Animism

The principle of animism allowed the Native Americans to live much more differently and more conservatively than the Europeans. Animism was a belief that the supernatural was present in all aspects of the natural world. The Native Americans, or Indians, thought every part of nature possessed certain powers or spirits. They believed an infinite variety of beings owned a varying measure of power. Contrary to the Indians beliefs, the Europeans followed the faith of Christianity. They believed in a single God who was spirit and who also possessed supernatural powers. His forces sustained the earth itself, unlike the Indians multiple spirits, which were forever encircling them and inhabiting animate and inanimate objects.
Visions allowed native people to communicate with the spirits in order to recruit their aid in hunting, gathering, cultivating, and even war. Indians sometimes thought that a dream could be more powerful and real than actually bei...