I know that spirituality in Native American culture varies from different tribes. But as for their Great Spirit/Great Mystery/Wakan Tanka etc… Do you feel this being is as having a sort of a similarity to any other deities? Or it being a concept of a concious universe or something? Some say that the Great Spirit and the christian God have similarities.
What are your thoughts?
Less Jehovah more like Shinto/taoist-esque.
The closest thing we had to that was a sun god called Hashtali. It wasn’t until Christianity showed up that you started seeing “Great Spirit” references as missionaries put their own spin on things.
Glooskap created the sky. But when you listen to his stories, he sounds a lot like Paul Bunyan.
The spirits - the manitu - are daemons. But also just people, but in different forms. Although you have to be wary of the dead. They can do bad things to you, a belief shared worldwide.
There was a lot less black vs. white in the old days. You could blame Christianity for the changes, but there were also things. The “magic” failed. There were battles, and the spells stopped working for whatever reason. So people lost their faith. Then the younger generations believed it when they were told the Other People were demons and evil. Even today gotta be careful when you say you do things. Just 100 years ago if a magician surfaced they would… disappear…
“Sh*t happens” is the best way I’ve ever been able to explain it. Things just are.