During his last years ethnohistorian Frank G. Speck turned to the study of Iroquois ceremonialism. This 1950 book investigates the religious rites of the Cayuga tribe, one of six in the Iroquois confederation that occupied upstate New York until the American Revolution. In the 1930s and the 1940s Frank Speck observed the Midwinter Ceremony, the Cayuga thanksgiving for the blessings of life and health, performed in long houses on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario. Collaborating with Alexander General (Deskaheh), the noted Cayuga chief, Speck describes vividly the rites and dances giving...
During his last years ethnohistorian Frank G. Speck turned to the study of Iroquois ceremonialism. This 1950 book investigates the religious rites of ...
Traditionally, the Cherokees dance to ensure individual health and social welfare. According to legend, the dance songs bequeathed to them by the Stone Coat monster will assuage all the ills of life that the monster brought. Winter dance (including the Booger Dance, which expresses the Cherokees' anxiety at the white invasion) are to be given only during times of frost, lest they affect the growth of vegetation by attracting cold and death. The summer dance (the Green Corn Ceremony and the Ballplayer's Dance) are associated with crops and vegetation. Other dances are purely for social...
Traditionally, the Cherokees dance to ensure individual health and social welfare. According to legend, the dance songs bequeathed to them by the Ston...
Convinced that native culture survived in its purest form in the northern portions of North America, Frank Speck devoted almost twenty years of research to the Naskapi of Canada's Labrador Peninsula during the first quarter of the twentieth century. He determined the Naskapi's lifestyles were primitive compared to those of other natives, but their spiritual culture was highly developed. The Naskapi stressed the importance of dreams and dream interpretations, of communing with the spirit world, and of rituals honoring animal spirits.
""
Convinced that native culture survived in its purest form in the northern portions of North America, Frank Speck devoted almost twenty years of res...
