Though spirituality infuses everything, Indigenous beliefs are not “religion” in the Western sense. Indigenous people generally don’t worship gods; rather, they converse with spirits and ancestors as with elders. There are generally no houses specified for worship, no holidays, no scripture, no dogma. No pressure to conform. What it amounts to, writes Native scholar Evan T. Pritchard, is not religion but “a way of life that nurtures deeply religious experiences, which is a different thing.”
