ABSTRACT
Large stable populations such as those that came together on the Great Plains may develop a collective approach to the management of spiritual power, one in which a number of people work together to obtain, renew, and apply the power, and train and certify novices in religious matters. This group work is an alternative to healing or spiritual teaching performed one-on-one as each single case arises. Instead there is coordination of all interested parties, who meet regularly, according to a seasonal calendar. Their continual activity is considered beneficial to the entire tribe, for it may anticipate and prevent general misfortune and illness, or reestablish the proper workings of the universe, and the whole community comes to rely on it. The presence of a group approach to spirituality does not totally eliminate the activity of individual power seekers, or curers and their patients; individual, dyadic, and group patterns coexist in most societies. Thus, when proposing the “individual” (vision quester) and “shamanic” (medicine man-patient) cult institutions, anthropologist Anthony Wallace also identified the group approach as a next evolutionary step, and termed it “communal” cult institution.
