as a threat to their civilized society. Since early colonization by Europeans they have seen the Natives “…as living in a state of savagery that was a danger to their health, prosperity, and salvation.” ( Niezen, 2000, p. 86).
To the early settlers of North America the native traditions held no value and was seen as primitive savagery, and “indeed, getting drunk and killing Indians was sport to most settlers…who maintained that to kill an Indian was the same as killing a bear or a buffalo.” (Mann, 2005, p. 5) The Natives had developed rich traditions and had no interest in European religions, especially Christianity who they were beginning to see as “a main prop of genocide” (Mann, 2005, p. 150). They were beginning to see vast differences between the religion of worshiping and thanking nature and multiple Gods and Christian values and beliefs. The Christians slaughtered the Indians opportunistically both in the North and South. An example came in the fall of 1864: Colonel Chivington, who was also a Methodist minister carried out a bloody massacre on the Cheyenne people. His men killed hundreds of peace loving Natives because he believed their extinction to be beneficial to his country (Monnett, 1999, p. 8). It may have been different if men like these took the time to understand the Native way of life and religion. They were taught that the natives practiced simple and meaningless religions such as Paganism and that it was their uncivilized approach that was to blame (Beecher, 1962, p. 1). They would either have to assimilate or be rendered extinct because Paganism and Shamansim was considered evil.
As mentioned, even today the religions and rituals practiced by the Natives is not clearly understood. Many North