Spirit Wars: Native North American Religions in the Age of Nation Building

Spirit Wars: Native North American Religions in the Age of Nation Building
ISBN-10
052092343X
ISBN-13
9780520923430
Series
Spirit Wars
Category
History
Pages
280
Language
English
Published
2000-08-28
Publisher
Univ of California Press
Author
Ronald Niezen

Description

Spirit Wars is an exploration of the ways in which the destruction of spiritual practices and beliefs of native peoples in North America has led to conditions of collective suffering--a process sometimes referred to as cultural genocide. Ronald Niezen approaches this topic through wide-ranging case studies involving different colonial powers and state governments: the seventeenth-century Spanish occupation of the Southwest, the colonization of the Northeast by the French and British, nineteenth-century westward expansion and nationalism in the swelling United States and Canada, and twentieth-century struggles for native people's spiritual integrity and freedom. Each chapter deals with a specific dimension of the relationship between native peoples and non-native institutions, and together these topics yield a new understanding of the forces directed against the underpinnings of native cultures.

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