Cree religion

Cree religion is the traditional Native American religion of the Cree people. Found primarily in Sub-Arctic regions of northern North America, it is practiced within Cree communities in Canada. The tradition has no formal leadership or organizational structure and displays much internal variation.

Definition and classification

The Cree traditionally had no cultural separation of the religious and the secular. Native American religions more broadly have always adapted in response to environmental changes and interactions with other communities. The Cree share many cultural elements with the neighboring Ojibwe people.

Beliefs

Among the Cree, and the northern Ojibwe, the thunderbirds are sometimes called pinesiwak.

The anthropologist Colin Scott characterised the Cree worldview as being animistic. He noted that the Cree traditionally conceive "the world as a community of living entities and relationships".

Success in a hunt is deemed to require the prey animal's cooperation, with the latter thus regarded as a gift. The Cree traditionally believe that prey should be killed respectfully, without waste, and with consideration for the well-being of that species' broader population.

Practices

Sun dance

Some Ojibwe living near the Plains region also engaged in the sun dance, a practice likely adopted from the Cree.

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading

• Brightman, Robert. 1993. Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Dusenberry, Verne. The Montana Cree: A Study in Religious Persistence.
• Scott, Colin. 1988. "Property, Practice, and Aboriginal Rights among Quebec Cree Hunters". In Hunters and Gatherers, vol. 2: Property, Power and Ideology. Tim Ingold, David Riches, and James Woodburn, eds. Pp. 35–51. Oxford: Berg.
• Scott, Colin. 2007. "Bear Metaphor: Spirit, Ethics and Ecology in Wemindji Cree Hunting." In La Nature des Esprits dans les Cosmologies Autochtones / Nature of Spirits in Aboriginal Cosmologies. Frédéric Β. Laugrand and Jarich G. Oosten, eds. Pp. 387–399. Québec: Les Presses del'Université Laval.
• Tanner, Adrian. 1979. Bringing Home Animals: Religious Ideology and Mode of Production of the Mistassini Cree Hunters. New York: St. Martin's Press.
• Tanner, Adrian. 2007. "The Nature of Québec Cree Animist Practices and Beliefs." In La Nature des Esprits dans les Cosmologies Autochtones / Nature of Spirits in Aboriginal Cosmologies. Frédéric Β. Laugrand and Jarich G. Oosten, eds. Pp. 133–150. Québec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval.