Research Paper on:
Cherokee Indians and Religion

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
A considerable amount of attention has been devoted to the employment of religion as a coping mechanism. This employment occurs in times of great physiological or emotional stress.  Little attention has been given in the literature, however, to the manner in which indigenous cultures sometimes abandon, or seemingly abandon, their own native religions to rely on a  newly acquired religion as a coping mechanism in times of great physiological or emotional stress. The Cherokee Indians of North America offer an excellent opportunity for such an investigation.  The Cherokee are one of several hundred extant groups of Native Americans. Their culture is an ancient one and one  which, like most cultures, has changed over time. Today the Cherokee, in many ways, are little different from mainstream While culture in the United States. They have, in  fact, assimilated almost completely into that culture. At the time of contact with non-Natives, however, there were often substantial differences between Cherokee and White culture. These differences translated  into rocky relationships between the Cherokee and the United States government, relationships which eventually resulted in the forced removal of most of the Cherokee from their homelands, the establishment of  a government reservation for the people, and the ultimate separation of the nation into two distinctly different political units. Prior to contact with  European cultures, Cherokees had their own distinctive religion. Within just a few generations of contact, however, many Cherokees had apparently abandoned their native religion in favor of Christianity.  That new faith would soon be subjected to the ultimate test as to how deeply it had become ingrained in the Cherokee psyche and belief system. That test would