Category · not a tradition
Indigenous North American Traditions
A shelf, not a tradition. It does not answer the nine questions. Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Lakota, Dakota, Diné, and Hopi are separate records. Peoples without a record are not filled in here.
Records
How we know
Where the evidence comes from, and how far it is from the people it describes. The labels are not a score. They do not rank traditions. A manuscript year, a tradition’s own claim, and a date from the ground are kept apart on the timeline.
There is no earliest document for “Indigenous North American traditions,” because that is not one tradition. Each people has its own chain. Separate rows exist for Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Lakota, Dakota, Diné, and Hopi. This shelf is not their source.
Peoples without a row are still not documented here and are not covered by a neighbor’s row. Filling a shared origin, afterlife, or axis would invent a creed. Their traditions may be old. This entry does not date them.
Original evidence → transmission / copy → translation / documentation → modern interpretation
01
Original evidence
Unknown / insufficient surviving evidence
No original evidence is cited here for a shared North American religion, because none is claimed to exist.
02
Transmission / copy
Unknown / insufficient surviving evidence
There is no single oral canon that was later written down for all of these peoples. Collectors who implied otherwise produced an outside simplification.
03
Translation / documentation
Unknown / insufficient surviving evidence
A continental glossary in English would be a translation of something that was never one text.
04
Modern interpretation
Modern scholarly reconstruction
This row is a modern filing device. Its only claim is the refusal to merge distinct peoples. It is not an ethnographic conclusion that they agree.
Already a separate record
- Open that record — Already a separate record. Associated with this umbrella, and not merged into it.
- Open that record — Separate record. Sky Woman and the turtle’s back are not the umbrella’s story.
- Open that record — Separate record. Lakota sentences stay on that record.
- Open that record — Separate record. Dakota is not filled from Lakota.
- Open that record — Separate record. Diné emergence and hózhǫ́ stay on that row.
- Open that record — Separate record. The sipapu, Maasaw, and the katsinam are not a Diné or Haudenosaunee account.
Named so they are not absorbed
- Unlisted nations — A people without a row is not covered by Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Lakota, Dakota, Diné, or Hopi.