Talk:Great Spirit

Tone and style of article

Just a passerby and not a wikipedia editor per se. However, I felt compelled to leavea comment regarding the tone and style of the article: it suffer from sounding very personal, and has a tone of what one would expect a non-scholar explaining something in emphatic language. (the overabundance of quotation marks is one symptom, but there are other, such as the "for the benefit of Europeans", which takes away from the neutral tone an encyclopedic article.) I'm not an expert on the subject (in fact I know very little about it, which is why I came here), but even to me it would be better if the page instead sourced a number of published treatises/works on the subject instead of going into a quasi-emotional and ambiguous personal essay-style on the subject. It sounds to me like the article attempts to unite the various concepts and make it as culturally vague and generalized and "acceptable" (as in, lacking cultural, ritual and mythical specifics that would make different versions more characterized) as possible - and this makes the article sounds a little - dare I say - "New Agey". (for lack of a better term.) I think more people would appreciate more specific mythic instances and rituals that specifically dealt with the Great Spirit/Mystery (and also those that established important differences between various views on the subject, as one would expect from proper research) - if those are available - as opposed to the currently rather watered-out explanation.

As this is a very interesting subject, I'm looking forward to seeing how the article develops. :) Best of luck. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:C440:20:11BC:ED0E:64EF:AE06:E5AD (talk) 00:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, looks like it isn't going anywhere at the moment. Your commentary looks good. Whatever it commented on is not there anymore. The advice is good however. Around here, things don't go anywhere unless someone makes them go somewhere. The least little sign of resistance and they all drop it like a hot potato. Now, as to which direction it should go, I ran across mention of it in Emile Durkheim and some of the other cultural anthropologists. I think that is definitely where we want to go. More encyclopedic. So, I put in the appropriate box and I'm looking for a picture to go in the box. I will also do a disambig. To me those are pointers. Whether or not I shall develop some content, I'm not sure. If you are inclined to do so, by all means do. The anthropologists I believe were treating it as a kind of mana. I keep seeing everywhere that the concept is supposed to be outdated but I never see any updates. All I see is vituperation. I say to the modern vituperatives, don't bother. If you want to vituperate attack your wife/husband and colleagues. Leave us alone. Worldwide, we need the publication space for things more imporant than your pot-boiling.Botteville (talk) 21:22, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Christian bias?

This article (with all its flaws) appears to have a strange notion of Native American (and First Nation) religions. Firstly, there are many tribes throughout North America and one religion can't be an example for a whole continent of religions. For example, the idea that the "...Great Spirit was a syncretist conception of God" is simply not true for most if not all Precolumbian and Pre-Christian natives. The article also uses "he" to refer the Great Spirit. Apparently animism was thrown in there without any real knowledge of this important term. For the Sioux, Wakan Tanka doesn't translate to "God" but instead refers to the sacredness in all existence. (However, modern Sioux Christians readily use the term to describe the Christian god.) Perhaps animism and monotheism or Precolumbian and Modern religion should be discussed seperately in relation to the Great Spirit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rqp1975 (talk • contribs) 21:55, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd have to agree that there's a serious problem of over-Christianizing, and of over-consolidating peoples that sometimes hate(d) each other (Navajos and Hopis, Sioux and Ojibwa and Iroquois--not on friendly terms for most of recorded history), but I'd also question whether the Sioux are really animistic. All the actually reliable sources (anthro monographs and the like, I mean, not New Age bookstore fare), that I've seen, suggest to me that the Sioux religion is not unlike Platonism, which could imply emanationist pantheism or panentheism, but probably not animism.

I actually question whether the word "animism" really means anything, since all the religions I can think of that are usually described as animist (Shinto, shamanism), usually turn out, on closer inspection, to merely be polytheistic with a very large roster of tutelary gods.

All told, this article is simplistic on a number of levels, and in crying need of assistance from an expert. Unfortunately I only know much about (or can find sources on) the Navajo, Hopi, and Apache, none of whom really have a concept terribly analogous to Great Spirit (don't know what word they mistranslated as Great Spirit in this article's quote from that Hopi, but Hopi religious ideas are nothing like that...and they don't have chiefs, per se, they have village headmen and elders). Nagakura shin8 (talk) 15:26, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The Great Spirit is the meaning to all living things, even what we stand on right now. Simply to understand. There is a spirit in everything that is here. Except what man makes of course. The Great Spirit has no desire to punish you, just to walk with you towards a happy, peaceful, loving life. To live in balance with what he has put here to help us live. Of all my years here I have never come across a book of words on how to live with the Great Spirit as your God. Not anything written by a true native person anyway. As a native person, I was given the teachings of the Great Spirit by my Grandfathers, Grandmothers and watching the way things are done for life, all life. The Great Spirit has no desire for money, gold, houses, cars, etc. His desire is life for you here and with him after you past from here. As a little boy I use to listen to my Grandfather talk about the ways of life for here. That was to respect all of it, and to help your relations. We were all made by the same hands.

We all give thanks to the same being, we just make it diffcult to understand the true meaning to it all. <unknown.> 198.53.155.194

I brazenly deleted the non-sequitur in the article with the narrowly focussed Christian theological perspective and replaced it with three living examples with verifiable traditional sources and sensible comparisons and contrasts. I hope many more examples from many more Turtle Island nations are added and those existing expounded upon as needed.

Right now everything is needed because the article isn't saying much of anything. Whatever it said is gone. I suppose it was brazenly deleted. How about brazenly developing something to go in its place? Or non-brazenly, whichever. Well, from my understanding of what we are doing here in anthropology, we definitely want an anthropological article. I see it being something like mana and some of the others. In response to the above comments, I say this. What we are interested in is folkways, you know, ancient beliefs. We don't all have to be buddies to have the same folkways. In this article we don't give a hang about what kind of people the tribes are, whether good or bad or nice or naughty or noble or ignoble. They are all the best of fellows, I am absolutely sure. What we are interested in is their ancient folkways. Now, one problem is that the modern tribes are too busy earning a living and getting ahead to care much whether their folkways are the ancient ones. Maybe as a hobby, or if you get appointed chief or medicine man. The very thing has happened that the original cultural anthropogists were afraid would happen, their folkways have mainly been replaced by modern ones. So, we want a historical point of view. Now, if anyone cares to venture into modern ideas of the Great Spirit, you can't just do it from your own learning. You have to find an authority who talks about it and use him if he is credible. Note I'm not a tribesman but there are plenty of them in my part of country. They got the same identity problems as anyone else: who am I and where am I going. I think we need to start with where their ancestors were.Botteville (talk) 21:45, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Poles in mythology

Now we have a new article Poles in mythology, Please see and include suitable improvements , if any, in article Poles in mythology.

Rgds Mahitgar (talk) 09:14, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Other Sources (bibliography)

Cave, Alfred A. Prophets of the Great Spirit: Native American Revitalization Movements in Eastern North America. Lincoln: U of Nebraska, 2006. Google Books. 2006. Web. Gates, Frank C. "The disappearing sleeping bear dune." Ecology 31.3 (1950): 386-392. Page, Jake. In the Hands of the Great Spirit: The 20,000-year History of American Indians. New York: Free, 2003. Google Books. 2004. Web. Milstein, Randal L. "Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan." Geological Society of America Centennial Field Guide— North-Central Section (1987): 1-3. Web. Tarynmarie1127 (talk) 17:12, 24 October 2016 (UTC)Taryn Brown, Joseph Epes and Cousins, Emily. Understanding Native American Religious Traditions. Oxford University Press, 2001. Gringus,Dirk. Lore of the Great Turtle. Mackinac Historic Parks. 1970.LustyMar (talk) 21:53, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Defining The Great Spirit in Native American mythology with emphasis on Michigan myths

Taryn: Definition and global origin Peg: North American Lore that depicts The Great Spirit Ashley: Sub Heading with Native American Myth about the formation of Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan2601:405:8500:5267:5549:E720:574D:74D8 (talk) 23:23, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Peer Review

Throughout the article, there are a lot of small grammar errors. Going back through to proofread everything, from the old material to what has recently been contributed, could improve this article so it appears more professional and like an encyclopedia. Specifically, the sentence(s) “Each prophet aims at restoration and preservation. Typically, of a way of life that is fading” should be rewritten to increase fluidity. There are some missing commas as well in the article.

The in-text citations are not standard for Wikipedia articles. Reworking the five or so in-text citations will put the article up to the right standards. The Story of the Sleeping Bear Dunes is missing the citation for the story.

The bolded words in The Story of the Sleeping Bear Dunes are confusing. We are not sure if they are suppose to be linked to another article or if they are just suppose to be bolded. If you guys are trying to link those words to existing articles then, put a double bracket around the word like this Lake Michigan and it will link the word to the Lake Michigan article on wikipedia. If they are not supposed to be linked then we do not think it is necessary to bold the words

35.22.195.21 (talk) 16:10, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/native-american-culture/great-spirit.htm. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 00:40, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Sources for this being a single concept?

I don't see where the article presents sources for the claim that (many) Native Americans in some sense traditionally believe in the same god. The closest thing I see is footnotes citing a book called 'Prophets of the Great Spirit: Native American Revitalization Movements in Eastern North America', which, as shown already by the title, is about a newer religious trend resulting from and responding to the change of their traditional way of life caused by the advent of European settler societies, not about the traditional beliefs of these peoples. If this is really the only source speaking of a common phenomenon, the definition in the lede should be changed to reflect that association with 'revitalisation movements'. 62.73.72.3 (talk) 18:22, 16 October 2024 (UTC)