Becoming and Remaining a People: Native American Religions on the Northern Plains [Hardcover]

Howard L. Harrod (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1995

The power of religion to preserve individual and group identity is perhaps nowhere more evident than among Native American peoples. In Becoming and Remaining a People, Howard Harrod shows how the oral traditions and ritual practices of Northern Plains Indians developed, how they were transformed at critical points in their history, and how they provided them with crucial means of establishing and maintaining their respective identities. This book offers a bold new interpretation of anthropological studies, demonstrating how religious traditions and ritual processes became sources of group and individual identity for many people. Harrod reconstructs the long religious development of two village peoples, the Mandans and the Hidatsas, describing how their oral traditions enabled them to reinterpret their experiences as circumstances changed. He then shows how these and other groups on the Northern Plains remained distinct peoples in the face of increased interactions with Euro-Americans, other Indians,.and the new religion of Christianity. Harrod proposes that other interpretations of culture change may fail to come to terms with the role that religion plays in motivating both cultural conservatism and social change. For Northern Plains peoples, religion was at the heart of social identity and thus resisted change, but religion was also the source of creative reinterpretation, which produced culture change. Viewed from within the group, such change often seemed natural and was understood as an elaboration of traditions having roots in a deeper shared past. In addition to demonstrating religious continuity and change among the Mandans and the Hidatsas, he also describes instances of religious and social transformation among the peoples who became the Crows and the Cheyennes. Becoming and Remaining a People adopts a challenging analytical approach that draws on the author's creative interpretations of rituals and oral traditions. By enabling us to understand the relation of religion both to the construction of social identity and to the interpretation of social change, it reveals the richness, depth, and cultural complexity of both past Native American people and their contemporary successors.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Clearly shows how northern Plains religious experience and interpretations shaped new patterns of identity and social reconstruction." —Great Plains Quarterly

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

The power of religion to preserve individual and group identity is perhaps nowhere more evident than among Native American peoples. In Becoming and Remaining a People, Howard Harrod shows how the oral traditions and ritual practices of Northern Plains Indians developed, how they were transformed at critical points in their history, and how they provided them with crucial means of establishing and maintaining their respective identities. This book offers a bold new interpretation of anthropological studies, demonstrating how religious traditions and ritual processes became sources of group and individual identity for many people. Harrod reconstructs the long religious development of two village peoples, the Mandans and the Hidatsas, describing how their oral traditions enabled them to reinterpret their experiences as circumstances changed. He then shows how these and other groups on the Northern Plains remained distinct peoples in the face of increased interactions with Euro-Americans, other Indians,.and the new religion of Christianity. Harrod proposes that other interpretations of culture change may fail to come to terms with the role that religion plays in motivating both cultural conservatism and social change. For Northern Plains peoples, religion was at the heart of social identity and thus resisted change, but religion was also the source of creative reinterpretation, which produced culture change. Viewed from within the group, such change often seemed natural and was understood as an elaboration of traditions having roots in a deeper shared past. In addition to demonstrating religious continuity and change among the Mandans and the Hidatsas, he also describes instances of religious and social transformation among the peoples who became the Crows and the Cheyennes. Becoming and Remaining a People adopts a challenging analytical approach that draws on the author's creative interpretations of rituals and oral traditions. By enabling us to understand the relation of religion both to the construction of social identity and to the interpretation of social change, it reveals the richness, depth, and cultural complexity of both past Native American people and their contemporary successors.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 149 pages
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press; First Edition edition (October 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816515832
• ISBN-13: 978-0816515837
• Product Dimensions: 149 x 9 x 6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,913,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Thoughtful Book, November 10, 2001

By 

Michael K. Turner (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Becoming and Remaining a People: Native American Religions on the Northern Plains (Studies in Anglican History) (Paperback)

Howard Harrod's Becoming and Remaining a People: Native American Religions on the Northern Plains argues that the changing of rituals and other aspects of religious practice played a pivotal role in the transformation of the formerly agricultural culture of the Northern Plains into a buffalo culture.

Harrod agrees that the white person's contact with the Native American's had a substantial impact on Native society. He is contending that an exclusive emphasis on contact with the whites can obscure the actions of the Native. Native Americans were not passive spectators to the influx of Europeans; in fact, the Natives actively responded to their changing circumstances ritually as well as politically. This means, that their religious system underwent change that in turn impacted the social structures of Northern Plain culture.

This active change on the part of the Northern Indians is a point of incredible importance. Harrod notes that many of the religious innovations were not seen as a break with tradition. Instead, they were perceived as a development of already existing religious and cultural practices and, thus, continuous with the Northern Plain Native American's social existence. Specifically, these changes could be legitimized by the peoples' visions and dreams. Harrod argues, moreover, that these changes are a testimony to the sheer capability of the Native Americans.