Perpetuating a Native American Religious Palette

Abstract

After the discovery of the American continent, the Native Americans constantly had to struggle for their existence, heritage, culture, traditions and besides many other fundamental human rights, they made enormous efforts to gain religious freedom also. The Natives made an attempt to save their “religion” through planting the basic ideas of Christianity into their Weltanschauung and thus into “religion” and as a result Handsome Lake and Peyote Religion came to life. However, the debate about religion is still a daily issue since several Acts were created to ensure the spiritual freedom of the Native Americans. Sherman Alexie in Reservation Blues depicts the consequences of the confusion of Christian and Native religions and opens the eyes of the readers to the difficulties of Indians with his ironic and right-minded way of thinking.