ABSTRACT
Native Americans historically believed in spirits and in the afterlife. In all religions, death management practices emerge to deal with loss. The practices in Native-American religions parallel those in other religions. Native Americans like Christians view death with fear and yet as a spiritual release. Traditional Native-American culture has many features in common with traditional Christian practices. While religion is a word that has no equivalent in the languages spoken by Native Americans, they are intensely spiritual peoples whose spirituality is exhibited in their art and everyday living. Native Americans have a sense of the sacred that permeates even the most casual and personal attitudes of the individual. Among Native Americans, those who deal with the holy were singled out from childhood for special religious training. For the Native American, an attitude might be reverence for Earth Mother as an expression of the work of the Great Spirit in creating the environment in which the human beings live.
