Sample Page

Orenda /ˈɔːrɛndə/ is the academic term for a theorized Iroquoian belief in a invisible force that pervades people and the rest of the world. It is argued that it is a spiritual/magical power that can be used by its possessor according to their will. Anthropologist J. N. B. Hewitt believed that orenda is a collective power of nature’s energies through the living energy of all natural objects regardless of whether they are animate and inanimate.^[1]

Orenda is defined in a variety of different ways. It is described by Hewitt variously as subsumed magical power, as a life force that pervades everything^[2] and a collective power of all of nature’s energies, even inanimate people like rocks.^[1]

Claude Levi-Strauss argues that orenda is “the conscious expression of a semantic function, whose role is to enable symbolic thinking to operate despite the contradiction inherent in it.”^[3] Vine Delora Jr. views orenda as force field that permeates everything while also composing everything.^[4] James Maffie, scholar of Aztec religion, compares orenda, alongside Wakan, Dao, Qi, Yii (Mixtec), Mana, Usen (Apache), Natoji (Blackfoot), Yowa (Cherokee), Nilchi (Navajo) and Manitou, with Teotl, which are all “single, primordial, processive all-encompassing and ever-flowing creative life force[s].” In his view, all of these are examples of constitutional monism and pantheism.^[4][5]

The term original terms for orenda have many variants across time, dialects, languages and transliterations. In Iroquoian languages, it is referred to variously as orenna or karenna by the Mohawk, Cayuga, and Oneida; urente by the Tuscarora, and iarenda or orenda by the Wendat.^{[citation needed]}

The root of the term orenda is -ren, which refers to one’s voice and its songs/speech.^[3]

Hewitt describes orenda as present in nature: storms are said to possess orenda. A strong connection exists between prayers and songs and orenda. Through song, a bird, a shaman, or a rabbit puts forth orenda.^[6] To Hewitt, the world is a battle of “warring orendas,” which is an object’s power, authority and potency to do magic. He describes the power as “a hypothetic potence or potentiality to do or effect results mystically.” Powerful people are those who are good at using this energy. The Mohawk root that correlates with orenda, -ren, is part of many terms for important individuals, such as a shaman referred to as rarėndiowà;nėl, a fine hunter called rarėñdiio and a prophet or soothsayer called ratrėń;dats or hatrėňdótha. Evidenced by a story of a young hunter hiding from and dropping to the floor at the sound of a pursuing woman’s voice, orenda also denotes charisma.^[3]

Hewitt also argues that it is synonymous with other theorized beliefs in the field of anthropology from other Native American peoples, such as the Sioux concept called Wakan; the Anishinaabe concept called manitou, and the pokunt of the Shoshone.^{[citation needed]} Orenda was viewed by Max Weber as the same as the Zoroastrian Magi and the Polynesian supernatural force called Mana.^[3]

Orenda was part of a broader trend in scholarship at the time to borrow indigenous words into the academic lexicon to then use them to make comparisons across religions. These other terms include totem (later used to coin Totemism), Taboo, Arunkulta (Arrernte), Hasina (Malagasy) and Brahman, along with previously mentioned Wakan, Manitou and Mana. Scholars defended the practice by arguing that, “…are we not more likely to keep in touch with the obscure forces at work in rudimentary religion if we make what use we can of the clues lying ready to hand in the recorded efforts of rudimentary reflection upon religion?”^[3]

• Mana
• Indigenous American philosophy
• Ecopsychology
• Spiritual ecology

• Hewitt, J. N. B. (1902). “Orenda and a Definition of Religion”. American Anthropologist. 4 (1): 33–46. doi:10.1525/aa.1902.4.1.02a00050. JSTOR 658926.