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.They soon reached their friends and the country of their future resi-dence, where all kinds of game was plenty, and where they had but littleto do but to dance by night and sleep by day.Most of the Indians saythat their deceased friends appear occasionally to them in the shape ofbirds and different kinds of beasts.(Marston in Blair 1911, 174 175)Among the rare Indian equivalents of the Christian hell is the Lipan Apache[Southwest] site to which dead humans souls may return.The site is an under-world or afterworld of vague location in whose northern compartment thespirits of wicked people and sorcerers are plagued with fog and fire while theirfood consists solely of snakes and lizards.Lipans fear that spirits of the deadmight return to the earth as ghosts and haunt those who had wronged themwhen they were alive.Because a ghost will most likely appear when the name Places 57of the deceased is spoken, a dead person s name should never be uttered(Newcomb 1961, 129).TRADITIONS COMPAREDThe following comparison of Indian religions and Christianity identifiesways that significant places in the two traditions have been alike and different.SimilaritiesIndian religions and Christian culture are comparable in several ways.Bothrevere centers of spiritual significance and power.Both have special sites forworship, honor the dead with burial services, and envision places where soulsor spirits of the deceased reside in their afterlife.However, the form of eachof these practices differs between Indian and Christian traditions.DifferencesChristianity s revered, viewable locations are mainly places mentioned inthe Bible (such as Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee) and sites in which miracu-lous events have been reported during last two millennia (healing at Lourdes,the annual Miracle of the Holy Fire at The Church of the Holy Sepulchre inJerusalem).In contrast, Indian religions mundane sites are wonders of nature,such as inspiring mountains, unusual rock formations, and impressive water-ways (lakes, rivers, springs, falls).Whereas most Christian ceremonies are conducted in permanent buildingsconstructed as places of worship and fellowship (churches, chapels, cathe-drals), most Indian rituals are performed outdoors, in temporary quarterserected for the particular occasion, or in structures also used for purposesother than religious rites.In their burial practices, American Indians, far more often than Christians,have placed in graves those possessions the deceased had found useful or hadvalued during life clothing, amulets, pottery, weapons, pets.The destination of the soul of the deceased in Christian culture has typicallybeen one of four places heaven, hell, purgatory, or limbo with generalagreement about the location of at least two of those sites.Heaven has beenenvisioned as a kind of land a firmament above the sky.Hell has oftenbeen cast as a vast fiery dungeon in the depths of the earth.In contrast, differ-ent Indian tribes have located the site of decedents blissful afterlife in diverseplaces in the sky, on the back of a giant turtle, in mountains some distancefrom the band s village, in the sea, and more.Of particular note is the absence in Indian lore of the hell that is so importantin Christian doctrine.Christians have traditionally used the threat of spendingeternity in hell to motivate followers to abide by the religion s beliefs and rulesof behavior.Indian religions have no such place as hell for the souls of thedeparted.Nearly all of the dead can expect a wondrously enjoyable eternity. ·· 5 ··Creating the UniverseBoth Indian and Christian religions offer explanations of how the universe wasformed, with the Indian versions far more diverse than the Christian.Descrip-tions of the world s origin in both traditions include a creator, a creation pro-cess, and a creation product.The following account opens with Christian views of the universe s origin,continues with American Indian beliefs, and finishes with a comparison of cre-ation theories.CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVESPresent-day Christians conceptions of how the universe and its occupantsoriginated appear in two main varieties: the literal account in the Bible and amodern-science account that considers the biblical description to be ancientobservers naïve estimate of how the world and its occupants came into being.Creation According to GenesisThe traditional explanation among Jews, Christians, and Muslims of how theuniverse began is the description that appears in the first two chapters of thebook of Genesis in the Jewish Torah and Christian Bible.The following sum-mary of that creation story is from the Protestant Bible authorized by KingJames I of England in 1611.In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.And the earthwas without form and void; and the darkness was upon the face of the Creating the Universe 59deep.And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.And Godsaid, Let there be light, and there was light.And God called the lightDay, and the darkness he called Night.And the evening and the morningwere the first day.(Genesis 1:1 4)On the second day God formed a region a dome-like firmament that hecalled heaven.On the third day, he created dry land below heaven which hecalled earth; and he produced waters that he called seas, along with grass andfruit trees.On the fourth day he created the sun to light the day and the moonand stars to light the night, and he attached stars to the heavenly firmament.On the fifth day he created all sorts of fish for the seas and fowl for the skies.On the sixth day he declared, Let the earth bring forth every living creatureafter his kind cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind:and it was so
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