lakota sioux and teton, the sun dance religion.
The Sioux regard the universe as ultimately incomprehensible; life, growth, and death are mysterious and suggestive of powers difficult to understand.
Since time itself is regarded as non-causal, and does not embody notions of change and progress, nothing in the universe can be considered to be inevitable.
This incomprehensibility and unpredictability of the universe, anything difficult to understand, is called 'wakan', which also connotes the animating force of the universe, the totality of which is 'Wakan Tanka'. Wakan Tanka is the sum total of the personified powers that brought all things into being.
Humankind itself formed in and emerged from the womb of Mother Earth, as did the buffalo. Everything has its own spirit but all share the same spiritual essence that is Wakan Tanka; so it is that the most important aspects of personality are shared by everything in the universe.
Other beings often shared their knowledge with humans or provided aid in time of crisis (See Mary Crow Dog:1991 pp.178-180), and so came to be thought of as 'people'.
The observance of the human-like characteristics of these peoples led to the development of kinship with them. At birth one receives from Takuskanskan a guardian spirit and the life-breath or ghost which comes from the stars; at death these return to the spirit world.
it's beautifully simple. i like how instead of making imaginary gods, they worshipped the real actual tangible earth that kept them living, and respected all parts of it. it's kind of like the theory of Gaia, which is probably the closest thing to a religion i have anyway.
idk, makes me happy.
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