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User:Sharp-shinned.hawk/sandbox/Orenda

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Orenda is an Iroquois name for a spiritual power inherent in people and their environment.[1] Activites of nature were seen to be a "ceaseless struggle of one orenda against anohter, uttered and directed by the beings or bodies" in the environment.[2] Orenda was deemed a motive force behind miracles, soothsaying, divination, prophesy, blessing, cursing, prayer, worship, and superstitions.[3] Orenda is not a collective power and does not have a personification.[4] 19th and 20th century scholars compared the concept of orenda to that of mana.[5], [6]

Anthropologist J. N. B. Hewitt notes intrinsic similarities between the Iroquoian concept of Orenda and that of the Sioux wakd or mahopa; the Algonquan manitowi, and the pokunt of the Shoshone. Across the Iroquois tribes, the concept was referred to variously as orenna or karenna by the Mohawk, Cayuga, and Oneida; urente by the Tuscarora, and iarenda or orenda by the Huron. A related term, otgon, denoted a specifically "malign, deadly, lethal, or destructive use" of orenda.[7] Hewitt notes that orenda was regarded by Iroquoian peoples as distinct from concepts of life, soul, ghost, and mind.[8]

For the Iroquois, a shaman was considerd to be "one whose orenda is great, powerful", while a hunter's orenda determined whether he was successful in overcoming the orenda of the game, and in conflicts between nations, orenda determined the outcome.[9] Orenda was also present in nature: storms were said to posess orenda. A strong connection existed between prayers and songs and orenda: through song, a bird, shaman, or rabbit put forth orenda.[10]


Footnotes

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  1. ^ Hewitt 1902.
  2. ^ Hewitt 1902, p. 41.
  3. ^ Hewitt 1902, p. 42.
  4. ^ nature worship. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2015. Retrieved 12 April 2015.
  5. ^ mana (Web ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 2015. Retrieved 12 April 2015.
  6. ^ Rose, Herbert Jennings (1951). "Nvmen and Mana". Harvard Theological Review. 44 (3): 109. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help)
  7. ^ Hewitt 1902, p. 37.
  8. ^ Hewitt 1902, p. 44.
  9. ^ Hewitt 1902, p. 38.
  10. ^ Hewitt 1902, p. 40-43.