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Most of those that people would call "pagans" are no different than American Indians in that they believe in earth spirits, the balance of nature and energies, and that every man/woman should find his or her humble place in this world where they can live off the land and be free, hence the connection between pagans (countryside) and the people who live these practices, practices which I won't name here because there are too many to do so.
Originally posted by PrimalRed
American Indians have a WIDE variety of religions that were changing over times...
Archaeologists propose that tens of thousands of years ago a somewhat uniform culture stretched around the northernmost regions of the globe from Greenland and Scandinavia to northern Asia and Siberia. The peoples of this circumpolar culture shared a common history and many religious beliefs and practices including animism, shamanism, and ceremonies centered around hunting and animals. The culture reached down into China, where it influenced the development of Taoism, and Tibet, whose shamanistic Bon culture left its stamp on Tibetan Buddhism. Beginning as long as 60,000 years ago, the peoples of northern Asia migrated across what is now the Bering Sea to Alaska and Canada, and then down through the Great Plains of North America to Central and South America.
The culture of theese migrants, the ancestors of the North American Indians, incorporated elements of religion based on both nomadic hunting (mountain and sky gods) and agriculture (earth goddesses, shrines, and temples). As in many Goddess religions, the Native Ameircan conception divides the universe into heaven, earth, and underworld. Distinctions among spirits, divinities, humans, and animals are often blurred. Animals, places, even stones and trees can possess spirits that interact with humans in a kind of cosmic harmony, similar to the ancient concept of kami in the Shinto tradition of Japan. This belief, known as animism, is common to many preliterate religions which hold that personal, intelligent spirits inhabit almost all natural objects, from stones, plants, and rivers to insects, birds, animals, trees, and mountains. Indians regard some, but not all, places as sacred; certain locations and animals are singled out as manifestations of the supernatural, including those seen in dreams or visions.