cree people.

Definition and classification

The Cree traditionally had no cultural separation of the religious and the secular. ^[1] Native American religions more broadly have always adapted in response to environmental changes and interactions with other communities. ^[2] The Cree share many cultural elements with the neighboring Ojibwe people. ^[3]

Beliefs

Among the Cree, and the northern Ojibwe, the thunderbirds are sometimes called pinesiwak. ^[4]

The anthropologist Colin Scott characterised the Cree worldview as being animistic. ^[5] He noted that the Cree traditionally conceive "the world as a community of living entities and relationships". ^[6]

Success in a hunt is deemed to require the prey animal's cooperation, with the latter thus regarded as a gift. ^[6] The Cree traditionally believe that prey should be killed respectfully, without waste, and with consideration for the well-being of that species' broader population. ^[7]

Practices

Sun dance

Some Ojibwe living near the Plains region also engaged in the sun dance, a practice likely adopted from the Cree. ^[8]

A group of Cree Sun Dancers, photographed c. 1893 by Frank La Roche

References

Citations

1. Scott 2014, p. 165.
2. Crawford 2007, p. 17.
3. Smith 2012, p. 4.
4. Smith 2012, p. 75.
5. Scott 2014, pp. 159, 160.
6. Scott 2014, p. 163.
7. Scott 2014, p. 164.
8. Vecsey 1983, p. 117.

Sources

• Crawford, Suzanne J. (2007). Native American Religious Traditions. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education. ISBN   9780131834835.
• Pomedli, Michael (2014). Living with Animals: Ojibwe Spirit Powers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN   978-1442614796.
• Scott, Colin (2014) [2013]. "Ontology and Ethics in Cree Hunting: Animism, Totemism and Practical Knowledge". In Graham Harvey (ed.). The Handbook of Contemporary Animism. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 159–166. ISBN   978-1138928978.
• Smith, Theresa S. (2012) [1995]. The Island of the Anishnaabeg: Thunderers and Water Monsters in the Traditional Ojibwe Life-World. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN   978-0-8032-3832-9.
• Vecsey, Christopher (1983). Traditional Ojibwa Religion and its Historical Changes. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. ISBN   978-0871691521.

Further reading

• Brightman, Robert. 1993. Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Dusenberry, Verne. The Montana Cree: A Study in Religious Persistence.
• Preston, R. (1976). Cree Narrative: Expressing the Personal Meaning of Events. Ottawa: National Museum of Man.
• Scott, Colin. 1988. "Property, Practice, and Aboriginal Rights among Quebec Cree Hunters". In Hunters and Gatherers, vol. 2: Property, Power and Ideology. Tim Ingold, David Riches, and James Woodburn, eds. Pp. 35–51. Oxford: Berg.
• Scott, Colin (1996). "Science for the West, Myth for the Rest? The Case of James Bay Cree Knowledge". In L. Nader (ed.). Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge. London: Routledge. pp. 69–86.
• Scott, Colin (2006). "Spirit and Practical Knowledge in the Person of the Bear among Wemindji Cree Hunters". Ethnos. 71 (1): 51–66.
• Scott, Colin. 2007. "Bear Metaphor: Spirit, Ethics and Ecology in Wemindji Cree Hunting." In La Nature des Esprits dans les Cosmologies Autochtones / Nature of Spirits in Aboriginal Cosmologies. Frédéric Β. Laugrand and Jarich G. Oosten, eds. Pp. 387–399. Québec: Les Presses del'Université Laval.
• Tanner, Adrian. 1979. Bringing Home Animals: Religious Ideology and Mode of Production of the Mistassini Cree Hunters. New York: St. Martin's Press.
• Tanner, Adrian. 2007. "The Nature of Québec Cree Animist Practices and Beliefs." In La Nature des Esprits dans les Cosmologies Autochtones / Nature of Spirits in Aboriginal Cosmologies. Frédéric Β. Laugrand and Jarich G. Oosten, eds. Pp. 133–150. Québec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval.