Native Americans are traditionally very spiritual people, and most tribes revere “The Great Spirit”. This is an English translation of The Creator, a deity or “God”. Native American culture to this day honors The Great Spirit, and  pay homage to the presence of The Great Spirit in all living things.

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What is The Great Spirit?

The Great Spirit is a beautiful example of a non-theistic belief in an active, personal, non-anthropomorphic Deity that is intertwined with the fabric of the Universe itself on the large scale and yet is personally engaged with the web of living things and the world on an earthly scale.

 

These cultures are not completely homogeneous, and there are a variety of creation mythologies that need not concern us as (in my opinion at least) these cultures have always been aware that their mythologies are myths, that their legends are legends, that their sacred stories are stories, and thus they have avoided the curse of socially enforced orthodoxy or any sort of insistence on ``belief''. The myths themselves are intended and used as teaching stories that guide individual behavior in ways that support the individual and the community, not as metaphysical speculation.

 

These religions also seem to lack the hellfire and damnation meme - the Great Spirit doesn't punish people for being bad, doesn't inflict eternal torment on people for ``not believing in It''. In these cultures, a life out of balance with the Great Spirit, with the earth, with the community is its own punishment.

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The concept of a universal spiritual force represents a god of creation and eternity. It speaks through chosen individuals or mediators and provides guidance to humans.

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The Great Spirit is perceived as both male and female, separate but one divine deity, though some tribes refer to it as “Father”, “Grandfather”, or “Old Man”.

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The Mother Earth aspect of The Great Spirit harks back to Neolithic Goddess culture. Women shared equality with men and the Divine Feminine was the source of animal, vegetation, and human life.

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In the post-Goddess era, the masculine hierarchy thrived, yet among Native American tribal culture, the masculine and feminine are far more generally balanced than for most Western religions and cultural traditions. Women in Native American culture enjoy an influence and respect exceeding that of almost any other culture worldwide.

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• The Great Spirit is seen by the Lakota Sioux, for example, as an amalgamation of Father Sky (the dominant force), Mother Earth, and an array of Spirits who oversee human life and the elements.

• The Shoshone call their creator god “Tam Apo” which translates as “Our Father”.

• Some tribes represent the Supreme Being as an animal, most often a wolf, having human thought and speech.

 

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The Great Spirit - Tribal Names for the Supreme Being

The differences in the beliefs connected to the Great Spirit are demonstrated by the variety of different names given by tribes in reference to the Supreme Being:

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• The most generic name attributed to the Great Spirit is the Great Mystery or the Supreme Being

• The Sioux name for the Great Spirit is 'Wakan Tanka' which translates as the Great Mystery and referred to as the "Great Incomprehensibility" The Sioux believed that every object was spirit, or "wakan."

• The Shoshone name for the Great Spirit is "Tam Apo" meaning "Our Father"

• The Chickasaw name for the Great Spirit is "Ababinili"

• Many Algonquian speaking tribes of the Great Plains, such as the Ojibwe, refer to the Great Spirit as "Gitchi Manitou"

• The Blackfoot name for the Supreme Being is "Apistotoke"

• The Arapaho name for the Supreme Being is "Chebbeniathan"

• The Abenaki name for the Supreme Being is "Gici Niwaskw"

• The Huron name for the Supreme Being is "Ha-Wen-Neyu"

• The Cheyenne name for the Supreme Being is "Maheo"

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Other Native Religious Concepts

American Indian religions feature certain other distinct beliefs and traditions:

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• Mythological anthropomorphic animals imbued with spirits.

• Spirits inhabit everything from the stars to rivers, mountains, rocks, fire, air, animals, insects, lakes, and the earth itself.

• Belief in reincarnation into human or animal form.

• Ghosts walking the Earth among the living.