A Comparison of Native American Religious Writing to Early Puritan Writings.
             The Native Americans like every other civilization in the known world have creation stories. These creation stories basically tell the origins of the world as the they know it. For the Native Americans these stories were passed down orally, they did not keep written records of the stories. These oral stories are in some sense the Native American version of the bible. It was a way of thinking and perceiving the world around them. It provided answers to why things happened the way they did and it gave the Native American a sense of morality. Although Native Americans often participated in warfare, they did it with a sense of honor and being not commonly employed by their Caucasian counterparts. As a whole Native American culture is a thing of beauty, celebrating not only the physical world around them but also the spiritual. They did not believe in a single deity ruling over them, but instead used myths and teachings about the Great Spirit to explain things. The Great Spirit was in essence Mother Nature. It was akin to the force in Star Wars in the sense that it was a part of all of us, from the smallest insect to the mightiest war chief. It was not a benevolent spirit nor was it a spirit of hatred. Rather it was a neutral entity. Life and death moved in the same circle.
             When the pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock they saw a foreign land filled with "red skinned savages." These savages were of course the Native Americans. In general the pilgrims did not understand the Native Americans and deemed them heathens or devils. How is it that a group of people so proud of nature and beautiful of spirit could be outcast and maligned by the Pilgrims? One answer might be that the Pilgrims were in a unknown land and had to shut themselves off from the Native Americans. This might be true but I look to the writings and teachings of the religious leaders...