Native American Religon,

Yokuts Ethnology and Rock Art

Prehistoric Native American Religion

• Throughout the West for most of prehistory all Native peoples were hunter-gatherers

• This means they were foraging peoples

• They lived off the land • They most often timed

their movements to the differential availability of key economic plants and animals

Prehistoric Native American Religion

• A key correlate was that there was an intimate and direct connection between these people and their environment

• This included a close relationship with the land, animals, plants, and the cosmos

• This is very different from our own culture and difficult (nearly impossible) for us to appreciate or understand today

Prehistoric Native American Religion

• Many of us in contemporary industrialized and literate nations are rather divorced from contact with the environment

• We get our food from the market

• We buy our meat at the butcher or from the meat section in the grocery store

• We get our water from a faucet • We tell time by a clock and a

calendar

Prehistoric Native American Religion

• Our homes and offices are insulated from the elements with heating and air conditioning creating comfortable environs

• When we look to the heavens we often cannot see a star-filled sky due to light pollution and other considerations

• We rarely identify with or recognize the regular patterned movements of the stars, moon, and sun throughout the seasons

Prehistoric Native American Religion

• We tend to be a mobile people so we are only loosely attached to the local geography

• Last we are apt to read labels to identify things and to look for the printed word for information – oral communication is becoming less and less central

Prehistoric Native American Religion

• We often are apt to see Native American religions and religious ideas as somehow primitive, simplistic, or even silly.

• Remember that even our so called major “World” religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Muslim) often incorporate spiritual ideas and religious metaphors having their origins in hunting religions.

World Religions and Hunting Religions:Similar Elements

• Centrality of Sacrifice as Propitiation to the Divine

• Cycle of birth, death, and rebirth

• Covenant – formalized relationship an agreement or contract

World Religions and Hunting Religions:Similar Elements

• Metaphors of light and darkness

• Priests and ritual specialists

• Ceremonials (first fruits) • Rites of passage – birth,

death, coming of age (confirmation, baptism, quincinierras, marriage)

World Religions and Hunting Religions:Similar Elements

• The concepts of ritual, sacrifice, singing, dancing, oral tradition, covenant, light and dark, flesh and blood, ritual priests as intermediaries, ritual costumes and ceremonial instruments, prayer, caves as portals to the supernatural and entrances to ethereal worlds of the divine.

Prehistoric Native American Cultures and Ideology

• Subsistence was a direct result of the energies of the women and men of their households.

• They could only eat what they harvested or killed.

• If there was a drought or a bad season for the harvest of key economic plants, such as pinyon nuts or acorns, this could bode poorly for the people and families might face death and starvation.

Prehistoric Native American Cultures and Ideology

• Large game animals could be hunted but were often difficult to acquire.

• It took great skill, patience, thoughtful strategy, and courage to successfully kill a large game animal such as a mountain sheep, deer, or pronghorn antelope.

• Water was the lifeblood of Native peoples.

• However if they moved far afield and could not find potable water they might die. Drought or the drying up of springs could mean death to many people.

Prehistoric Native American Cultures and Ideology

• The timing of seasons was measured by movement of stars, moon, and sun tracked by ritualists.

• Time was cyclic. • Homes were interim dwellings

that were often temporary and simple.

• Sun, heat, wind, and cold were all forces that had to be incorporated into daily routines.

• Inanimate entities and forces were perceived as beings with temperments

Prehistoric Native American Cultures and Ideology

• The religion of Native peoples were directly linked to the land

• Places on the landscapes were often named and considered alive - inhabited by supernatural beings and forces.

• People spent most of their lives within a defined territory.

• The rocks, trees, mountains, rivers, springs, canyons, and passes were animated with supernatural forces and filled with otherworldly power. This is sometimes known as animism.

Power In Nature• Native peoples in the

West often saw the natural world as one that was transfixed with power

• Religion was not something that was a distinct or separate domain from everyday life. It was one and the same.

• Religious ideas were interwoven into the tapestry of daily existence.

Power In Nature• Ritual, oral tradition, mythology,

ceremonials, coming of age rites, childbirth, marriage, and seasonal celebrations – all were part of an interconnected ideology, world view, and cosmology.

• Every object, be it (as we see it) animate or inanimate was alive with power – animals, mountains, rocks, caves, springs, lakes, trees, lightning, and wind.

Power In Nature• Humans were recognized

as an indispensible part of nature

• Humans could receive divine power from a guardian spirit or spirit helper

• Humans could alternatively seek visions through travel to a sacred place, a spot associated with power.

Power In Nature!!

• Sometimes these “vision quest” experiences were facilitated through various means and the use of certain instruments, extended talking to the mountains, or the use of means for obtaining an alternative state of consciousness

Power In Nature• Power from the natural world is

manifested through dreams (waking or sleeping) and visions

• These dreams and visions were real and inseparable from human thought and speech

• What one speaks or thinks manifests itself in common and practical realities

• Speaking and thinking affect reality – wishes come true

Dream Cave, Mojave Desert

Power In Nature• Prayer was akin to thought • Often power from the natural

world is communicated to people with or as a song

• Sometimes power may be communicated with words and instructions as a dance

• Power is the life force and the constantly moving and flowing dynamic energy of the universe (Star Wars took this element and made it into popular culture… “Luke use the force…”)

Power In Nature• Song, dance and words

are empowering elements that can influence the natural world

• Power moves in a circular path from nature to people and from people to nature

• Power must be respected and has the potential to be dangerous as well as beneficial

Power In Nature• Without a reverence for

power and the forces of nature is to invite disaster

• The dark underside of power is sorcery; using power for evil intentions

• Water babies and whirlwind spirits had the power to kill and could embody dangerous and potentially fearful power

Power In Nature: Shamanism• Native American religions

especially in the West and among hunter gatherers was animistic and shamanistic

• What we mean by this is that their religious leaders, ritualists (often called by anthropologists as shamans) often experienced a call to a special role with respect to their ability to obtain supernatural power and harness the agents of other worlds.

Power In Nature: Shamanism• Elite ritualists, shamans, use

power from nature and act first as healers, medicine men and women, Indian doctors

• Illness was most often caused by sorcery or irreverent / disrespectful actions against the supernatural

• Shamans routinely had many spirit helpers often animals that were acquired in alternative states of consciousness

Power In Nature: Shamanism• Shaman’s were pivotal in

leading the rituals surrounding pre-hunting ceremonials to charm game and bring luck to the hunters

• They would sing hunting songs • Play musical instruments that

would attract game • They would lead ceremonials

and wear animal costumes and imitating animal movements

• Costumes included skulls, feathers, skin, claws, and bones.

• They might fall into an ecstatic trance and capture the animals’ souls

Power In Nature: Shamanism• Certain shamans could

control the weather – bring rain, snow, stop the wind

• Such actions were proof of a rapport with spirits

• Received their powers through dreams

• Such power was used to benefit the community through connections with the life cycles of plants and animals

Native American Culture and Religion: Class Exercise

• Count off by groups of 3. 1, 2, and 3. Break into 3 groups and choose a spokesperson for the group.

• Group 1: Contrast contemporary lifeways with those characteristics of the aboriginal inhabitants of the prehistoric western United States.

• Group 2: As we discuss Native American ideology, cosmology and religion think of the parallels in your own faith and religious beliefs.

• Group 3: Compare and contrast contemporary religious views (world religions) on topics and themes relating to: the cycle of life and death for all living things and/or the levels of worlds – sky, earth, and the underworld.

Animal Beliefs and Forager Cosmology

• The present order of the universe is a reversal of primal times. Earlier animals were humans and humans were animals.

• Oral memories attest to how animals gave their bodies to the people agreeing to become food because of their established kinship relations.

• Oral traditions are also embodied in song and dance and recall the earlier era when animals danced, sang, and rejoiced.

Animal Beliefs and Forager Cosmology

• Close affinity between animals and people

• Close kinship and tendency for Native Americans to imitate animals in dress, action and projective thought

The Journey• It is a general tenet that

only through animal sacrifice can the turning of the seasons, the cycle of the day and night, and the revitalization of human and animal life be accomplished.

• Animal ceremonialism and hunting religions – animals are immortal – do not die but are reborn.

Descent• First half of the ceremonial

cycle is associated with descent, death and post-mortem rites

• Animal funeral – provides proper reverence to deceased animal, skull showcased on a tree or pole

• Autumnal festival and communal feast

• Group pantomime dances and sings

• Ancestor worship

Ascent• Second half: Spring world

renewal theme: • Affirms common origin of the

tribe – Brings humans back in

harmony – Emphasis on rebirth,

multiplication of game/resources,

– Continued success of tribe’s way of life (aka increase rites)

– Re-emergence of animals from underworld portals

Animal Masters and Hunting Ceremonies

• Scholars have described a widespread forager belief in a supernatural guardian or Animal Master.

• This is especially prevalent among Uto-Aztecan cultures (i.e. the Numic Great Basin Shoshonean – Kawaiisu, Tubatulabal, Southern Paiute, cultures of American Southwest - Hopi and Mesoamerica – Maya, Huichol, Mixe, Nahua)

• Such supernaturals and rituals may have been featured in the rock art record as a result of hunting ceremonies.

Rocks, Rituals, and Animal Masters

• Rocks are portals to the world of animals and the supernatural. A curtain, dividing worlds.

• Before the hunt, hunter offered sacrifices to the Animal Master asking permission to take one of his creatures

• Post-hunting ritual use, thanks to the Animal Master for sending the catch.

• Again tied to the presentation of offerings

Cyclic Concept of Time and Regeneration

• Core paradigm of foragers • There is innate power in bones

and in the planting of skeletal remains of hunted animals

• The planting of bones assures regeneration – a source of new life

• The sacred skulls were believed to be alive in that they embodied energies associated with their animal ancestors

• An animal skull was full of power. • The Animal Master lives in the

animal underworld where the animals go after they are killed by hunters. The Master of the Animals is responsible for their regeneration.

Animals, Bones, and Hunting Magic

• First: Belief in the Animal Master

• Second: Symbolic connection and unification of bones with regeneration

• Functions of such ceremonies designed to placate (asking for forgiveness) the animal master and ensure regeneration of the animals via ritual ceremonies that incorporated the secondary discard of animal remains.

• The former and the latter are sometimes identified with “hunting magic”.

Forager-Hunting Religions• Animal Ceremonialism • Emphasis on spiritual

power • Annual ceremonies of

cosmic rejuvenation • Shamanism • Emergence tradition -

peopling of the world from the interior of the earth

• Multiple levels of the cosmos

Case Study: Yahwera, the Kawaiisu

Animal Master

• Oral traditions • Yahwera Kahnina – The

Home of the Animal Mastera

• Meaning of the term - Yahwera

• Description of deity • The Back Canyon Site • Parallels with Pattern

Bodied Anthropomorphs of the Coso Representational Rock Art Tradition

Yahwe’era Kahniina (Yahwera’s House)

• Located in Back Canyon, Walker Basin

• Portal to power • Limestone pillar and

spring • Traditional story told of

Yahwera, Master of the Animals

Yahwera’s House• One entrance is there in Back Canyon –

home is a hole in that rock. !

• Another entrance is a cave on Indian Creek. (Marie Girado, Lida, and Dorothy at the cave.) !

• When you visit you see many different animals – deer, bear, etc.

• These were animal people who spoke just like the Kawaiisu.

• Near the mouth of the tunnel the man saw bows and arrows. These were the weapons by which deer were killed. The deer leave them when they go inside Yahwera’s house.

• The man also saw the horns of all the deer that have been killed. Yahwera said that the deer were not really dead.

Yahwera’s House

• There were many different kinds of luck on the cave walls.

• The man saw a bow and arrow of a good hunter in a prominent place and the bows and arrows of inferior hunters in subordinate positions.

Yahwera’s House

• The man took something for his luck. The man began to walk through the tunnel.

• He stumbled and climbed over a large gopher snake (kogo).

Yahwera’s House

• Farther along he came to a rattlesnake, as big as a log (tugu-baziitї-bї) and he climbed over it.

Yahwera’s House

• Then there was a brown bear (mo’orii-zhi) that he passed by and then he came to a grizzly bear (pogwitї) and went past it.

• Then he didn’t see any other animals.

Yahwera’s House

• He kept walking and he saw Yahwera. • Yahwera wore a mountain quail feather blanket. He looked like a hawk. • The man said he was sick and wanted to get well. Yahwera knew all about

his illness without being told. • Yahwera gave him some acorn mush, pinyon, or deer meat, and every time

he ate some the same amount reappeared. He couldn’t eat it all! He gave it back to Yahwera.

Yahwera’s House• Yahwera took him into a room

where he kept the medicine. • Yahwera asked him which of

the songs he wanted and named all the songs. The man took a song.

• The man was ready to return home, so he kept going to the other end of the tunnel.

Exiting Yahwera’s House

• He saw water that was like a window but it wasn’t water, he passed through and didn’t get wet.

• He came out and found he had exited far away from the entrance in the desert somewhere (Redrock Canyon or Little Lake) and wasn’t sick anymore.

• He had been gone for a long time and his relatives didn’t know where he had been.

Coso Decorated Animal–Humans

• Decorated animal humans – 700+

• Many are bird-humans with avian feet

• Many hold hunting gear – spears, atlatls, staff, or bolo stones

• Right arm is bent upwards • Left arm holds foreshafts • Headdresses with

feathers or quail plumes

Native Californian Territories

Yokuts Territories

Yokuts Ethnographic Background•Anthropologists generally agree that the aboriginal population who occupied the region of the study area was the Southern Valley Yokuts. !

•According to Latta the Tulamni Yokuts were those inhabiting the general area of Buena Vista Lake. Their main village, Tulamniu, existed within the general vicinity of the project area. !

•The Tulamni lied in an area north, west, and south of Buena Vista Lake, in the Elk Hills, on Buena Vista Creek and the Buena Vista Hilla, and in the McKittrick and Maricopa areas.

Yokuts Ethnographic BackgroundThe following brief background is abstracted from several ethnographic overviews characterizing these tribal populations. !• A more detailed and comprehensive study of the ethnogeography and ethnohistory specific to the Buena Vista Yokuts has been completed by David Earle. !

•For a fine grained look at the nuances of Tulamni Yokuts that reference should be consulted. !

•The Yokuts spoke a language classified as a member of the hypothesized Penutian linguistic stock found throughout the Central Valley. !

•They were organized into true named tribes (or tribelets) and separated into land-holding territorial units, based on dialectical differences.

Yokuts Ethnographic Background•The Spanish called the Yokuts, “Tulareños”, or people of the Tules, because of the preponderance of bulrushes or tule reeds in their environs. !

•The number of Southern Valley Yokuts living in villages in the area at the time of European contact has been variously estimated from 3,150 to 9,500 persons. !

•An interesting ethnohistoric account relevant to the village at Buena Vista Lake describes Tulamniu as being inhabited by 36 men, 144 women, and 38 children in 1806.

Yokuts Ethnographic Background•The abundant resources in the southern Valley allowed the Yokuts to maintain villages year round. !

•These occupation sites were commonly situated on small creeks flowing into a river or at the confluence of two creeks where there was a patch of level land immune from flooding. !

•A central chief ruled each tribe and was assisted by one or more aids. !

•Tribes were divided into two divisions or moieties. The latter identified with totemic animals. !

•Each moiety contained a number of clans. !

•Marriage was always outside of the moiety.

Yokuts Ethnographic Background

•Yokuts were normally a peaceful people, although intertribal skirmishes were known. !

•Shamans served as priests and the most important religious ceremonies were the annual mourning ceremony for the dead, a Jimson weed (Datura metaloides) puberty ceremony for both boys and girls, and the rattlesnake ceremony aimed at protecting tribal members from being bitten during the ensuing year.

Yokuts Ethnographic Background•Animal foods included fish, shellfish, waterfowl, and large and small mammals. Large game included: deer (Odocoileus hemionus), tule elk (Cervus elaphus), and pronghorn (Antilocapra americana). !

•Smaller game animals included the hare and cottontail (Lepus californicus and Sylvilagus audobonii). Waterfowl was a major dietary focus, as the lakes and sloughs provided abundant migratory birds including: mallard (Anas platyrnchos), wood duck (Alix sponsa) and the Canadian goose (Branta candensis).

Yokuts Ethnographic Background•The staple aboriginal plant resource, used throughout California, was the acorn. !

•However this was less the case for the Yokuts. !

•The Yokuts did trade for this important resource but their emphasis was on the tules (Scirpus acutus.) - as an acorn substitute. !

•The huge roots of the tule other related marshland plants (spike rush [Heleocharis acicularis], bulrush [S. californicus], cattail [Typha latifolia] and sedges [Carex spp.]) were harvested in great numbers, eaten raw, or dried and pounded into flour and made into a mush.

Yokuts Ethnographic Background

•Watercraft were also made from tules and when constructed from the served to navigate the local waterways. !

•The tule “balsa” boat also provided useful transportation and an added means for hunting prey animals and gathering economic plants.

Yokuts Rock Art

Yokuts rock art is usually in the form of pictographs. The panels may be in exposed places like the sides of boulders or in protected places like caves or under overhangs.

Yokuts Rock Art

Pictographs in a protected environment usually fare much better than pictographs that are exposed to the elements.

Yokuts Rock Art

The most common colors include red, white and black.

Yokuts Rock Art

Characteristic of Yokuts pictographs are split head figures, polychrome outlining, simple anthropomorphs & zoomorphs and figures depicted in large scale- some may be 5 to 7 feet in length.

Yokuts Rock Art

Geopolitical/ social significance?

END