Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes - Molly Bassett
14. How do ideas about race shape understandings of Native American religious life?
Indigenous Religious Traditions in Five Minutes - Molly Bassett
Sarah Dees [+]
Iowa State University
Sarah Dees is an assistant professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University. Her first book, a history of Smithsonian research on Native American religions, will be published by the University of Nebraska Press.
Description
This entry will look at ideas about comparative religion in the 19th century that created a distinction between “civilized” and “primitive” forms of religion—showing that the categories of religion and race were historically intertwined, and the impact that this has had on mainstream ideas about Native American religions.