Importance Of Water In Native American Culture. For many days the beaver people instructed the young couple in the rituals that surrounded tobacco. The Native American cultures have always been faithful in their traditions beliefs and practices. Water as sacred place For thousands of years Native American tribes across the Great Plains developed their own methods of living with the natural world and its limited water supply. Continued life in the arid region depends on water and the importance of seasonal rains is evident in the traditional designs and patterns that adorn many types of Native American Indian art.
Water is also used as a clan symbol in some Native American cultures. Such as most Native Americans that very important source has a far deeper significance for its culture that is suspended in its own religious relationship with nature. Basket weaving was and still is a sacred tradition and one of absolute necessity. Continued life in the arid region depends on water and the importance of seasonal rains is evident in the traditional designs and patterns that adorn many types of Native American Indian art. Mendota or Bdote meaning the confluence of two rivers has been an important site for the Dakota French fur traders and American soldiers including those who built Fort Snelling the first fort in the area staking claim to the lands of Minnesota. For Native Americans this vital resource has a much deeper meaning for the culture which is rooted in its spiritual connection with nature.
In a world where there were no cupboards plates or bowls to hold your belongings baskets served as indispensable items that had multiple purposes.
When they arrived in the Great Lakes region they discovered vast beds of wild rice or Manoomin. You must do this said the head beaver because these animals represent the life force of water. They were visited by eight Prophets and given seven Prophecies to follow the third of which directed them to travel westward until they found the place where food grows on water. After that due to habitat degradation water diversions damming and overfishing the salmon population dramatically dissipated and eventually disappeared in several of Californias streams and rivers. All Native American culture can determine for sure is that life is sacred and it comes from the land which implies that Mother Earth is also divine. When they arrived in the Great Lakes region they discovered vast beds of wild rice or Manoomin.