Talk:Mythologies of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Native American religion
Wouldn't Native American religion be a better name for this article? "Religion" is a more NPOV term than "mythology". -- SwissCelt 04:30, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree (though both refer to distinct, if overlapping, things). What's more, this article could really do with some expansion... A mention of Native American Christianity might be in order; it would also help in the introduction to distinguish between traditional religion and modern religious developments like the Handsome Lake religion or the Peyote Church. QuartierLatin1968 [[Image:Red flag waving transparent.png|20px|El bien mas preciado es la libertad]] 21:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I also agree. After all, the many articles about Christianity do not refer to that religion's beliefs as "Christian mythology."  To do so here shows a dismissive cultural bias. StudierMalMarburg 22:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It's hard to tell what this article is really supposed to be about. Obviously there is a great diversity in religious practice among modern Native Americans. Is this meant to be a disambiguation page for the mythologies of different American Indian mythologies? There needs to be more consensus on this.--Cúchullain t/ c 06:38, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that Native American religion is a better terminology. Unfortunately all the sub articles are title mythology, like cherokee mythology. Therefore all other articles would warrant a name change. Frowanda (talk) 17:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)


 * There are also "religion" articles for at least a couple of these groups (Inca religion and Maya religion), and one that's described as "traditional beliefs" (Anishinaabe traditional beliefs). My sense is that in an ideal world we would, for each group, have a "religion" article to talk about the belief system and ritual practices, and a "mythology" article to talk about the traditional narratives.  Examples of how that might work would be Hinduism/Hindu mythology, Buddhism/Buddhist mythology, Religion in Japan/Japanese mythology and Christianity/Christian mythology.  Would it make sense to create a parent Native American religion article paralleling this one, even if it's a stub, to point to those articles we do have that deal with the belief systems and rituals of Native American groups?  This one could stay much as it is, pointing to the "mythology" stubs.  Each would, of course, point to the other.  If nothing else, it might avoid any impression that we're ignoring everything except the stories.  It would also highlight what we're missing on the "religion" side (full disclosure - I, unfortunately, don't know enough about it to be able to write any of the missing articles myself). EastTN (talk) 01:16, 11 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I also agree that "mythology" is dismissive; all the subarticles should be changed. I'm out of my Wikipedia time this week, but maybe soon I'l l get to it. I came looking for Athabaskan religious info. I've linked to the related articles I could find. Does anyone have anything else wiki-worthy? dblanchard (talk) 17:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The term "mythology" is not, when used technically, necessarily dismissive. Remember, there are also articles on Christian mythology, Islamic mythology and Jewish mythology.  What's unfortunate here is that in many cases we have only have articles on the mythology, and not on the associated religions.  The equivalent would be to have articles on Christian mythology, Islamic mythology and Jewish mythology, but not on Christianity, Islam and Judaism.  The implication is that while the stories are interesting, the belief systems associated with them are not worth reading about.  Renaming the articles won't fix that; it requires finding someone with the time, interest and, perhaps most important, knowledge to write the articles on the belief systems. EastTN (talk) 16:59, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I've never heard of any creatres like these. Sure enough though, are we so niave to think that human's and animals are the only creatres on earth? What if they're are something more? Something God created for mear play? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.190.174.57 (talk) 04:12, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Name change?
This and First Nations mythology need a merge and a non-US-oriented title; as per my comments at Category talk:Native American mythology I think perhaps a workable title might be Mythology of the indigenous peoples of North America or Indigenous mythologies of North America....if the whole New World is intended, then "the Americas" could be substituted for "North America". "Native American" is a purely US usage, though many Americans don't see it that way and use it for indigenous peoples of the other countries of the Americas; "First Nations" is actually a politically-derived usage and therefore POV to start with; it happens that in Mexico indigenas/indigenos is the more common "polite" term (v. indios, which is in use but obviously its direct translation "Indians" isnt' popular north of the Rio Grande, not in P.C.-terms anyway (in my view anything P.C. is inherently POV but I'll leave that aside for now). "Indigenous" is the best term available, although "aboriginal" is out there too but apparently some people are less comfortable with it, maybe because of its negative associations in Australian English.  I don't know how to make a merge template that includes a joint-renaming proposal so maybe someone here can come up with the right way to do this: Merge this article and First Nations mythology to a new joint-name that is irrespective of "white man's boundaries" and also maybe uses "mythologies" in the plural form since there is no one indigenous mythological system, huh? The problem extends into the ideas that many peoples span the border - the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Coast Salish, Interior Salish, Ktunaxa, most of the Plains peoples, the Iroquois and so on, so all their mythology articles ahve to have both the Native American mythology cat and the First Nations mythology cat.....Skookum1 (talk) 14:41, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * My sense is that the casual reader is, rightly or wrongly, more likely to search on "Native American" than they are on "indigenous peoples of North America". That can presumably be addressed by an appropriate redirect, though.  Assuming that is taken care of, the proposal makes sense to me. EastTN (talk) 15:59, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Just a rider to that, that most casual American readers, yes....and a hatnote at Indian mythology (which would likely go to Hinduism or a related India-article most likely, I haven't looked) would also be necessary. Europeans and others might search for that, also American Indian mythology etc (so many variants...)....soem Canadains who are p.c. conscious might search for First Nations mythology but that, also, will be a redirect (upon merger of that article, if it exists, with this one).  I"m still thinking that mythology-singular is inappropriate and that Mythologies of the indigenous peoples of North America or Indigenous mythologies of North America (plurals) are more appropriate, but I'll fly that by NorthAmNative's talkpage and by a few FN/NA contributors/editors I know of....the latter title may be problematic because it could coceivably contain "mythologies of non-indigenous peoples", i.e., Mormonism, the Solar Temple, etc (myhologies which are indigenous to North America aren't necessarily those of indigenous peoples in other words....though often involving them in some way, as with Mormonism...).  I'll be back after posting a few notices about this here and there and we'll wait to see who else weighs in.....thanks for yoru replySkookum1 (talk) 16:51, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it's been four years since I posted that finally decided to do something about it be being bold.. Now for the speedy CfD?Skookum1 (talk) 11:42, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Link to "Digging for Red Roots" (Native American Muslims)
That link should be removed. It's bogus. In fact, read the response of "hasan336" at http://forums.almaghrib.org/showthread.php?t=10455&page=3&pp=10 which tears this link to shreds. Caisson 06 (talk) 23:02, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

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