Native American Foods: Spiritual and Social Connections

The Native American worldview conceived of a balance among all forms, including plants, animals, water, wind, earth, stone, and sun. Each had a place in the total scheme, offered spiritual and practical aid to people associated with them, and each needed respect for its contributions. Taking the life of a plant or animal, even though for food, was a serious matter. The spirits of plants and animals presumably offered themselves as food, but only on the condition that they would not be treated cruelly or wastefully. Each food spirit required rituals to express honor and thanks to it and imposed penalties if the gift of itself was abused. These penalties ranged from a species’ refusal to make itself available for human sustenance to the punishment of a single offender by the infliction of bad luck or disease. These issues were of paramount importance to people whose welfare depended on the forces of the natural world and they fostered the ideal of a harmonious universe.