Customs of the American Indians

Customs of the American Indians
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1. The history of witch persecutions during the European Inquisition and Reformation have colored public understandings of witchcraft beliefs in more recent times. According to the European missionaries, Indian witchcraft and sorcery refers to a belief in the perpetration of harm by persons through mystical means. The only purpose of witchcraft is to harm people. Father Joseph Francois Lafitau said that the person who can cast harmful spells are evils because they can trick and deceive people. He proposed that all the crisis that is happening in the native’s community are attributed to these shamans and sorcerers. All the plagues and epidemics was caused by the evil-doings of the shamans and sorcerers. Because of this American Indians started to hunt witches in order to stop crises with the help of the Western missionaries. On the other hand, the western missionaries used this phenomena to legitimize their Christian beliefs and they easily deceived the natives by dislocating them from their original settlements.
2. The Iroquoian people have another explanation to the spiritual of their shamans differently from those of the western missionaries. For them, witchcraft witchcraft is a mean to understand the world in which evil really exists and bad things happen. In contrast the western beliefs, the crises that they are facing are brought by the western colonizers and not by their shamans. The devastating effects of plagues and diseases were brought by the westerners and therefore acquitting the native shamans. They believe that their shamans are still relevant in their society.
3. The dancing instructors in Philadelphia try to sell entertainment to the Philadelphia’s upperclassmen. In Pennsylvania, dance was considered merely as an amusement and entertainment to the wealthy people. From the dancing lesson in, the instructors try to sell dancers who will give service to their clients in exchange of large amount of money. Some of the girls sold were victim of the slave trade that came from the colonial South.
4. Urban amusement in colonial South is different. It is not solely performed to entertain people and the colonizers rather there is a deeper reasons for it. Latin American dance is the formal or informal expression of the people of Latin America. It is somehow mixed with their religious beliefs and other traditions. They were performed with other purpose such as healing, mourning to their deeds and worshipping their gods. During the colonial period, dance were also used to depict what is happening in their social lives.
5. The sentiments of the child and parent in the novels are contrasting. A parent’s sentiment wanted the "best" for his child, but the child have different sentiment because he is adventurous and he wants to try new things. The child, did not listen to his parent and he decided to travel, as a result he experienced despair and hardships and his parents believed that he is dead. Fortunately, he was able to survive but when he returned, he has no one else to return to.
6. For the American readers, this story is not good because it is favorable to the British colonizers....