American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The process, particularly as a series of sequential timings, of creating an Indien person, according to accepted (“traditional”) beliefs, highlights the importance of fire, cooking, infusions, and, ultimately, dissolution. The same pan-human use of fire, distinguishing them from animals, also accounts for the gestation of a baby, suggesting that ontology here recapitulates cosmology. Indeed, the universal equation among the heart of a person, hearth of a house, beacon of a town, and sun of the sky underscores the importance of heat and light for all healthy, communal life. In stark contrast, the “dark” includes disease, harm, danger, and death. Though underreported, links between sparks, spirits, and life have been confirmed for the Ojibwa Shaking Tent, Delaware curings, Lakota Yuwipi, and, more universally, the flames, or tongues of fire, of Pentecost. Moreover, esoteric beliefs among Pawnee, Delaware, and Lushootseed equate the kindling of fire by friction with coitus. Each person is an especial instance of “mind”-that primordial vitality, force, movement, energy, and power deified by a high god or creator localized at the center of each tribal universe. According to southern California Luiseno, “All things that manifest or are suspected to possess ayelkwi [knowledge-power] are considered ‘persons.’ ’’