SOC 2805 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Mary Jemison, Bibliobazaar, Seneca People
Document Summary
Many north american tribal groups were originally monotheist, and many retained a remnant of this element at least. As i noted in the lecture notes, for example, the seneca people held five feasts per year in which they had sacrifices and gave thanks to the great good spirit, the creator of the world (called, in seneca, nau-wan-e-u). He had a lesser brother, who was evil, and lived in a barren land apart by himself, but who tried to bring evil into his brother"s land. The all-powerful nau-wan-e-u always was able to defeat him, however (see the appendix, "of their religion- feast- and great sacrifice" in the life of mary. Jemison, james seaver, edition of 1824, reprinted 1982 by the american scenic and historic. For some middle african groups, this was not as much the case. But we are dealing with broad generalizations because of the very wide variety and number of groups under this category.
