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Bioethics Center Reading Group: John Grim
American Indian Religions and Ecology
In the first of three meetings of this reading group we will briefly examine the plurality and diversity of American Indian peoples, languages, cultures, and relationships with ecosystems in North America. This first meeting will also focus on the Anishinabe/Ojibway people of the Great Lakes region. Drawing on the narratives of Anishinabe elders we will investigate the concept of “lifeways,” namely, an understanding that religious beliefs and practices cannot be separated from other spheres of life such as governance, economics, politics, and social life. The second meeting will investigate the interactions of the Dineh/Navajo and Pueblo peoples of the Southwest with their home bioregions. We will examine the narratives and rituals of these native peoples in an effort to understand their place-based knowledge especially the linkage between religious identity and local bioregions. The final meeting will explore select origin myths, cosmologies, sacred sites, symbol systems, and rituals of Salish peoples and other language groups of the Northwest coast. Through this examination of sacred narratives, social structures, and ritual practices the reading group will explore the traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) with which these coastal people and American Indians have shaped their lifeways and their bioregions.
For further information, contact ashley.simmons@yale.edu or carol.pollard@yale.edu