Indigenous Religion
In order to understand the term "indigenous religion," one must first understand the term "indigenous people." Obviously, "indigenous" does not refer only to people who have always lived in a particular spot, because modern knowledge about migration and evolution make it clear that no such group exists, even within Africa. Instead, the term "indigenous" refers to the people found in a society before encroachment by outsiders. Obviously, this term is relative, given that some parts of the world are only now being explored by outsiders, while other areas have been colonized and re-colonized by competing outside influences. However, one constant of indigenous religions is that they do not reflect an awareness of the entire world, in contrast to religions like Christianity or Judaism. Instead, they typically focus on rituals and explaining human activities and origination within the sub-context of the area. Therefore, indigenous religions can be expected to have a tremendous interaction with the actual circumstances of life in the area in question, which makes it virtually impossible for an outsider to truly understand the religion. To understand an indigenous religion, one must first understand the indigenous way-of-life, which cannot be done once one has an understanding of science and the world at large.
The problem is that, finding indigenous religions inaccessible, members of the dominant culture generally try to eliminate indigenous religions. As a general rule, the major world religions contain a tenet that each one worships the only actual god and that others struggle in darkness. Furthermore, they may also contain admonitions to "save" those who are not yet members of the religion in question. Therefore, when an indigenous population is discovered, members of the dominant culture often try to envelop it into the larger culture. Furthermore, because world religions account for the presence of multiple types of people, while indigenous religions do not, it is easy for the dominant culture to swallow-up the indigenous one, but not for the converse to occur.
