Bahá'í Faith and Native Americans

The Bahá'í Faith and Native Americans has a history reaching back to the lifetime of `Abdu'l-Bahá and has multiplied its relationships across the Americas. Individuals have joined the religion and institutions have been founded to serve Native Americans and conversely have Native Americans serve on Bahá'í institutions.

By 1963 Bahá'í sources claim members of some 83 tribes of Native Americans had joined the religion. In North America diversification is an ever-present theme in Bahá'í history. Native American Indians have been attracted to the Bahá'í Faith in increasing numbers since the 1940s; currently there are several thousand Indian and Eskimo Bahá'ís, especially in rural Alaska and among the Navajo and Lakota peoples. Among the Central and South American indigenous there are also substantial populations of native Bahá'ís. There is an estimate of some 8,000 Guaymi Bahá'is in the area of Panama, about 10% of the population of Guaymi in Panama. An informal summary of the Wayuu ( a tribe living in La Guajira Desert) community in 1971 showed about 1000 Bahá'ís. The largest population of Bahá'ís in South America is in Bolivia, a country whose population is estimated to be 55%–70% indigenous and 30%–42% Mestizo, with a Bahá'í population estimated at 206,000 in 2005 according to the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Shoghi Effendi, head of the religion 1921–1957, stated: "The fundamental principle enunciated by Bahá'u'lláh, the followers of his Faith firmly believe, is that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is a continuous and progressive process, that all the great religions of the world are divine in origin, that their basic principles are in complete harmony, that their aims and purposes are one and the same, that their teachings are but facets of one truth, that their functions are complementary, that they differ only in the nonessential aspects of their doctrines, and that their missions represent successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society."

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