Jim Dugan Native American Religions Exam Vocab Save Groups

Final Exam Vocab

Agency

The ability of a being to set their own goals and to act in accordance with those goals.

Agency Detection Device (ADD)

An aspect of human cognition that alerts us to the likely presence of a being with agency.

Agricultural Kingdom

A social structure based on intensive agriculture, usually including a ruling class and workers tied to their land.

Agriculture

A subsistence pattern based on planned farming, including planting, weeding, fertilization, and irrigation.

Animatism

A worldview asserting an impersonal and supernatural force that is more or less present in some persons, objects, and places.

Animism

A worldview asserting numerous spirits, supernatural beings able to act on nature and human beings in various ways.

Anthropology

The study of human beings, especially in social groups.

Anthropomorphism

A tendency to perceive or assert human-like characteristics in beings or objects that are not human.

Artifact

An object produced by human activity.

Axis Mundi

The "World Axis," a pole or tree that holds up the heavens above, the earth in the middle, and the underworld below, according to the cosmology of some peoples.

Assimilation

A process of reducing cultural differences, making one group of people more like another group.

Beringia

A landmass that connected modern-day Alaska and eastern Siberia during the last Ice Age.

Bilateral Kinship

A system of reckoning family relationships that gives approximately equal weight to both one's mother's kin and one's father's kin.

Carrying Capacity

The number of people that can be supported in a specific territory, given that territory's ecology and the subsistence technology used by the people.

Chicomoztoc

"Seven Caves" in the Aztec (Nahuatl) language, the term refers to an origin myth which says that the Aztec people emerged from a set of seven caves.

Clan

A named social group including multiple households that all presumably descend from some common ancestor or founder.

Cognition

the mental process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR)

The interdisciplinary study of religious ideas and behaviors from the standpoint of the scientific study of the mind.

Colonize

To settle a new territory and bring it under political control.

Cosmology

The origin and structure of the universe, as understood by an ethnic group.

Diabolization

A process of portraying a person or group of people as having characteristics like those of the Devil.

Doctrine

A formal and comprehensive statement of the beliefs and practices of a religious group.

Earth-Diver Myth

A creation myth in which aquatic birds or animals bring mud up from beneath primordial waters for creator-gods to use to fashion the earth.

Emergence Myth

An origin myth in which a people or ethnic group come to live on the earth's surface after leaving a cave or underground location.

Emic

Based on or using the values and concepts of the members of a social group to describe that social group (an "insider's" perspective).

Endonym

A name for a society or group that is used by its members.

Endogamy

An aspect of kinship that encourages individuals to marry within their own clan or other social group.

Ethnocentrism

A tendency to see one's own culture as superior to the culture of others, or closer to the "true" nature of human beings and groups.

Ethnocide

The elimination of an ethnic group as a distinct identity, at least requiring assimilation, but sometimes including population reduction and violence.

Ethnography

A detailed description of the internal structure, lifeways, and beliefs of a social group.

Ethnonym

A name or label used to identify a cultural or ethnic group or society.

Etic

Based on or using the values and concepts of the observer to describe a social group of which the observer is not a member (an "outsider's" perspective).

Exogamy

An aspect of kinship that encourages individuals to marry outside their own clan or other social group.

Exonym

A name or label used by one group of people to designate a different group.

Gai'wiio (Gaiwiio or Gaiwiyo)

The "Good News" or "Longhouse Religion" founded by the Seneca prophet Handsome Lake, blending Christian and Indigenous American beliefs, practices, and symbols.

Genocide

The intentional destruction of a social group, usually including violence, the imposition of poor living conditions, and forced assimilation.

Geofact

A naturally occurring object, especially one that might be mistaken for an object produced by human activity.

Gitchi Manitou

An Algongquian term labeling the Great Spirit or Great Mystery.

Handsome Lake

A Seneca Indian who died in 1815; a visionary and prophet in his later years, he founded a syncretized religion called the Gai'wiio or "Good News."

Horticulture

A subsistence pattern in which people encourage the growth of selected plants, but without extensive planning, irrigation, or fertilization.

Huitzilopochtli

Meaning "Hummingbird of the South," this is the most important god in the ancient Aztec pantheon.

Hunting-Gathering

A subsistence pattern based on hunting game and foraging for naturally occurring plant foods.

Immanence

A tendency in some religions to conceptualize the sacred or spiritual as near at hand, as permanently part of tangible things.

Indigenous

Referring to the people who inhabited a territory before the arrival of colonizers.

Mana

A term for an impersonal, supernatural force, originally from the cultures of Oceania but sometimes applied to other cultures.

Manitou

A term for an impersonal, supernatural force, sometimes extended to spiritual beings, originating among the Algonquian peoples of North America.

Matrilineal

Kinship A system of reckoning kinship that places greater value or emphasis on one's mother's kin than on one's father's kin.

Mitochondrial

DNA A type of DNA (genes) that can trace a maternal line of descent (mother's mother's mother, etc.) over many thousands of years.

Monolithicize

A tendency to view diverse peoples and cultures as identical or interchangeable.

Mythology

A set of stories and symbols with metaphorical meanings that are more important than historical or scientific meanings.

Nuclear

DNA A type of DNA (genes) that is selected and shuffled with each generation and can trace relationships on both one's mother's and one's father's side, within a few centuries.

Orenda

A term for an impersonal, supernatural force, sometimes extended to spiritual beings, originating among the Iroquoian peoples of North America.

Orthodoxy

A religious emphasis on the importance of holding correct (prescribed) beliefs

Orthopraxy

A religious emphasis on the importance of correct behavior, of adhering to rules about acceptable and unacceptable actions.

Pareidolia

A human cognitive tendency to perceive patterns even where there are none ("seeing faces in the clouds").

Patrilineal Kinship

A system of reckoning kinship that places greater value or emphasis on one's father's kin than on one's mother's kin.

Promiscuous Teleology

The tendency of human minds to perceive or project purpose onto many things.

Reciprocity

Exchange that is mutually beneficial, especially within a worldview that acknowledges and values interdependence.

Religion

(according to Geertz) "A system of symbols which act to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in [people] by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."

Rite of Passage

A ritual that marks an important change in identity or status of an individual within their community. Siberia A large area of Northern Asia, including much of what is now Asian Russia.

Sinodonty

A dental pattern typical of the indigenous peoples or North Asia and the Americas, typically including shovel-shaped incisors.

Specialization

In societies of larger scale, the tendency of some individuals to concentrate on a narrow range of skills and to exchange the products or services of those skills for food, clothing, and shelter.

Syncretism

The blending of cultures when people of different cultures meet, often including the exchange of words, goods, genes, and religious ideas.

Taboo

A prohibition against doing, saying, or associating with something.

Theory of Mind

A natural part of human cognition that focuses on estimating and predicting what other humans are thinking and feeling and how they are likely to behave.

Transcendence

A tendency in some religions to conceptualize the sacred or spiritual as remote, separate from the realm of the physical.

Turtle Island

A name for North America used by many Indigenous peoples because their creation stories include a turtle who volunteers to act as the support on which creators build the surface of the land.

Unilineal Kinship

A system of reckoning family relationships that views an individual as being more closely related to the kin of one parent than the other.

Y-Chromosome

A type of DNA (genes) that can trace a paternal line of descent (father's father's father, etc.) over many thousands of years.

Wakan

A term for an impersonal, supernatural force, sometimes extended to spiritual beings, originating among the Siouan peoples of North America.

Wakan Tanka

A Lakota Sioux term labeling the Great Spirit or Great Mystery.