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| A Seat at the Table: Huston Smith In Conversation with Native Americans on Religious Freedom
ISBN: 9780520940918
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of California Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Indians of North America -- Religion; Freedom of religion -- United States;
In 1999, Smith, renowned authority on world religions, accompanied a delegation of Native American religious leaders to the World Parliament of Religions in Cape Town, South Africa. These delegates contended that understanding the world's religions was impossible without considering the indigenous religions of the New World, which had so often been overlooked. This book grew out of a documentary film of the sessions at the parliament called A Seat at the Table: Struggling for American Indian Religious Freedom. Smith interviewed Native American leaders ranging from the well-known (Vine Deloria Jr., Walter Echo-Hawk and Charlotte Black Elk) to the less widely recognized, such as Lenny Foster and Tonya Gonella Frichner. The remarkable conversations trace the common thread that Native Americans follow a spiritual path imbuing all their life, encompassing art, morality and literature. Topics include the fight for prisoners' rights, ceremonial rituals, the role of elders and the genius of oral traditions. Smith's interlocutors plead for a restoration of religious freedom so long repressed by an American government they believe is seeking to displace tribes from their lands and rob them of their tribal and spiritual identities. The interviews provide a fine introduction to Native American religions. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Huston Cummings Smith was born in Suzhou, China on May 31, 1919 to Methodist missionaries. He attended Central Methodist University and was ordained a Methodist minister. He soon realized that he would rather teach than preach. He received a Ph.D. in 1945 from the University of Chicago. He taught at several universities including the University of Denver, the Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Chicago Divinity School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California, Berkeley. He wrote numerous books during his lifetime including The Religions of Man (the textbook title was later changed to The World's Religions), Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals, and Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine. In 1955, he turned his popular college lectures into a series of programs on world religions for the National Educational Television network. In 1996, he was the focus of a five-part PBS series entitled The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith. He died on December 30, 2016 at the age of 97. (Bowker Author Biography) |
