The Indians believed in the Great Spirit - Wakan Tanka.

The Great Spirit is everything that ever was - without beginning or end. It is not a force or a being like in Jewish, Christian or Muslim faiths.

The Great Spirit is not human nor any other creature. Humans are part of nature like everything else and do not rule nature.

Everything, living or not, has equal value and importance.

Human beings could contact the Great Spirit through visions. Young men went on quests to see their visions before they became adults. If they saw their spirit easily they could become Shaman or Medicine Men.

Circles were important to the Indians as they had no beginning and no end. The sun, the moon, and the circle of life all had meaning this way.

Rituals such as the Sun Dance gave new life to the tribe. War Dances and Scalp Dances gave energy and thanks for battles won.

Indians believed that they went to the Happy Hunting Ground when they died. However they would always try to survive a battle rather than die needlessly.

In some battles Indians humiliated their enemies rather than killed them by hitting them with coup sticks or stealing their ponies.

White engraving of an Indian scalping.

Click to see full-size. (big pic)

To prevent an enemy from meeting them in the afterlife and seeking revenge, bodies were mutilated - eyes gouged out, genitals cut off, and the famous scalping of the enemies' heads. Needless to say this made the Euro-Americans think they were 'savages' and 'barbarians'.

The Indians thought the Europeans as strange for mining the land and ploughing it - this was as bad as raping the Great Spirit. They were also primitive communists - they believed that land could not be owned by humans.

It was inevitable that the two beliefs would clash.