Author:
Publication: Associate
Press
Date: August 8, 2000
Religious Beliefs Among
American Indians Diverge
In Robeson County and
on the Cherokee reservation in the Smoky Mountains, small but growing groups
of Indians are rejecting Christianity as the religion of white oppressors.
While conservative Christians
far outnumber traditionalists among the state's 80,000 Indians, more and
more are bristling against the evangelism offered since a 1780s law encouraged
Indians to "worship one true God" and give up their religion.
"Cherokees are preaching
to other Cherokees and saying, 'You're going to hell if you play drums,"'
said Amy Walker, a Cherokee-Lakota who practices traditional religion and
lives on the Qualla Boundary, a reservation which is home to more than
7,500 Cherokees.
The desire of some to
return to traditional Native American worship comes even as a Lumbee Indian
heads the state's largest Baptist group.
The Rev. Mike Cummings
is president of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, a predominantly
white group of 1.2 million members. He also is the director of the
Burnt Swamp Association, a group of 65 Indian churches in nine eastern
North Carolina counties that includes members of four other tribes.
Their Baptist services
take on a style that Cummings says is distinctly Indian.
"It takes an individual
response. We're very much focused on that ... and maybe even
kind of a mystical awareness of God in our midst," Cummings said.
Inside a mobile home
in Robeson County that serves as their church, a small group of Lumbee
Indians including Cummings listened to a sweating preacher's raspy words
about a God who will one day come again from the eastern sky. Worshippers
in the Living Waters Baptist congregation jumped up and down. Others
called out to their Lord in rhythmic chants.
Even as thousands of
Robeson County's 40,000 Indians embrace Christianity, Pete Clark and as
many as 100 other Indians turn to traditional Indian religion.
Clark, an 81-year-old
retired math teacher, is a Lumbee-Creek. His small frame house in
Pembroke is just down the road from a sign that says "Time is running out:
Turn your heart to Jesus."
On a recent morning,
he burned sage to cleanse the air in his home and talked about his religion.
It includes spiritual cleansing and constant, daily prayers to The Creator,
whom he also calls the Great Spirit.
"You just close your
eyes. You don't have to say it out loud because the Great Spirit
can hear what you're saying," said Clark, whose Indian name is Spotted
Turtle.
Four times a year, Clark
and other traditionalists gather at the North Carolina Indian Cultural
Center near Pembroke and hold sacred fire ceremonies in which they give
thanks to the Great Spirit.
Myrtle Driver Johnson
recently left her Southern Baptist church after her minister spoke out
against tribal religion.
Unlike many Indians,
Johnson, 56, didn't have to learn the old ways. She was raised with
native traditions in her family's home on the Qualla Boundary
Cherokees say that ancient
spiritual leaders received a set of moral and ethical codes from The Creator
and gave them to the people at a Swain County spot called Kituwah.
Cherokees believe it to be the birthplace of their people. The codes
became known as the "Kituwah Way."
It is a faith handed
down through generations of Cherokees, she said, and it is not easy to
explain. Traditional Indian religion includes an emphasis on harmony
with nature, the interconnectedness of all things, and constant prayer.
"It's not, 'Lesson Number
13 _ this is what we're going to talk about today.' They learn by living
it," Johnson said.
Johnson and other believers
join in group worship that comes in the form of spiritual cleansing and
long ceremonies at which men, women and children dance around night fires
at remote spots.
Some believe the flames
to be The Creator's embodiment, one of many natural forms The Creator can
take.
On a reservation where
gambling and Indian culture are for sale to tourists, Cherokee traditionalists
closely guard the privacy of their worship ceremonies. Faith is not
something to be flaunted, the organizers say.
"It's just between us
and The Creator. It sounds like we're being separatist, but it was
given to us for a reason," said Bo Taylor, the archivist at the Museum
of the Cherokee Indian.
