Observations placeholder
Hugh Brody – Maps and Dreams - The thoughts of Atsin
Identifier
011499
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
This is in the range of the Inuit rather than the Native Americans, but it shows how the beliefs merged.
Dreaming may not mean dreaming, it may mean the same as the Australian aboriginal spiriual experience, so I have included both options
A description of the experience
Hugh Brody – Maps and Dreams
Quoting Atsin a Beaver Indian in North East Canada BC
Good men, the really good men, could dream of more than animals. Sometimes they saw heaven and its trails. These trails are hard to see, and few men have had such dreams. Even if they could see dream trails to heaven, it is hard to explain them. You draw maps of the land, show everyone where to go. You explain the hills, the rivers, the trails from here to Hudson Hope, the roads. Maybe you make maps of where the hunters go and where the fish can be caught. That is not easy. But easier for sure, than drawing out the trails to heaven. You may laugh at these maps of the trails to heaven, but they were done by good men who had the heaven dream, who waited to tell the truth. They worked hard on their truth.