Slotkin's Summary

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Richard Slotkin in the chapter "Cannibals and Christians" from "Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontie" emphasizes the topic of culture and compares European culture with American Indians. In the introduction he outlines the origins of tradition and literature. The author briefly discusses historical aspects and interaction between people and also presents cultural values from that time. The first section titled "The Puritan Myth: Pilgrim's Progress" opens with general information about puritans and their spiritual life, beliefs and attitude towards God and religion. Very importat aspect is concept of the "errand into the wilderness" which he compared to the Exodus of Israel from Egypt. The author also point that there were similarities between Christians and Puritans like perception of voyage like a spiritual journey. According to the Slotkin "their religion portrayed the progress of the soul as a raising up from the degeneration.." He returns to this subject in the next part of his work called"Aboriginal America: The Big House" where he closely portraits the figure of God. In this section Slotkin takes up the subject of myth and presents this concept from the point of view Indians and Puritans. He also describes many tipes of rituals performed by them. For instance "blood rytuals" which were reflection of the human unconscious". What is interesting Slotkin believes that as well as myth sexual mores are revealing source of insight into the mind. Later in the text he came up the motif of a "way" what I considered to be quite important because it allows us to explore their ways of thinking. Slotkin presents Puritan and Indian's way as completely antithetical concepts and explains it in a very interesting and detailed manner. Richard Slotkin shows how the attitudes and traditions that shape American culture evolved from

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