Iconography is a living force in North American Indian religious life, past and present. Rooted in mythical imagery, it informs the content of individual dreams and nourishes the themes of contemporary Indian art. A study of the iconography of a people provides a unique opportunity to gain insight into what Werner Müller calls the "pictorial world of the soul" (Die Religionen der Waldlandindianer Nordamerikas, Berlin, 1956, p. 57).

The following exposition of the major themes of religious iconography in North America is restricted to the evidence of the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries of ethnographic research. As a result, the beautiful pottery and stone remains of the prehistoric peoples of the Southwest and Southeast are not represented here, nor are the remains of the Mound Builder cultures of the river regions.

The iconographical themes follow the general lines of myth and religious beliefs. As...