North American Indian Ceremonies by Karen Liptak
"North American Indian Ceremonies" by Karen Liptak explores the diverse ceremonial practices of various American Indian tribes, both historical and contemporary. The book emphasizes the significance of these ceremonies in fostering community bonds, self-discovery, and cultural identity among children and tribal members. Highlighting a range of events—including those celebrating birth, death, coming-of-age, and significant cultural milestones—the text provides detailed descriptions and examples of how different tribes conduct these rituals. For instance, it contrasts the Sioux and Apache coming-of-age ceremonies, illustrating the unique customs and communal aspects involved in each.
The work also addresses modern ceremonies still performed today, often within reservations and cultural centers, serving to instill pride in participants while educating outsiders about American Indian traditions. Richly illustrated with photographs and artworks, the book is both a visual reference and an informative text, featuring a glossary and a list of related works for further exploration. Overall, it serves as a valuable resource for those interested in understanding the rich tapestry of American Indian ceremonial life and its enduring relevance in contemporary culture.
On this Page
Subject Terms
North American Indian Ceremonies by Karen Liptak
First published: 1992; illustrated
Subjects: Gender roles, nature, race and ethnicity, and social issues
Type of work: Social science
Recommended Ages: 13-15
Form and Content
Karen Liptak’s North American Indian Ceremonies depicts a wide spectrum of ceremonies practiced in both the past and the present by a variety of American Indian tribes. The book’s introductory section gives an overview of the purpose of these ceremonies, stressing how they help children to grow closer to other tribal members and to learn about themselves, the world around them, and, most important, their own particular American Indian culture. Subsequent sections focus on specific kinds of ceremonial events, including those for birth and death, coming-of-age, courtship and marriage, hunting and gathering, war and peace, initiation into secret societies, abundant food, and healing. The book’s final section discusses the ceremonies still performed today, usually on reservations and sometimes at American Indian cultural centers, pageants, fairs, and museums. These contemporary ceremonies, Liptak suggests, serve two purposes: to instill pride in the American Indians watching and performing in the ceremonial rituals and to educate non-Indians about American Indian life.
Illustrated with numerous photographs and works of art depicting the ceremonies, costumes, and sacred objects, this thin work seems to be almost as much picture book as a reference text. A short list of other works about American Indian ceremonies and a glossary of terms, including the names and geographical locations of many of the tribes that Liptak’s discusses, concludes the book.
Except for the introduction and conclusion, Liptak organizes each section similarly, beginning with a general description and definition of the ceremonial event under discussion before moving to specific examples of how different tribes conduct a particular ceremony. When Liptak writes about girls’ coming-of-age ceremonies, for example, she defines puberty and discusses several tribes’ practices of isolating a girl when she first begins to menstruate before describing how one tribe, the Sioux, stage this type of celebration. During the Sioux ceremony, which honors the strong role that women play in the family, a feast is held. The girl being honored receives gifts from other tribal members, as well as instructions about her adult duties from the tribal medicine person. Liptak follows this example of the Sioux, a Great Plains tribe, with a second example of a more elaborate coming-of-age ceremony practiced by the Apaches, a Southwestern tribe. According to Liptak, in the Apache ceremony several girls are simultaneously honored through singing, dancing, eating, tepee-building, entertaining, and gift-giving in a four-day event called the Sunrise Ceremony. After these public ceremonies, the girls spend four days in isolated huts with older women from the tribe, who conduct private rituals. When the girls return home, they are ready for marriage.
By contrast, the introduction of the book depicts the costumes, music, dancing, sacred objects, and cleansing rituals of these ceremonies in general terms, without offering specific examples from individual tribes. The book’s conclusion is also general in nature.
Critical Context
Interest in enlightened works about and by American Indians (and other minority groups) began in the 1970’s when intellectuals began challenging the traditional literary canon, which was primarily made up of white, male, American and British writers. A substantial body of literature within this canon, including the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, celebrated the American frontier and in doing so depicted the decline of the “red man” and the triumph of the “white man.” Reenvisioning the literary canon has had two results: the publication of anonymous American Indian writings and stories (handed down orally), which have survived from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the publication of contemporary American Indian writers, such as N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, and James Welch.
This reformation of the canon eventually affected the juvenile and young adult literature. North American Indian Ceremonies, with its enlightened, nonstereotypical portrait of American Indians, is a product of the literary academy’s embracing of multiculturalism. This book and other works by Karen Liptak in this field—such as North American Indian Medicine People (1990), North American Indian Sign Language (1990), North American Indian Survival Skills (1990), and North American Indian Tribal Chiefs (1992)—mark the author as an important spokesperson for American Indians.