Hi Pamela, Bill and NtFs, 

I found this article by David McAllester -  https://www.jstor.org/stable/3398792 - which it seems could even open a way to Navajo belief through experiencing / listening to Navajo music, and thus entering into a kind of Navajo world view / way of seeing things. I'm wondering too, given the time David was active as a Wesleyan Anthropologist and Ethnomusicologist (and also a Friend), and a photo I saw of him, whether he was a bit of a hippy as well. I'd suspect you'd have some insight into this Bill. Hippies found their way into various cultures quite remarkably, and somehow from the inside, in a way akin to Anthropologists, but perhaps unique to what emerged in the 1960s and '70s.

Am hoping we can study this and gain access to a variety of Native Americans' beliefs by learning about Native Americans, for example, via https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Native_Americans and https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Native_American_Languages ... and even in a realistic virtual earth into which we could convert film into avatar bots / an interactive 3D virtual world ... and interact with Native Americans / talk with them (am thinking Google Street View with time slider / Maps / Earth / Translate and with avatar bots) ... share music with these realistic Native American avatar bots / share beliefs with them ... and in a brand new form of anthropology / history / and even Friendly / Quakerly / NtF engagement with different peoples. 

While I created some Tweets about this here too - 

https://twitter.com/WorldUnivAndSch/status/1072711203070210049

Languages-World Univ: https://twitter.com/sgkmacleod/status/1072711023038066688

https://twitter.com/HarbinBook/status/1072711364953567232

Am hoping similarly we can share in the Harbin Hot Springs' experience in #RealisticVirtualHarbin, soak in the warm pool, Do Watsu https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Watsu_-_water_shiatsus - & into which#RealisticVirtualEarth we could convert #Filmto3D avatar bots to hang out in pool area/talk/share & make music together:)

https://twitter.com/HarbinBook/status/1072712325323345920 (Harbin Hot Springs is my actual-virtual ethnographic field site).

I'd be interested in adding David McAllester's research, books and music / ethnomusicology as a resource to WUaS as well, or welcoming others  to wiki-add this, perhaps graduate student instructors at WUaS, for example. 

Interesting Finnish interview about an Universal Basic Income here - https://twitter.com/WorldUnivAndSch/status/1072561078662504448 - which I'm continuing to explore in a variety of blog posts including - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2018/12/earth-lithium-ion-battery-innovation.html - and which would have helped Native Americans much if they had had this in American history - and perhaps many around the world today even. The Finnish interview also mentions in passing possibly including mental health services in such Universal Basic Income projects (of which there are quite a few - called experiments - and possibly echoing Gandhi's Experiments with Truth), and which is something I'd be interested in facilitating as well re World University and School ... and possibly with an UBI too (with much more information about this in recent blog posts).

Thanks for bringing up Native American beliefs and David McAllester's research, Pamela and Bill. I'm an appreciator of the excellence of Wesleyan's academics and its ethnomusicology program in particular ... and both of which are something I'd like to facilitate in a friendly way at WUaS as well - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Ethnomusicology .

Friendly cheers, Scott

On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 7:50 PM <billjefferys@gmail.com> wrote:

I have a little experience, not direct, with religious beliefs amongst native Americans. It comes from my experiences when I was in college.

I took an anthropology course from David McAllester, who was a professor at Wesleyan University where I was an undergraduate. David's interest was music, and he did research with the Navajo people in particular, traveling every summer to the Southwest to record music and work with the people there. A good deal of the music he recorded was religious in nature, and in particular involved Navajo healing ceremonies, which used a lot of music. There was not a lot of "belief" involved, as I recall, but it was concentrating on healing people who needed it.

We became very close with David and we would visit him and his wife almost every summer when we travelled from Texas to visit our family in Vermont. He was a very dear friend (and Friend!).

Bill

On Tuesday, December 11, 2018 at 6:17:45 PM UTC-5, Pamela wrote:

Thanks to John and Brian for their wonderful responses to my post. Sorry it's been so long in responding.  I can only handle so much spiritual/religious conversation before I have to shut down from the overdose of negativity I feel when talking about religious beliefs. I wonder how many others have looked at native American religious beliefs? They are obviously not all exactly the same but they seem to mostly have the same underlying thought that worship (as Christians and former Christians know it) is completely unnecessary. Does anyone else see this?

Pamela

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