American Indian Culture and Research Journal

INTRODUCTION Freedom of worship is a protected liberty that most Americans commonly take for granted. However, for Native Americans today, there is a growing crisis in religious liberty created by two recent Supreme Court decisions. These cases deny First Amendment protection for ancient tribal religious practices that predate the founding of the United States and the writing of its Constitution. This loophole in religious liberty has created a human rights crisis in Indian Country and a call to Congress for a new law to protect the First Amendment rights of the First Americans. Senator Daniel K. Inouye, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and seven co-sponsors introduced the “Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act of 1993” (NAFERA) (S. 1021) on 25 May 1993. As Indian tribes gather for this legislative battle, it is useful to find a framework for understanding why such legislation is necessary in a nation that prides itself in protecting individual freedom. For most citizens, it is puzzling how any religious faith-much less the native religions of the land-can be excluded from the ambit of the First Amendment and placed in an unprotected class. Is it a simple legal anomaly? Failure of American jurisprudence to incorporate basic indigenous values? Or something darker?