The peoples whom European explorers, conquerors, and colonists found in North America were as diverse as the newcomers would eventually become, and their built environment, including their sacred structures, was equally diverse. One of the determining factors was their natural environment and the lifestyle it dictated. Northern peoples, who depended on hunting for much of their sustenance, followed a semi-nomadic course, and the buildings they constructed were often impermanent. Those further south, where the land conduced to agriculture, were able to erect more elaborate and permanent structures, such as the sun temple in the “grand village” of the mound-building Natchez near today's Mississippi city of that name. Still further south, in what is now Mexico, imperial powers such as the Aztecs arose, which were able to command the resources to build vast temple complexes such as that at Tenochtitlán near present-day Mexico City.

For most of the aboriginal peoples of present-day Canada and the United States, sacrality was not confined to buildings set apart for ritual use, although the latter certainly existed. The lines that separate public and private as well as sacred and secular were blurry or absent among native peoples. The longhouse of the Iroquois in upstate New York, for example, served as a general center both for family residence and for communal activity, whether in the form of ritual or public discussions. Like many native structures, it was modeled on a legendary prototype.