SRS, no disrespect intended, but:

What the hell is an "industrial" religion?

Why do you use big, rarified words like "autochthonous" when everyday, commonly understood words like "native" or "indigenous" will do?

And thirdly, you may have a degree in American Indian literature, but you don't seem to have much experience of American Indian cultures. That is a polite way of saying, you seem to have acquired an education without actually knowing too many Indians.

You seem much too quick to defend the NA hegemonic culture, when there isn't one. Neither is their a "Native American religious amalgam of religious beliefs". At least, not among any of the American Indians I know, who argue incessantly about their religious differences with one another as we Eur Ams argue ours. Or as a friend of mine likes to say "we aren't all Sun Dancers, you know".

Just like in any other grouping of people from different cultures, there are dominant and less dominant cultures. I live at the epicenter of the tensions between Northern Plains and Woodland tribes. Their cultural differences are very real, and their racial experiences of the US virtually identical. They struggle with the same gender, class, and race dynamics that the dominant Eur Am cultures grapple with, which is why I don't feel a need to apologize for, or attempt to paper over the failings of their culture's traditions anymore than I would my own. They are plenty capable of defending themselves, if they choose to do so. I really want to see their cultures survive, and as long as well meaning academic types keep acting as apologists for them, which is what I think you are doing here, there will be more cultural loss, not less. If the native cultures are going to survive, they are going to do so by being scrappy and being a part of contemporary dialogues and debates of the issues that matter most to most people.

Those issues certainly include sexism. Some of the most interesting discussions I've ever had about Rousseauian romanticizing have been with Native intellectuals who haven't been college educated, and never heard of the guy. But they understand the concept of Romantic nationalism just fine. I know may be a bit of a leap for a lot of people that Native people actually have intellectual traditions that extend further back than Vine Deloria, but there you have it.

And BTW, I never claimed that Native religious traditions had to be, or should remain static. You are the one who brought up the Lynn Andrews thing. That raises the issue of "reinvention" for discussion. There are philosophical differences all over the map in Indian country on this very issue--and when I say Indian country, I mean both the res and urban Indian country. But I wouldn't say it is much of a big deal anywhere in Indian country, in my experience. Although I should qualify where I'm coming from regarding Native Americans: my experience with American Indian people is living and working with them, not studying them.

Perhaps that accounts for the differences between your views and mine.

Finally, the last quote you gave for the article doesn't make sense to me. Either you have quoted it far enough out of context, or the writer just isn't very good at writing with enough clarity to make herself understood.

But if you are getting at the same sort of thing that I'm guessing Wolfgang was trying to get at, I'm not buying into that sort of an oppositional set up of New Age vs "skeptic" debate over who is right vs who is wrong. That would be a truly mindless waste of time. I'm not certain that is what you are getting at, but because you came in and started speaking in post-modernspeak tongues, it is hard to know what exactly it is you are truly going on about here.