Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
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oxsan
The Religion of the Comanche

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
Posts: 3877

A few more words about Comanche religous beliefs:

The Comanche did not feel awed or subdued by the forces to which he imputed great and awesome power. He actually considered himself to be always in conflict with the natural forces of the sun, the buffalo, the eagle and others from which he sought control of their force. He sought to take a portion of that force from them almost by guile by use of his developed "magic" or by following some routine which he had heard to be effective in attaining Eagle power or whatever it was that he sought. He actually sought to manipulate the power that possessed the traits he desired. He might pray and beg and promise all to get the power but if he could he would willingly just steal it.

His combat with the forces of the natural world was a solitary one. He had no companion in his quest and no squire at his vigil; nor did he wish to have one. If he felt that he had been succuessful the last thing he would tell anyone was how he had succeeded. It was his secret what had transpired between him and the wolf that he had sought out. Remember that religion with the Comanche was not a group event. To quote Fehrenbach, "The Nermernuh had no Hebrew acceptance of a remote God's will. They were determined to smell out and ensnare the spirits that lived in the rocks and rills and the animal life, to gain the "puha" (power) that would bring the buffalo down before their spears and that would overcome sickness and make them victorious in war." To the Comanche his religion had nothing to do with morals or ethics or even social rules of life. His religion was 100 % utilitarian toward everyday life and was of the fiber of "How do I slip up on this deer and kill it?"

If the Comanche's search for "medicine" proved to be successful and he acheived the success he desired he was in danger of becoming what the Comanche called a "puhakut" or "maker of strong medicine" and as such invincible in war and conflict. A puhakut might well feel in debt to the forces which had given him the strong medicine that made him always successful in any venture and might be thankful toward them but at the same time he knew that the forces of nature could well be capricious and strip him of his medicine without notice or without advancing reason. And also the Comanches attached no degree of elevated morality or worth to a puhakut . He was after all just a man who had wrestled success and power from the hands of a totem. And every Comanche knew that everyone searching to attain puhakut was in danger every minute of his life of offending the spirits that had made him effective and that would gleefully strip him of all the power and magic he had attained.

The Commanche considered hunger, exhaustion, pain, strong purgatives and even loss of blood to be of use in recognizing the magic of natural forces and young Commanche men stood lonely and exhausting vigil in attempts to awaken their psyche to recognition of the magic they sought. For most of their history the Comanche used no mind altering drugs but in the final throes of their fight with the white man they began to use peyote and other drugs they had learned about from the Pueblo and Navajo tribes.

The Sioux Indians were very humble in their approach to the spirit world but the Comanche always tended to consider the natural forces they entreated to be on their same level.

Along with their grant of puha the "forces of nature" gave to the Comanche that was successful in his search a vast collection of taboos tailored to the case in hand. If a Comanche acheived wolf puha he must thereafter be especially careful never to offend wolves in any way. There was of course no codification of what indeed offended wolves so it was up to the Comanche who had received the puha to make his own secret list of things that offended wolves and of course the more demanding the offense list the more rewarding the puha. Also the gift of puha from a natural force carried with it the absolute duty to use that magic in support of others and to be benevolent about it.

So the Comanche had a very complex belief system that was unique to them and vastly different from the religion professed by the invading Europeans.

Just thought that some but not all of you would be interested in that stuff.

Love
dad, granpa ami

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oxsan


Don't kick until yer spurred.

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Registered: Aug 2001
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We are all native to one part of Africa, by your reasoning, in which case the word 'native' means virtually nothing when applied to humanity. Which is fair enough, I guess; English has a lot of words, after all. We don't need to use all of them.

It would be interesting to watch a religion starting. I guess that we can easily watch religions starting in the present, but to watch one of those that really endures and grows, that'd be fascinating, particularly seeing how much it changed over time.

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Registered: Jun 2007
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I thought you might be interested in the following piece, it's a new proposal of Asian migration to the Americas. A kelp belt highway as opposed to land bridges.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070814/kyodo/d8r0trg80.html

"(Kyodo) _ The first inhabitants of North and South America could have been fishermen from Japan who traveled there in small boats, according to research in the latest edition of New Scientist magazine.

The new work casts doubt on the traditional theory that the "first Americans" were hunters from Asia who traveled to the continent on foot via the Bering ice bridge in Alaska some 13,500 years ago.

Jon Erlandson, an archaeologist from the University of Oregon, believes the first people to arrive were probably fishermen who followed a near continuous belt of kelp forests in the coastal waters of the Pacific Rim, from Japan to Alaska and southern California.

His research, which will be published soon in another academic journal, is based on discoveries of ice-age sea voyages in Japan, a study of human DNA and investigations of prehistoric marine ecosystems.

"I think they were just moving along the coast and exploring. It was like a kelp highway," Erlandson told the weekly science journal.

Coastal researchers who spoke to the magazine believe the seafarers could have arrived in the New World some time after 16,000 years ago when the massive glaciers started to retreat from the outer northwest American coast.
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The conventional theory is that hunters came into North America, much of which was covered in ice, from Siberia and made their way down the continent through a relatively narrow passage in the ice.

However, since the 1950s there has been growing evidence that America might have been discovered by ancient ice age seafarers.

This alternative view has been buoyed by indications that the coastline of northwest America was not as inhospitable as previously thought during the late ice age and could have sustained seafaring communities.

And in the 1990s, evidence emerged of a community living on shellfish on an island off the Chilean coast around 14,850 years ago. There was also a study which suggested that the ice corridor, through which the earliest Americans are thought to have traveled, was blocked by ice until some 13,000 years ago, making it impassable for the first Americans.

Erlandson was intrigued by this growing evidence and decided to investigate further.

Firstly, he found evidence which showed that the inhabitants of Honshu, one of Japan's main islands, set out across the North Pacific more than 20,000 years ago to Kozushima, an island 50 kilometers away to collect a type of volcanic glass to make tools.

Erlandson believes they could have done this in boats made from animal skins.

And he believes it is perfectly possible for them to have journeyed northward from there to the Kuril Islands, then the Kamchatka Peninsula, and on to the island-studded shore of the Bering land bridge and beyond to the New World.

He told New Scientist it would have been a very tough trip in treacherous waters but "what was once imponderable now seems entirely conceivable and increasingly likely."

Another researcher interviewed by the magazine, said the earliest direct evidence of seafaring in the New World comes from the Channel Islands, off California's southern coast.

Experts have found the remains of one seafarer there which puts him at between 13,000 and 13,200 years old. Obviously, the experts are not sure from where the mariner originated, but it raises the possibility he could have come from Japan.

Other research shows that what is thought to be the oldest form of DNA ever recovered from the New World -- around 10,300 years old -- is common in type to that found in Japan and Tibet. And similar DNA has been found in native Americans all the way down the west coast of North and South America, suggesting a pattern of migration.

Erlandson has been working with marine biologists for the last few years and believes Japanese fisherman could have been following the kelp highway which would have flourished even during the ice age. The kelp would have been attractive to all kinds of fish because it provides shelter and as well as giving nutrients to other sea creatures.

Mike Graham, a kelp expert who helped Erlandson, told New Scientist, "It's quite likely that Japan's ancient inhabitants were familiar with these systems before they came over. What people saw, as they moved, were familiar species, familiar ways of life, familiar associations."

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Registered: Nov 2001
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Thanks for posting it lulubrooks. Then DNA evidence makes it a pretty sure thing. I remember that the same theory was advanced back in the 1940s and 50s mbut then there was no DNA testing to back it up. Wonderful stuff DNA.

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oxsan


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Registered: Jul 2000
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I got this email the other day, this is it in its entirety, it didn't mention the asylum specifically nor this thread but i'm guessing it is referring to this story by oxsan:

quote:

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I don't even know why I am responding, I guess because I was trying to get out o your insane asylim and kept getting other things.

You sound so dang similiar to David Yeagley, are you his father? I don't want to be disrespectful, but if YOU are NOT Comanche, YOU should not be discussing our Religious Beliefts or lack thereof. Thats the same mind set Yeagley has, we are pagans with no direction at all, just listless, mindless, beastly brown drunkard reservation Indians who should sit down, shut up and not be allowed to discuss our own History.

For your information the Comanche were very Spiritual, maybe not in the mindset of the Whites. We respected all of Nature, we used what we needed and accepted things as they were. We were a nomadic Family traveling with the Wind and Seasons, coming together when necessary or for social gatherings. Using old trails and trees to this day some still know about the old trails and camping places not many whites know, just speculate and then make money off of lectures, inviting the public and hoping Native Americans will show up and give them "NEW " information. I have attended a few, I sat mute, thinking this man knows nothing....why am I here? Thats what I am asking myself at this very moment....Why bother? I am 4/4 Comanche thats why.........I am proud...I do not appreciate a lot of things non-Indians say today about my Nation.....If you want to help the American Indians.....Tell the Great White Fathers to start telling the History of all Native American Indians beginning with the Puritans on the East Coast, they started the killing and slavery and taking the lands,,, If we (native Americans) have to sit in class and hear about the Holocaust, and Columbus, we are strong enough to hear about the terrible treatment of our ancestors that is left out of the History told to our children........now I feel a little better....I will try to leave this black hole.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Beatrice, Nebraska
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Did he mean 3/4 Comanche or some lesser fraction?

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Registered: Apr 2004
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In comanche, the number before the slash (x) is always divided by x-1.

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Registered: Dec 2002
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Fuck him. I'm nmot oriental, but I find the history of Asia fascinating.. I'm not Italian, but Roman history underlies my culture, as does Greek, Levantine, Persian, and many others.

Indians are not some special people because they claim to have arrived in the America's first - they have every failing common to man, in spades.

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Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:

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Originally posted by lulubrooks
I thought you might be interested in the following piece, it's a new proposal of Asian migration to the Americas. A kelp belt highway as opposed to land bridges.

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Registered: Apr 2005
Location: wookin pa nub
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Horsts and grabens.

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