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South America Religion

Indigenous Peoples' ViewConclusion



In summary, religious thought and practice of South American indigenous people are rich and varied, but contain common elements that adhere to one another in recognizable configurations. A common history of extraordinary oppression, violence, terror, and death has led to an intensification of ineffable cosmological and cosmogonic systems within which indigenous people communicate with one another across vastly different language systems. Indigenous perspectives on South American religion are at the same time a critical metacommentary on history and territoriality and a mechanism of sustained millennial transformation. That which appears to be "political" from Western standpoints comes to be revealed in indigenous numinous thought and praxis as sacred and reverential.



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Norman E. Whitten Jr.

Additional topics

Science EncyclopediaScience & Philosophy: Reason to RetrovirusSouth America Religion - Indigenous Peoples' View - Conceptualizing Space-times, The Axis Mundi, Shamans And Ritual, European Contact, Conclusion