Native Americans: chronologies and peoples CONNECTION WITH THE NATURAL WORLD This belief in the spirit within living creatures carried to the plant world as well, and the cultivated food plants of the Native Americans were particularly important Corn was significant throughout the southern half of North America The pueblo-dwelling tribes of the Southwest cultivated strains of corn that were adapted to the marginal semidesert climate, and the tribes had ceremonies to honor the spirit of the corn, to mark the times of year for planting, rainfall, and harvest, and to give thanks for the continuing cycle that led to the annual harvest and to the production of a new seed bank to begin the cycle again The Iroquois tribes revered corn along with beans and squash as the Three Sisters Their agricultural practice combined the three plants into symbiotic garden plots that minimized weeding and maximized production Similar to the Pueblo people, the Iroquois honored the growing cycle and the spirits of the Three Sisters in their ceremonies Many plants were used for spiritual purposes as well In ceremonies smoking was considered a way to offer prayers to the spirit world Smoking pipes have been found in burial sites and village sites dating back thousands of years and range from very simple and humble clay pipes to elaborate carved artworks of pipestone and other precious materials Various plants were used for smoking mixtures, with tobacco being used almost universally throughout the continent Other plants were eaten, used in teas, or burned as incense for spiritual purposes For instance, the Algonquin people in the Great Lakes considered sage, sweetgrass, cedar, and tobacco the four primary spiritual plants, and their use was common among many other tribes across North America HEALING AND SPIRITUALITY Healing and spirituality were closely linked Many plants were used for their medicinal and healing effects on the body But many of the Native healing practices aimed at the spiritual problems as well as the physical The Navajo in the Southwest speak of the Navajo Way, an outlook of having one’s life and physical body in harmony with the community, the physical world, and the spiritual world Many illnesses are considered to be a manifestation of actions or desires in one’s life that are in conflict with the physical and spiritual order of the universe, and healing these illnesses is a matter of restoring the person to balance with the rest of creation This notion of balance and a cyclical order to the spiritual and natural worlds is widespread The Sioux of the Great Plains speak of existence as the Sacred Hoop, delineated by the four cardinal directions Tribes across 295 the continent revere this concept of the Circle and the Four Directions Rather than viewing time and existence as a linear march of event following event, Native people looked at existence as cycles: the cycle of the year and seasons, and the cycle of birth to death leading to rebirth The archaeological, geologic, and genetic records point to the First Americans migrating from Siberia into North America sometime between 25,000 to 11,000 years ago These people then spread throughout the American continents, adapted to changes in climate and the varied American landscape, and arrived at their wide variety of cultural and cosmological worldviews prior to contact with the European colonists HUNTING AND AGRARIAN TRADITIONS In studying Native American spiritual practices, modern anthropologists trace these Native beliefs back to two major traditions The first is referred to as the Northern Hunting tradition, linked to the big-game hunters of the ice age migration from Siberia The spirits of the animals and the cycles of the hunt are the focus of worship, with the cult of Bear worship being particularly common Shamans, individuals within the community who are considered to have gained great power and wisdom carry out ceremonies and healing rituals The younger tradition is the Southern Agrarian tradition, believed to have spread northward from Central America, traveling with the introduction of corn and organized agriculture The Southern Agrarian tradition links the power of creation and rejuvenation with plant life and the growing seasons, with Corn Mother becoming a central force in the cycles of the world Priesthoods and cults directed the ceremonial practices in agricultural communities, particularly among the city-states of southern North America Aspects of these two traditions mingled among the tribes over the centuries, with most tribes retaining portions of the old hunting tradition while incorporating elements of the newer agrarian tradition Both traditions indicate a people closely linked to nature and to the other living entities of the world The force of life, spoken of by some tribes as the fundamental power of movement in the universe, was seen to be present in all things and was to be respected and acknowledged, particularly in the most central living things that give up their life-force so that humans could eat and live, whether that sacrifice was recognized in the corn plant or the bear All other life and movement in the world, whether it was the hopping of the rabbit, the push of the seedling from the ground, the movement of the wind, or the turning of the Great Circle of Life itself, all related back to this central power, and by acknowledging the