Native American “religion” may be a misnomer for many traditionally oriented Native Americans, as well as for some academic scholars. Native Americans frequently associate religion with a rigidly organized orthodoxy and orthopraxy anchored by sacred scriptures and an established ecclesiastical hierarchy. In point of fact, the vast majority of Native Americans today are true believing Christians who clearly embrace a religion and subscribe to its basic tenets. However, Native American traditionalists with at best a nominal tie to Christianity often prefer to use the term “spirituality” to refer to their sacred belief systems and related practices.

The idea of spirituality invokes indigenous conceptions of a fluid, unwritten sense of profound power ordering the visible and invisible universe. Such power infuses the worldviews of traditionalists; it goes under various names but can also operate as an unnamed category. It is manifest in sacred sites, and it can be activated by ritual publicly performed during collective ceremonial periods or in privately practiced rites by individuals during times of personal crisis.

Spirituality claims a timeless authenticity seamlessly interwoven within distinctive cultural patterns. These patterns extend far into the past, embody the present, and project into the near and distant future. Native spirituality was closely connected to prophecy. From a traditionalist viewpoint, prophecy was history and history was prophecy. Linear temporality alternated with nonlineal time and with a sense of eternality. These alternative systems of time may be best exemplified by various forms of divination.