Introduction & Origins of Native Americans

A quote from Native American Religions by Arlene Hirschfelder and Paulette Molin (Facts on File, New York, 1992, ISBN 0-8160-2017-5) is instructive:

".....the North American public remains ignorant about Native American religions. And this, despite the fact that hundreds of books and articles have been published by anthropologists, religionists and others about native beliefs......Little of this scholarly literature has found its way into popular books about Native American religion..." ₁

Yet Natives culture and religion have great value. They have made many contributions to North American society:

	An awareness of concern for the environment.
	Food staples such as corn, beans, squash, potatoes and sweet potatoes.
	The design of the kayak, toboggan and snowshoe.
	The original oral contraceptive.
	Cultivation of cotton.
	Over 200 drugs, derived from native remedies.

It is ironic that the wine that is the Christians' most sacred substance, used in the Mass to represent the blood of their God, has caused such a trail of devastation within Native populations. Meanwhile, the Natives' most sacred substance, tobacco, has caused major health problems for so many Christians.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the population of American Indians and Alaska Natives, including those of more than one race, was 4.5 million as of 2005-JUL-01. ₂ According to the most recent Canadian census, in 1991, there were 1,002,945 Canadians with North American Indian, Métis and/or Inuit ancestry. 10,840 Canadians are recorded as following an aboriginal spiritual path; this value is believed to be greatly under-reported.

From where did Native Americans originate?

There are at least four conflicting beliefs about the origin of Native Americans:

Scientific belief: There had been, until recently, a consensus among scientists that prior to perhaps 9,200 BCE -- 11,200 years ago: The Western Hemisphere was completely devoid of humans. Much of the world's water was frozen in gigantic ice sheets. The ocean levels were much lower. The floor of the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska was exposed, forming a land bridge between the two continents. Big-game hunters from Siberia were able to walk to Alaska. They would have turned south, spreading out through the Great Plains and into what is now the American Southwest. Within a few thousand years, they had made it all the way to the tip of South America.

Recent archaeological discoveries have convinced some scientists that people may have arrived far earlier than about 9200 BCE "in many waves of migration and by a number of routes." The Monte Verde site in Chile has shown that human habitation existed there 12,800 years ago, more than a century before the first evidence of habitation in North America and before a Siberian land bridge would have opened up. The migrants may have navigated the open seas. Alternately, they may taken smaller craft and hugged the coastline down what is now Alaska, British Columbia, and the western coast of the continental U.S. _3,4

Mormon belief: During the early 19th century, two widespread beliefs circulated in North America: One was that Native Americans were the descendents of groups of Jews who had migrated from Palestine millennia ago via the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The other belief was there were originally two groups of Natives of Jewish ancestry in the Americas: one was righteous and was exterminated by an evil group whose descendents became modern-day Natives. Both of these beliefs were abandoned later in the 19th century, except by Mormons. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and other Restorationist churches, teach that in the late 1820s, their church's founder, Joseph Smith, used a seer stone to translate The Book of Mormon from the "Reformed Egyptian" characters on ancient golden tablets revealed by an angel. The book contained both of the above themes. Some skeptics have cited the appearance of these topics in the Book of Mormon as one indication that the book was an early 19th century forgery and not a translation from ancient tablets. More info.

Native beliefs: Many native tribes contest these theories: Some have oral traditions teaching that their ancestors have always been in the Americas. 5 Some believe that their ancestors emerged from beneath the earth into the present world through a hole in the earth's surface.

Many Natives find the suggestion that their ancestors migrated to North America only a few tens of thousands of years ago to be quite offensive. ₆

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

1. Arlene Hirschfelder and Paulette Molin, "Native American Religions," Facts on File, (1992). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com.
2. "American Indians By the Numbers," InfoPlease, at: http://www.infoplease.com/
3. J.N. Wilford, "New answers to an old question: Who got here first?" New York Times, 1999-NOV-9
4. T.D. Dillehay, "Monte Verde: A late Pleistocene settlement in Chile: The archeological context and interpretation," Smithsonian Institution Press, (1997). Read reviews or order this book This is not an inexpensive book!
5. Vine Deloria Jr., "Low Bridge, Everybody Cross," a chapter in the book: "Red Earth, White Lies,"
6. Vine Deloria, "Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact," Fulcrum Pub (1997). You can read reviews and/or order this book
7. Unknown author. Copied from the First People web site at: http://www.firstpeople.us/