 |
| English: Collage of public domain images of Hopi. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The Great Spirit or
Great Mystery is generally believed to be personal, close to the people, and immanent in the fabric of the
material world. Lakotah prayers refer to him as Grandfather; however, not all
Nations assign gender, or only one gender, to the Great Mystery. Chief Dan
Evehema, a spiritual leader of the Hopi
Nation, described the Great Spirit as follows:
"To
the Hopi, the Great Spirit is all powerful. He taught us how to live, to
worship, where to go and what food to carry, gave us seeds to plant and
harvest. He gave us a set of sacred stone tablets into which he breathed all
teachings in order to safeguard his land and life. In these stone tablets were
inscribed instructions, prophecies and warnings."[citation needed]
"Old Man"
is how the Great Spirit is "known" by the Blackfoot people. Old Man
personally created all things and personally instructed the Blackfoot people on
how to attain spiritual wisdom in daily life:
Old
Man is not an anthropomorphic
and anthropopathic god
like Jesus, nor a panentheistic
deity as in Brahmanism out of which the whole fabric of existence is derived.
Rather, Old Man is simply acknowledged to exist in the sense of the
Aristotelian "prime
mover" ("prime mover" idiom provided for the benefit of
European audiences) and the traditional teachings are attributed to
"him" as a source. There are specific tales regarding Old Man doing
this or that or saying this or that but rather than being enshrined in a
ritualistic, symbolic, or codified religion, these teachings are more used to
guide individuals and communities on a moment-by-moment basis. It is not a set
of laws or code of living as much as a cultural lifestyle which focuses on the
daily needs of the individual and the nation rather than any
"universal" speculation.
Ababinili is how the Great
Spirit is "known" by the Chickasaw people. Ababinili
personally created all things and personally instructed the Chickasaw people on
"how to live long and healthy lives". In Chickasaw tradition
Ababinili has extensive talks with various parts of "his" creation
regarding the relation of mankind to Creation and how Creation and mankind each
ought to behave in each case.
Spider Grandmother
is the creative agency among the Hopi who personally created the four
"colors" of mankind. She attributes to the Sun the power of Creation
of all things and origin of all spiritual wisdom and in this way the Sun
becomes the living manifestation for the Hopi of the Great Mystery which is
personally "known" as Sotuknang.
It is a wholly
independent concept which acknowledges real-life physical interdependence and
relationships between the real physical Sun and all things in the web of
Creation as opposed to allegorical symbolism prevalent in the Middle Eastern or
African national (ethnic, not political) religions. In Hopi tradition, life is
defined as a process of change and prevailing and persistent human concepts
across time are known as distinct "worlds." This concept of life as a
process of change is so prevalent that a person is acknowledged as a new
identity each day and there is no such thing as a static personal identity upon
which to create such static speculative religious concepts as an eternal Heaven
or Hell as a "final destination."
No comments:
Post a Comment