Native American religious beliefs have changed over time and differ from tribe to tribe. There is no single Native American religion. The tribes who migrated to America in the Ice Age probably had very primitive beliefs. They believed that spirits [both good and bad] had an effect on your life. If something bad happened, it was because you had offended a spirit and to make things right again, you had to make some sort of personal sacrifice. Hunting tribes prayed to the spirit of the animals they hunted to ask their permission to kill them. When tribes began to farm, praying to fertility gods to make the crops grow [like Quetzalcoatl - left] became important. In time Native American religious beliefs became less about getting food and more personal, about how you lived your life. A society's beliefs usually change to suit their needs.
There were a few beliefs that were common to most Native Americans. All tribes had some sort of creation myth, which explained how they the world was made and what their place was in the world. [Some myths explained that tribes or families were descended from animal spirits - these animals became "totem animals" that protected your family.] Tribes believed that they had been given their land and the animals on it by the Creator. [That is why they did not want to be forced off their land.] They believed that the spirits of their ancestors watched over them. Most tribes came to believe that there was a "great spirit" and many less powerful spirits. There were also "trickster" spirits, [coyote shown above] who caused trouble and sometimes an really evil spirit. Most importantly, most Native Americans believed in the afterlife and their soul lived forever.
Ceremonies were very important in Native American religious beliefs. Part of the ceremony was ritual - something that had to be done in exactly the right way. Shamans were people who could enter the spirit world and negotiate with the spirits to do something for the tribe or an individual. In the Navajo tribe, shamans also did sand paintings [shown above]. By making a design out colored sand, they would make the spirits happy and end sickness. Dancing was another important part of the religious ceremony. The dance might just be done by a shaman [medicine man] or by the whole tribe. Some dances were dances of renewal, to get rid of personal sin - like the Sun Dance [above left], practiced by the people of the Great Plains. The Ghost Dance was done to renew the earth - believers thought that by doing this dance, the dead [including animals] would come back to life and land would be restored to the Indians.
The desire to have a spirit guide or give purpose to your life was important to many tribes, particularly in the West. Young men of these tribes would go on a "vision quest." They would go out into the wilderness by themselves until they had a vision. In that vision, a spirit would appear to them and that spirit would be their guide. Some tribes used the hallucinogenic peyote cactus to help them achieve the vision, while others caused themselves physical pain - pain so great that they would have a vision. Sweat lodges were places where fires were built and the heat was so intense that people would have a vision. People who had visions were seen as people who knew what the spirits were planning. The Lakota chief Sitting Bull had a vision of the Lakota victory over General Custer and later of his own death in the Wounded Knee massacre.