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Fertility rites of ancient Native American tribes can be described as part of a holistic concept of unity with nature. While every tribe or nation has different fertility rites, they all seem to stem from creation myths, storytelling, horticultural or hunting rites, and myths about death and the afterlife.

One creation myth involves a celestial woman harvesting corn being impregnated by the wind. She gives birth to the earth, nature and mankind. The worship of this goddess, points to the origins of life, including the life of crops, healthy animals to hunt, and the healthy birth and life of children. Through fertility rites, myth merges with reality where all is one in birth, growth, and nourishment. Death is important in fertility rites, in that it is assumed that death contributes to the cycle of life: death of the hunted animal and harvesting of crops brings nourishment; the death of a shaman "gives birth" to a new tribal sage.

Modern psychology has reawakened the understanding of the phallus and the womb. Native Americans of the Northwest used the totem pole--an obvious phallic symbol--as part of their fertility rites. Native Americans of the Southwest worshipped a god named Kokopelli, who in ancient times was a hunch backed flute player with an enormous phallus. Native Americans of the Great Plains entered a womb-like sweat lodge to purify themselves and to increase their manliness. The above description of the creation of the world came to us through the Native Americans of the Northeast.

While certainly not an exhaustive dissertation of such and intricate subject, all of these examples serve to show, in a thumbnail sketch, some of the concepts behind ancient Native American fertility rites.