The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

and move once again toward summer. Cosmic cycles such as
Shalako or Wúwuchim relate to life processes on earth and, by
virtue of natural relationship, within the universe. They aim
toward forces far bigger than the community or the individual,
though each is inescapably dependent on the other—“circles
within circles,” as Lame Deer says, “with no beginning and no
end.” 22
The greater and lesser symbols incorporated into the
ceremonies take their meaning from the context of the ceremony
—its purpose and its meaning. Attempts to understand
ceremonial literature without knowledge of this purpose often
have ludicrous results. The symbols cannot be understood in
terms of another culture, whether it be that of Maya or of
England, because those other cultures have different imperatives
and have grown on different soil, under a different sky within the
nexus of different spirits, and within a different traditional
context. “Owl” in one situation will have a very different
significance from “owl” in another, and a given color—white or
blue—will vary from place to place and from ceremony to
ceremony in its significance, intensity, and power. In other
words, the rules that govern traditional American Indian
literatures are very different from those that govern western
literature, though the enormity of the difference is, I think, a
fairly recent development. Literature must, of necessity, express
and articulate the deepest perceptions, relationships, and
attitudes of a culture, whether it does so deliberately or
accidentally. Tribal literature does this with a luminosity and
clarity that are largely free of pretension, stylized “elegance,” or
show. Experiences that are held to be the most meaningful—
from those that completely transcend ordinary experience to
those that are commonplace—are celebrated in the songs and
ceremonial cycles of the people.
The more commonplace experiences are celebrated in popular