"I’m not dead yet!"
– Monty Python
– Monty Python
Two age groups that are closet to the spirit world.
What are elders and infants?
This process describes the "blending" (forced or otherwise) of Indigenous belief systems and colonial/western religions.
What is syncretism?
This cultural gathering is NOT a business meeting.
What is a pow wow?
Government funded and compulsory institutions that were designed to "kill the Indian, save the man."
What are Native American Boardings Schools/Residential Schools?
As a political unit, the Potawatomi, Odawa, and Ojibwe are known together as...
What is the Three Fires Confederacy?
Known as the "good seed" or "good berry" in Anishinaabemowin
Who is mnomin or wild rice?
This is tended to for 4 days and 4 nights nonstop after a loved one dies.
What is a [spirit] fire?
Nambezho/Mishipeshu is a great water spirit that is associated with whirlpools. Also seen as a constellation in the night sky, what time of year is the constellation most prominent?
When is late winter/early spring?
Known as the heartbeat of the people.
What is the drum?
As of 2026, this is the number federally recognized tribes in the United States.
What is 575?
This placename means "place of wild onions/leeks" in several Indigenous languages (Myaamia, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, etc.)
What is Chicago?
Spirit feasts are typically held during this time of year.
When is fall?
A form of spiritual and actual dying, this practice allows one to become closer to the spirit world, thus making their prayers more potent.
What is fasting or vision quest?
Abhorred cannibal creature present in winter months.
What is a weendigo/windigo/weetigo?
A woman needs a dress with tobacco lids in order to take part.
What is jingle dress dancing?
AIRFA was passed in 1978 and stands for...
What is the American Indian Religious Freedom Act?
Originally just meaning "story," this word has incorrectly been associated with "falsehood" or "misunderstanding."
What is myth?
While popular, this food is a result of colonial food commodity programs.
What is frybread?
Known as the "spirit path" that ones travels on via canoes after "walking on" (dying).
What is the Milky Way? (aka Thibey kona).
This type of structure/ceremonial lodge is sometimes described as a womb.
What is a sweatlodge?
Material that Native peoples in the Great Lakes record their hi(stories) by etching pictographs.
What is birch bark? (stones also acceptable answer).
While coveted by average Americans, these places were usurped by the US government, preventing tribes from practicing their ceremonies in those places.
What are National Parks?
The number of federally recognized tribes in Michigan.
What is 12?
The word for this season translates to "everything has stopped" in English.
What is winter?
Translated as "spirit" or "entity that goes about causing change."
Who is a manitou or mnedo?
While often used in corporate ice-breaking exercises to describe an individuals' non-human identity/spirit helper, this is not actually a thing in Native North American cultures...
What is spirit animal?
This resistance movement used pictographs and knotted cords to share their covert plan with allies.
What is the Pueblo Revolt, 1680?
This law created consultation requirements with Native American tribes as well as mandated institutions that receive federal funding (like museums) to create inventories of their collections.
What is NAGPRA (The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act), 1990?
This prophetic movement resulted in the murder of several hundred unarmed Lakota Indians, almost half of whom were women and children, by soldiers of the United States Army.
What is the Ghost Dance?
Nanabozho was appalled by humanity's laziness and gluttony in relation to this food. So, the Creator made it harder to harvest and process.
What is maple sap/sugar?
Mostly practiced by tribes in Plains, this ceremony consists of dancing, piecing of the chest, and taking no food or water.
What is the Sun Dance?
Wisakedjak, Nanabozho, Coyote, and Raven...
What are trickster figures?
This tool is used in traditional Anishinaabe tattooing.
What is a garfish tooth?
The year the Indian Citizenship Act was passed, granting American citizenship to members of Native American tribes.
When is 1924?
Indigenous religious practice that seems to have very little to do with dolls...
What is Vodou?
The number of moons or months in the Anishinaabe year.
What is ?
We theorized this DIY scene in terms of unexpected aspects of religious practice.
What is Navajo death metal?
These elder relatives enter the sweat lodge with the help of a fire keeper.
Who are Grandfather stones?
Seen on medicine pouches, these two spirit beings are at constant war with each other, thus protecting the medicinal contents.
Who are Nambezho/Mishipeshu/Underwater Panther and Nimki Bneshi/Thunderbird?
This act parceled existing reservation land established by treaties in order to make individual plots for Native families (instead of communally held land) while siphoning off the "excess" land to give to white Americans and recently arrived European immigrants.
What is the Dawes Act or General Allotment Act of 1887?
The 17th c. marked settler fear of Native American religions as [___________], whereas, 19th c. settler fears focused on Indigenous political rebellion.
What is witchcraft?
Tobacco is a sacred medicine associated with this season/cardinal direction on the medicine wheel.
What is spring/eastern direction?