Straw basket made by the Gullah culture of coastal Georgia & South Carolina, USA

Hoodoo

Hoodoo (Folk Magic) Hoodoo is a traditional African-American spirituality created by enslaved African-Americans in the New World. It is specific to the distinct African-American lineage in North America. Hoodoo is the product of enslaved people who faced terrorism and unimaginable suffering on a daily basis yet refused to relinquish all of their power...

Kwakwaka'wakw Cedar sisiutl mask.

Mythologies Of The Indigenous Peoples Of The Americas

Mythologies Of The Indigenous Peoples Of The Americas This article covers the Mythologies of The Indigenous Peoples of The Americas in detail. The indigenous peoples of the Americas comprise numerous different cultures. Each has its own mythologies. Some are quite distinct, but certain themes are shared across the cultural boundaries. North America There...

Voodoo ritual in St. John's Bayou, New Orleans

Louisiana Voodoo

Louisiana Voodoo Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo describes a set of spiritual beliefs and practices developed from the traditions of the African diaspora in Louisiana. It is sometimes referred to as Mississippi Valley Voodoo when referring to its historic popularity and development in the greater Mississippi Valley. It is a cultural form...

A Haitian Vodou altar to the Petwo, Rada, and Gede spirits located in Boston, Massachusetts

Haitian Vodou

Haitian Vodou Haitian Vodou is an Afro-American religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between the traditional religions of West Africa and the Roman Catholic form of Christianity. There is no central authority in control of the movement, which comprises adherents known as Vodouists or “servants of the...

Statues of jhākri at Banjhakri Falls and Energy Park in Gangtok, Sikkim, India

Witch Doctor

Witch Doctor A witch doctor was originally a type of healer who treated ailments believed to be caused by witchcraft and is now more commonly a term used to refer to healers, particularly in regions which use traditional healing rather than contemporary medicine. Original meaning of the term In its original meaning witch doctors were not witches themselves, but...

White Sülde Tngri temple in the town of Uxin Banner in Inner Mongolia, China.

Mongolian Shamanism

Mongolian Shamanism Mongolian shamanism, more broadly called the Mongolian folk religion, or occasionally Tengerism, refers to the animistic and shamanic ethnic religion that has been practiced in Mongolia and its surrounding areas (including Buryatia and Inner Mongolia) at least since the age of recorded history. In the earliest known stages it...

Obatala priests in their temple in Ife

Yoruba Religion

Yoruba Religion The Yoruba religion comprises the traditional religious and spiritual concepts and practice of the Yoruba people. Its homeland is in present-day Southwestern Nigeria which comprised Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti as well as Lagos States and the adjoining parts of Benin and Togo, commonly known as Yorubaland. It shares some parallels...

A Buryat boy in a shaman ritual

Shamanism In Siberia

Shamanism In Siberia This article covers Shamanism in Siberia. A large minority of people in North Asia, particularly in Siberia, follow the religio-cultural practices of shamanism. Some researchers regard Siberia as the heartland of shamanism. The people of Siberia comprise a variety of ethnic groups, many of whom continue to observe shamanistic...

Indian Art Petroglyph Native American Ancient

Ethnic Religion

Ethnic Religion In religious studies, an ethnic religion is a religion or belief associated with a particular ethnic group. Ethnic religions are often distinguished from universal religions, such as Christianity or Islam, which are not limited in ethnic, national or racial scope. All ethnic religions are several thousand years old, which most being of an unknown age because they stem from indigenous...

Inukshuk Rock Sculpture Stone Kilarney Ontario

Inuit Religion

Inuit Religion Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with religions of other North Polar peoples. Traditional Inuit religious practices include animism and shamanism, in which spiritual healers mediate with spirits. Today many...

The Aztecs Pyramid at St. Cecilia Acatitlan, Mexico State.

Aztec Religion

Aztec Religion The Aztec religion originated from the indigenous Aztecs of central Mexico. Like other Mesoamerican religions, it also has practices such as human sacrifice in connection with many religious festivals which are in the Aztec calendar. This polytheistic religion has many gods and goddesses; the Aztecs would often incorporate deities that were borrowed from other geographic regions and...

Religious calendar from the Codex Féjervary-Mayer (Codex Pochteca). (Lacambalam 2014)

Mesoamerican Religion

Mesoamerican Religion Mesoamerican religion is a group of indigenous religions of Mesoamerica that were prevalent in the pre-Columbian era. Two of the most widely known examples of Mesoamerican religion are the Aztec religion and the Mayan religion. Mesoamerican religion possessed a cosmology that saw the visible world as multitiered, consisting of the Above Realm...

The redemption of Christians enslaved by Arabs by Catholic monks in the Barbary states.

Persecution Of Traditional African Religion

Persecution Of Traditional African Religion This article covers the Persecution of Traditional African Religion by many religious zealots. Traditional African religions have faced persecution from the proponents of different ideologies. Adherents of these religions have been forcefully converted to Islam and Christianity, demonized and marginalized. The atrocities include killings, waging war, destroying sacred places, and other atrocious actions....

Petroforms in Whiteshell Provincial Park

Manitou

Manitou Manitou, akin to the Iroquois orenda, is the spiritual and fundamental life force among Algonquian groups in Native American theology. It is omnipresent and manifests everywhere: organisms, the environment, events, etc. Aashaa monetoo means “good spirit“, while otshee monetoo means “bad spirit“. When the world was created, the Great Spirit, Aasha Monetoo, gave the land to...

Mother Goddess sculpture from Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan, India, 6th-7th century, in the National Museum of Korea, Seoul

Mother goddess

Mother goddess A mother goddess is a goddess who represents or is a personification of motherhood. When equated with the Earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. The concept is complementary to a “Sky Father” or “Father Sky“. There is difference of opinion between...

Amatciems, a settlement of Ringing Cedars' Anastasians in Drabeši Parish, Latvia. Anastasianism is a Russian-originated modern Pagan movement that sacralises environmental and human nativity (Rod), and is therefore regarded as a "nature religion".

Nature Religion

Nature Religion A nature religion is a religious movement that believes nature and the natural world is an embodiment of divinity, sacredness or spiritual power. Nature religions include indigenous religions practiced in various parts of the world by cultures who consider the environment to be imbued with spirits and other sacred entities. It also includes contemporary Pagan faiths which are...

Totem Pole Indian Native Culture Symbol Wood

Totemism

Totemism Totemism is an aspect of religious belief centered upon the veneration of sacred objects called totems. Totemism is derived from the term “ototeman” in the Ojibwe language, meaning “brother-sister kin”.  A totem is any animal, plant, or other object, natural or supernatural, which provides deeply symbolic meaning for a person...

Autel animiste. Village Bozo, Mopti, Mali. Date du cliché 25-12-1972

Animism

Animism Animism (from the Latin: animus or anima, meaning mind or soul) refers to a belief in numerous personalized, supernatural beings endowed with reason, intelligence and/or volition, that inhabit both objects and living beings and govern their existences. More simply, it is the belief that “everything is conscious” or that “everything has a soul.” The term has been further extended...

Cancun Pyramid Maya Temple Mayan Mexico Ancient

Indigenous Religions

Indigenous Religions Indigenous religions or Nature Religions consist of the traditional customs and beliefs (Paganism, Animism, Totemism, Shamanism) of particular ethnic groups, refined and expanded upon for thousands of years, often lacking formal doctrine. Indigenous religions, formerly found on every continent, but now marginalized by the major organized faiths. Despite...

Australia Ayers Rock Northern Territory Outback Red

Australian Aboriginal Religion And Mythology

Australian Aboriginal Religion And Mythology Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology are the beliefs represented in the stories performed by Aboriginal Australians within each of the language groups across Australia in their ceremonies. Aboriginal spirituality includes Dreamtime (the Dreaming), songlines, and Aboriginal oral literature. Aboriginal spirituality often conveys descriptions of each group’s local cultural landscape, adding meaning to...