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Syncretism is defined as the amalgamation and blending of different cultures, values, beliefs, or religions. An important part of the Columbian Exchange was not only commerce, pathology, and demographic patterns, but also the diffusion of culture. In class, we discussed “cross cultural contact” and how it lead to Native Americans and Europeans adapting each others’ technologies or agricultural practices whenever practical. It naturally follows that some attempts might have been made by Native Americans in the Northeast to incorporate aspects of Protestant Christianity with their own indigenous religious practices. Native Americans had transcendental religions complete with cosmologies, deities, and beliefs in an afterlife. They mirror aspects of Christianity, including its own origin myth, belief in a higher power, and belief in an afterlife. These similarities would have made religious syncretism relatively seamless and attractive to some. I would like to conduct my research specifically on early Native Americans in the Northeast Atlantic who came into contact with Dutch and English iterations of Protestant Christianity.
What drew me to this topic is my awareness of how Mexican folk religions and Catholicism have been syncretized by indigenous Mexicans. In our textbook, a brief blurb was mentioned on the origins of the Day of the Dead. It went into detail how Mesoamericans substituted indigenous gods with Catholic saints to continue celebrating their holidays with church approval. The unique adaptation of the Virgin of Guadalupe as a patron saint of Mexico comes to mind as well. It occurred to me that Northeastern Indians such as the Iroquois or the Algonquin may have attempted something similar, and perhaps appropriated certain iconography (although bearing in mind Protestantism as a whole frowned upon icon worship). Religion in the Americas is a fascinating topic, especially considering how it strongly motivated mid-Atlantic voyages and the influenced the experiences Europeans, Africans, and indigenous peoples had with each other.