Native American Ghosts

by Rhetta Akamatsu

While not all Native Americans shared the same belief system in the past, or share the same belief system now, there are some common threads in Native American belief, and most Native Americans believe in the spirits of the dead.

In the traditional northern Native American belief system, ghosts, even those of former loved ones, are considered bad luck. Every night, the dead visit the living in their dreams, and try to entice them to join them in the afterlife. They are very dangerous.

Because of this danger, the dead were usually buried far from the village in tribes that buried their dead. Islands were often used in the Pacific Northwest, since, as in many other belief systems, the Native Americans there believed that the dead could not cross water.

Despite this fear, many northern Native Americans also believed, and some still believe, that they could call upon spirit power to help them, and the shamans, in particular, use spirit power to heal.

The Iroquois tribe believed that there were three types of supernatural beings; spirits, ghosts of the dead, and gods. When a man died, his spirit departed for the afterlife, but his ghost hung around and watched and even participated in village life, although not in a way that affected the living.

In the Southern United States, the Catawba celebrated elaborate rituals to make sure the spirits of the dead were appeased. If the rituals were successful, after three days, the spirits would return and drink water from a jar of water that had been placed at the corpses's head. If the water rippled, that meant the spirit would pass on, and not bother the living.

In many tribes, the dead were cremated. This was done to prevent the dead from returning to haunt the living. All of his or her possessions were often burned, as well, so that the ghost would have no connection to the living world and no reason to return.

On the other hand, some tribes wished for the return of their dead. The Hopi, for instance, believed that the dead could help them, and offered them gifts to return.

So, we see that there is no real one "Native American" belief about ghosts, except that most Native Americans believed that ghosts exist, either to be feared or to be embraced and welcomed.