Orality - no written scripture, can alter details to suit the audience while retaining important information

Sacred Space - A physical location or area that is considered holy or divine.

Sacred Time - set apart, ordered, controlled, has a special purpose, moves cyclically while moving forward, corresponds to rhythms of nature

Animism - there is a life force in all things

Aborigine

Ancestors - supernatural beings who emerged and roamed the earth during the time of the dreaming, giving shape to the landscape and creating various forms of life

Dreaming - mythic period of the ancestors

• The Foundation

• The world was formless until the ancestors came and gave shape to the landscape and created all forms of life,

• When ancestors departed they left symbols of their presence

  • natural landmarks, rock paintings, etc.

Eternal Time - A concept of time that is infinite and without beginning or end.

Rainbow Serpent - A mythological creature or deity associated with creation and fertility.

Reenactment of Myth - The performance or recreation of a mythological story or event.

• Dance - A form of artistic expression involving rhythmic movements of the body.

• Painting - The act of creating visual art using various materials and techniques.

Taboo - dictates that certain things and activities owing to their sacred nature are set aside for specific members of the group and are forbidden to others

Totem - a natural entity such as an animal or a feature of the landscape, that symbolizes an individual or group and that has special significance for the religious life of the individual or group

Yoruba

Diviners - Ritual practitioners who specialize in the art of divination

Divination - the use of various techniques, such as throwing bones or shells and interpreting the pattern in which they fall, to gain knowledge about an individual’s future or about the cause of a personal problem

Family Ancestors - gained their supernatural status by earning a good reputation and living to old age and are now only worshipped by their own families

Deified Ancestors - important human figures known throughout Yoruba society and are now worshiped by large numbers of people

Olurun - Supreme God

• original source of power in the universe

• distant and therefore hardly worshipped

Oshun - goddess of divinity, femininity, fertility, beauty, and love. She is connected to destiny and divination

Orisha - created the earth

Oshun-Osogbo/Sacred Grove - A sacred forest in Nigeria dedicated to the worship of the goddess Oshun.

Native Americans

Axis Mundi - an entity such as a mountain, tree, or pole that is believed to connect the heavens and the earth and is sometimes regarded as the center of the world

Ghost Dance - A religious movement among Native American tribes in the late 19th century, seeking spiritual renewal and the return of ancestral lands.

Lakota/Plains People - A Native American tribe primarily inhabiting the Great Plains region of North America.

Sun Dance - a ritual of the Lakota and other tribes of the North American plains that celebrates the new year and prepares the tribe for the annual bison hunt; performed in the late spring or early summer in a specially constructed lodge.

Tribes:

• Iroquois - Pennsylvania area

• Anishinaabeg (Ojibwa) - Great Lake Area

• Dakota (Lakota) - Dakota Area/midwest

• Cherokee - Oklahoma to Tennessee

• Apache, Pueblo, Hopi - lower California to half of Texas

• Inuit, Aleut - Alaska

• Wampanoag - Massachusetts

Vision Quest - A means of seeking spiritual power through an encounter with a guardian spirit or other medium, usually in the form of an animal or other natural entity, following a period of fasting and other forms of self-denial

Wakan Tanka - Lakota name for the supreme reality, often referring collectively to sixteen separate deities