Encyclopedia of Religion

groups are mentioned by Alfred Métraux, who was the most important specialist in their religious systems (Métraux, 1949). Among ...

clouds. As the controller of all things, Eschetewuarha ensures that mankind receives water. In return for this favor, she ex- pe ...

It would appear that the tribal religions of the southern areas of South America were, in general, marked by a belief in a supre ...

ognize and venerate a maternal spirit of all game. She is the protector of the animal kingdom against mankind and main- tains a ...

upon a war party was organized for the purpose of acquiring a prisoner. The victim was shot with arrows and a portion of the bod ...

the sun but also to the animals. The Paresi-’Kabishi, an Ara- wakan tribe in the western Mato Grosso, have a secret cult in whic ...

tion of the bones of hunted game, can be traced to the belief that residual elements of the soul remain in the bones after death ...

the first phase of the initiation ceremonies for young boys in which religion is emphasized, the initiates learn how to contact ...

Becher, Hans. Poré/Perimbó: Einwirkungen der lunaren Mythologie auf den Lebensstil von drei Yanonámi-Stämmen, Surára, Paki- dái ...

Many myths deal with characteristics of the sky, and not a few with those of the underworld. There are also many sto- ries about ...

it so frightening that they fled back home with no desire to return to the End of the Sky. Sky, light, and darkness. Myths in wh ...

he advises a young woman who has tended him and won his friendship to take refuge on a high mountain nearby. Soon afterward, hea ...

The most famous of all South American high gods is the Andean deity Viracocha. Several etymologies have been pro- posed to expla ...

Another type of myth, and a very common one, attri- butes humanity’s fate to its disobedience of a divine com- mandment. It is s ...

edited by Johannes Wilbert (Los Angeles, 1970–), published as part of the “UCLA Latin American Studies” series. Sepa- rate volum ...

diately after landing in the New World, scholars, priests, scribes, and soldiers began describing and assimilating the Indians’ ...

From the time of the extirpators on, religion was the salient element or institution by which indigenous peoples were judged in ...

ual, and mythologies of the Indians, these men were interest- ed in classifying the cultures and religions they found by tracing ...

system. Examples of this approach are the monographs of William W. Stein (1961) on the Peruvian Andes, Allan R. Holmberg (1950) ...

life. In so doing they also made important claims concerning the pervasive character of “religion” and the impossibility of draw ...