Grade 11 World Religions
HRT 3M1
PLEASE KEEP CAMERA AND MIC OFF
Grade 11 World Religions
HRT 3M1
PLEASE KEEP CAMERA AND MIC OFF
Prayer
St Augustine- "To sing is to pray twice"
Daily Reading
Chapter 3:
The Story of Canadian
Aboriginal Spirituality Con’t...
The Seven Fires
•An Ojibwa narrative tells how seven prophets came to the Anishinabe.
•The prophets left the people with seven predictions about their future.
•The prophecies told of a time when the people would forget the way
they had received fire, then recover it again.
•In the story, Indigenous peoples express their hope and confidence
about the return of Indigenous traditions and the way the traditions
could live alongside non-Aboriginal traditions.
Ethics
These principles guide the lives of many Indigenous peoples.
•Do not interfere:
● modelling behaviour and showing by example are valued
● ordering, giving advice, cajoling, or telling someone what to do is not valued
•Community is important:
● members are expected to do their jobs well for the community
•Everything is shared:
● one takes only what one needs from the environment to survive
● everyone is equal and not to be left out
Family Life
•Before European contact, Aboriginal families developed in response to their environments.
–People of the Plains lived in small groupings in the winter, then joined in a communal hunt in the
spring.
–Women and men had distinctive roles.
–Women made, owned, and set up the teepees important to communal hunts and gatherings.
•In southern Ontario, Iroquoians had five or six families living in each longhouse in a village of a hundred
longhouses.
–People hunted, fished, and grew food crops.
–Family life and spiritual traditions involved planting the crops.
•Children would learn from family members and elders through example and through sacred teachings, and
cultural practices such as the vision quest.
•Men married when they could provide for a family; women married when they reached puberty.
Recent Changes
•Because more people live in cities, Aboriginal families are less connected to the environment.
•Some communities face challenges such as youth moving toward popular culture and
increased secularism.
•The impact of residential schools includes the decline in the use of traditional languages, loss
of traditional skills, and pain and grieving over abuse and loss of culture.
•In some cases, loss of land and environmental degradation means a traditional life is no
longer an option for young people.
•Aboriginal peoples are reviving many traditional practices.
•Many Aboriginal Canadians have a hard time finding meaning in the traditions of elders; many
have not had the chance to experience them.
The Story of Canadian Aboriginal Spirituality Dialogue (pp.93-96)
Dialogue
•The relationship between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans has had times of
co-operation, but also has a history of colonization and attempted assimilation.
•Now, many Aboriginal peoples in Canada are reviving Aboriginal spiritual traditions, some doing so
er 3.4
as Aboriginal Christians.
•The St. Kateri is the patron of the Tekakwitha Conference, an annual gathering of Aboriginal
The Story of Canadian
Catholics that started in 1939.
–The goal was to begin a discussion of how the Catholic Church could better respond to
traditional Aboriginal beliefs and practices.
Aboriginal Spirituality
–Half a million Aboriginal Catholics from 300 nations are members.
–The conference looks at ways Aboriginal Catholics can remain both Aboriginal and Catholic.
Dialogue cont’d
•In the late 20th and early 21st centuries,
the Church’s relationship shifted to dialogue.
•Greater efforts have been made to respect Aboriginal traditions and have
brought some Aboriginal rituals into the Church.
•Many Aboriginal Christians did not leave their cultures; Christianity made sense
to their cultures.
•Christian and traditional Aboriginal ways can live side by side.
[Link]
What can we do?
Has anything changed?
Homework
1. Continue to read and make notes in
Chapter 3
2. RCMP Native Spirituality Guide/
Question
3. Vision Quest Assignment
