In God is Red, Vine Deloria Jr. claims that in religions based on revelations “beliefs substitute for lived experience”. Experience is however central to Native American tribal religions, in which death is not anticipated with fear, but as the accomplishment of one’s destiny. Based on fieldwork among the Wayuu of Columbia, South America and among the Dene Tha of northwestern Alberta in Canada, this paper demonstrates that notwithstanding their common apprehension of the world based on personal experience, the manner in which the Wayuu and Dene Tha face their own death and that of others in their midst differ significantly according to their distinct cosmologies and ontologies. In both societies, however, special attention is given to dreams which are occasions of meetings with the deceased and thus constitute a form of intersubjectivity which bridges the here and the beyond.