1. Primal religions came before the formal, widely practiced religions. They are mythic, ritualistic, have oral tradition, and are diverse among small groups.
2. Landscape, various forms of life, human beings, tribes, territory, language, social rules, and customs.
3. The spiritual essence of the Ancestors.
4. Totem: something natural (like a rock) that serves as a symbol for an individual or a group with religious significance. Taboo: assigning certain sacred activities/objects to certain groups or persons and which then are forbidden to others.
5. In ritual, the Aborigines can access the sacred power of the Dreaming.
6. The Ancestors taught the first humans ritual in the Dreaming.
7. The initiation rituals give young people spiritual identity and redefine it in the tribe and the rituals serve as a symbolic death and spiritual rebirth.
8. Two lower middle teeth knocked out and buried, circumcision.
9. Western regions of central Africa: Nigeria, Benin, Togo.
10. Yoruba believe Orisha-nla created the world beginning in Ife.
11. Divided into Heaven and Earth, Heaven being the home of gods and ancestors, Earth being home of human beings, both good and deviant humans (like witches).
12. Olorun: High God, serves as the original, overarching power in the universe but does not interact with humans.
13. Orishas: lesser deities but significant because they have sacred power and can help or hurt humans.
14. Orisha-nla: creator of Earth, Ogun: first king of Ife, became deified and named god of iron and war.
15. Mischievous, supernatural being that disrupts the natural order of things.
16. Family ancestors: gain supernatural status by good reputation and old age; exclusive to family worship, Deified ancestors: important human figures, worshiped by many.
17. Ritual practitioners mediate between gods and ancestors and humans to fulfill religious need.
18. Divination is a way of revealing someone's future; important because it determines how you will lead your life.
19. Twenty to thirty thousand years ago from Asia across the Bering Strait.
20. Representative of American Indian religion; serves as a model of pan-Indian religion and unites tribes across North America.
21. Wakan Tanka: The Lakota name for supreme reality, refers to sever separate deities (16 of them).
22. Inktomi is the Lakota trickster figure, involved in the myth of creation.
23. Four souls depart from a person and journey along the "spirit path", meet an old woman for judgement and if they pass judgement, parts will be reborn in new bodies.
24. Spiritual power to ensure greater success.
25. Sweat lodge: a dark, airtight hut made of saplings covered with animal skins; it represents the universe. Stones are heated and put in the middle, when water is poured on them, the person sweats a lot which is purifying him or her.
26. A typical vision involves either an animal or some object with a message that comes with it; some people end up getting guardian spirits to guide them.
27. A woman of outstanding moral character.
28. Axis mundi (in general): the axis (center) of the universe. In the Sun Dance it is represented by a cottonwood tree.
29. They understand that the only thing they own, therefore the only thing suitable enough for sacrifice, is their body.
30. Highly developed civilization and large population but myth and ritual are interrelated, human sacrifice occurs and it predates Catholicism.
31. Present-day Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
32. Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan.
33. A prince who ruled as priest-king who was the earthly devotee to the god Quetzalcoatl. He served as a perfect role model for authority figures.
34. Age of the Fifth Sun, the present sun would be destroyed and the last to exist.
35. The spatial world has four quadrants protruding from the center of the universe, connecting the earthly to the many-layered heavenly/ underworld realm.
36. Divine forces in the head and heart made humans seem powerful and significant enough to be considered axis mundi.
37. Could communicate with gods and make offerings with language.
38. The Aztecs perceived Cortes as the returning Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl because he had a feathered helmet and they thought he was the feathered serpent and gave him gifts.
39. The celebration joins the living and dead through festive and spiritually meaningful rituals which the Aztecs also used to do.
40. All-encompassing nature of religion, change, and loose boundaries between supernatural and human worlds.
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