Sightings Articles

Image, made available by the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, shows students at a Presbyterian boarding school in Sitka, Alaska in the summer of 1883. (Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia via AP)

Native Americans | colonialism | Pope Francis

Reckoning with Re-education: Christianity’s Role in Native American Boarding Schools

American Christians must reckon with colonial history and cooperate with US government's “Road to Healing" initiative....

July 6, 2022
maya ritual

Native Americans | American religion | Death | memorial

Loss and Continuation: Lessons from the Popol Vuh

An ancient Maya tradition on keeping those we've lost alive...

June 10, 2021

Native Americans | politics

DNA Tests, Indigenous Identity, and "Playing Indian"

In October 2018, the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, publicly released the results of a DNA test taken to prove Native American ancestry in her family lineage, a move prompted by numerous attacks from President Trum...

January 10, 2019

Thanksgiving | American religion | Native Americans

A Season of Myths

“Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.”  -Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (Götzendämmerung) This past week people in the USA entered the “season of myths” that runs from Thanksgiving through various religious holi...

November 26, 2018

Dakota Access Pipeline | environmentalism | Faith Spotted Eagle | Native Americans | sacred space | Sioux Nation | Standing Rock

Sacred Sites Violated

What if the Sioux Nation decided to build a pipeline through Arlington Cemetery? This question from Faith Spotted Eagle—who lacks a Ph.D. in comparative religion and who would never be employed to teach the phenomenology of burial ritual—got at the h...

February 13, 2017

Faith Spotted Eagle | Rosebud Sioux | Keystone Pipeline | Pine Ridge Indian Reservation | suicide | Indian Health Service | Lakota Sioux | Oglala Sioux | cyber-bullying | teenager-fad contagion | suicide prevention | Slender Man | Tall Man Spirit | suicide spirit | Native Americans

Sioux Suicides

Sightings of religion-related stories among members of Sioux tribes in South Dakota, one would think, could be beyond the scope of the national media, yet two independent stories win space this week on the front pages of, e.g., The New York Times. ...

May 11, 2015