not develop systems of writing, so they left no religious texts
or mythic epics. In Mesoamerica several ancient civilizations
employed hieroglyphic scripts to record information. How-
ever, in some cases, like the early Olmec culture (ca. 1500–ca.
400 b.c.e.), we are not yet able to decipher these writing sys-
tems. Advances in the decipherment of Maya glyphs (sym-
bolic characters used in writing) have opened new windows
into the mythic cosmology and royal religious rituals of this
culture. However, Maya inscriptions do not become plentiful
until the Early Classic Period (ca. 150–ca. 550 c.e.), and ear-
lier examples are more diffi cult to read and interpret.
For other Mesoamerican groups and for all of the peo-
ples of ancient North and South America, scholars must
make inferences about their beliefs from archaeological evi-
dence. Finding objects buried with the dead, for example,
allows archaeologists to infer belief in an aft erlife where the
deceased would have need of such items. Excavated artifacts
or arrangements of objects that appear to have served no
practical purpose may yield information on religious ritu-
als—or such an interpretation might simply refl ect our own
lack of knowledge of ancient behavior. Large, elaborate, or
specialized buildings lacking traces of domestic activities of-
ten are best interpreted as shrines or temples. Human and
animal images carved in stone, modeled in clay, or painted
on rock faces, ceramics, or architecture provide glimpses of
gods, spirits, and ritual practitioners, though in the absence
of written texts, interpretation of these works of art necessar-
ily involves speculation.
All of these archaeological fi nds require considerable
interpretation. In some areas and cases, archaeologists use
the religious beliefs of much later historical Native American
peoples from the same geographic region as a framework to
understand the ancient material. Th is practice can be risky
guesswork—we rarely can be sure whether later peoples were
truly related to ancient cultures in the same areas or repre-
sent relative newcomers. In any case, religion and cosmo-
logical ideas can change drastically over millennia, as the
documented history of Old World religions clearly show.
A more cautious approach uses the behavior of later Native
Americans as well as other peoples at similar levels of social
organization as possible analogies for understanding ancient
religion, without suggesting direct historical connections.
BEGINNINGS
We possess very little information to help us understand the
religious beliefs of the fi rst settlers of the Americas from Asia
at the end of the last ice age 10,000 to 12,000 or more years
ago. Th eir deliberate burial of the dead, accompanied by tools
and weapons, and evidence of funerary rituals, like crema-
tion, indicate a belief in an aft erlife. Some scholars attempt
to reconstruct the basic ideas of the religion of the earliest
Native Americans by comparing the beliefs and practices of
much later Native American groups across the Americas.
Certain ideas about the universe and patterns of ritual be-
havior are shared by many indigenous peoples throughout
North, South, and Central America, suggesting that these
concepts were introduced by the ancient common ancestors
of all of these diverse cultures. For example, many Native
American cosmologies view the earth as the middle level of a
multilayered universe, with a watery underworld beneath and
the sky realm of sun, moon, and other celestial spirits above.
Oft en a mythical central axis or pathway, seen as a giant tree,
unites all three levels and passes through the center of the
earth, allowing spirits and humans to cross from the earth
to other levels of the universe. Frequently, the four cardinal
directions—north, south, east, and west—are also sacred and
determine the plan of the universe, and each is equated with
a symbolic color.
Closely related to these widespread beliefs among Na-
tive Americans is a common type of religious specialist, the
shaman. Modern shamans are ritual practitioners who are
believed to be able to travel to the spirit worlds above and
below the earth, oft en along the central axis of the cosmos,
while in trance states induced by fasting, repeatedly drum-
ming and dancing, using hallucinogens, or employing other
means. Th ey use their abilities to contact and control nature
spirits, spirits of the dead, or deities in order to cure illnesses,
predict the future, and obtain good hunting results or har-
vests for their clients. Shamans throughout the Americas
are believed to ally themselves with guardian spirits, oft en
in animal form, who help them perform magic. In a trance
state the shaman may experience being transformed into an
animal and may do battle against evil spirits and other sha-
mans in this form. Because shamanism is common along the
Pacifi c coast of Asia from Vietnam north to Siberia as well as
in the Americas and because the ice age ancestors of Native
Americans came from northeast Asia, some anthropologists
see shamanism as part of the cultural “baggage” brought into
the New World by the fi rst settlers.
We also have little evidence for religion among the ar-
chaic hunting and collecting peoples who succeeded the fi rst
Native Americans (ca. 7000–ca. 1800 b.c.e.). Burial prac-
tices in some areas, like eastern North America, grew more
elaborate, suggesting more complex ideas of a hereaft er. Rock
paintings across the New World show human and animal fi g-
ures. Some rock art in the American West shows strangely
costumed fi gures, who may be shamans, and geometric pat-
terns that some anthropologists equate with visual patterns
experienced in hallucinatory trances. In Oaxaca in southern
Mexico, remains of dismembered bodies at a cave site hint at
the beginnings of human sacrifi ce some 7,000 years ago.EASTERN NORTH AMERICA
A striking increase in the complexity of burial and other ritu-
als took place in the North American Midwest and South-
east during the Early and Middle Woodland Periods (ca.
1000 b.c.e.–ca. 500 c.e.). Th e Adena culture of southern Ohio
erected large burial mounds over burials with elaborate grave
goods. Among these objects are stone tubes used as pipes
for smoking wild tobacco, a plant still used by native South862 religion and cosmology: The Americas