The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

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carry mainly popular literature, with a few selections from the next more powerful category. It would be well to mention, in this connection, that the use of really sacred materials by ordinary mortals and publishers is generally forbidden. Also, these works do not make good classroom materials for a variety of reasons: they are arcane; they are usually taboo; they tend to confuse non- Indian students; they may cause resentment among Indian students; and they create questions and digressions that are usually beyond the competence of the teacher or of the academic setting. Frequently they lead to ridicule, disrespect, and belittlement; non-Indian students are not inclined by training or culture to view the sacred as that which has power beyond that of economics, history, or politics. Underlying all their complexity, traditional American Indian literatures possess a unity and harmony of symbol, structure, and articulation that is peculiar to the American Indian world. This harmony is based on the perceived harmony of the universe and on thousands of years of refinement. This essential sense of unity among all things flows like a clear stream through the songs and stories of the peoples of the western hemisphere. This sense is embodied in the words of an old man: There are birds of many colors—red, blue, green, yellow— yet it is all one bird. There are horses of many colors— brown, black, yellow, white—yet it is all one horse. So cattle, so all living things—animals, flowers, trees. So men: in this land where once were only Indians are now men of every color—white, black, yellow, red—yet all one people. That this should come to pass was in the heart of the Great Mystery. It is right thus. And everywhere there shall be peace. 24 So Hiamove said, more than fifty years ago. It remains for scholars of American Indian literature to look at this literature
from the point of view of its people. Only from this vantage can we understand fully the richness, complexity, and true meaning of a people’s life; only in this way can we all learn the lessons of the past on this continent and the essential lesson of respect for all that is.
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EARLY BIRD BOOKS FRESH EBOOK DEALS,
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For Native people everywhere: may o
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Angry Women Are Building: Issues an
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throughout the United States, incre
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As she read, my heart was lifted in
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of women in native life across the
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Something sacred indeed is going on
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essays in this volume. 1. Indians a
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unquestioned power of such magnitud
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wilderness. The view of Indians as
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context. However, I know from exper
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The Ways of Our Grandmothers
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North America since white contact,
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she is thought itself, from which a
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engendering), Thought Woman is not
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Woman. The Lakota are connected to
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There is an old tradition among num
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matrifocally resorted to their accu
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esult of defeat as well as of victo
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communication with animals, plants,
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among Indians) that was empowered b
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ody of a bird and the head of a wom
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makes them the preponderant powers
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them, he says, “Enough … mother
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When Women Throw Down Bundles: Stro
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function in present-day American In
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Canadian border defeated. Pressed f
Page 57 and 58: during the council that decided on
Page 59 and 60: Cherokee gynocracy, of a region tha
Page 61 and 62: possession of Cherokee lands. The C
Page 63 and 64: each other and experienced it at ea
Page 65 and 66: nonauthoritarian social system wher
Page 67 and 68: degynocraticization is subject to i
Page 69 and 70: adversarial and dualistic perceptio
Page 71 and 72: II Since the coming of the Anglo-Eu
Page 73 and 74: were about power, not about sin or
Page 75 and 76: am trying to get non-Indian approva
Page 77 and 78: and white, explains the situation d
Page 79 and 80: The acts of aggression committed ag
Page 81 and 82: literature, in fact, is known only
Page 83 and 84: Geronimo’s autobiography, Frederi
Page 85 and 86: thus be exiled from the perfect pla
Page 87 and 88: the one, significance is a necessar
Page 89 and 90: emphasize restoration of wholeness,
Page 91 and 92: should be interrelated, given the b
Page 93 and 94: epetition integrates or fuses, allo
Page 95 and 96: Seated at home behold me, Lo, here,
Page 97 and 98: desire will ensure its gratificatio
Page 99 and 100: The westerner’s bias against nono
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Page 103 and 104: presume that thoughts are idiosyncr
Page 105 and 106: particular talent that human beings
Page 107: tales and songs, which may be humor
Page 111 and 112: its way takes up themes that pervad
Page 113 and 114: on human life, largely because conf
Page 115 and 116: incorporating event within event, p
Page 117 and 118: American novelists’ use of ritual
Page 119 and 120: complementarity. The women’s trad
Page 121 and 122: United States (and is still occurri
Page 123 and 124: that is, accepted the whites’ pea
Page 125 and 126: esult in either genocide or deicide
Page 127 and 128: ceremonials known as chantways. The
Page 129 and 130: then one must accept “devil” wo
Page 131 and 132: coyote, an ant, but who in any case
Page 133 and 134: In his early thirties, Loney, who w
Page 135 and 136: Francisco thus shows that the signi
Page 137 and 138: connect a person with the world wor
Page 139 and 140: Saint Plumero Bigfoot. A total inno
Page 141 and 142: counseled by the Spirit of Thought,
Page 143 and 144: narrative counterparts, stories, an
Page 145 and 146: Something Sacred Going on Out There
Page 147 and 148: muteness. 2 So while μ οσ is tra
Page 149 and 150: caused myth to be regarded as “a
Page 151 and 152: Classical myths could be rescued by
Page 153 and 154: sought, and his vision was bestowed
Page 155 and 156: associated with Thunder and the Wes
Page 157 and 158: And in this mystic body, or mythic
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This sequence reveals to Black Elk
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movements and action and in charact
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eyond the small hoop of the Lakota
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incorporates both. Lastly, the myth
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We are the land, and the land is mo
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waters of life that flow from a wom
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about Tayo’s life is ordinary whi
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After Tayo completes the first step
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this disordered thinking into motio
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A Stranger in My Own Life: Alienati
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I wolde think their life moste happ
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signaled. Then, too, one can meet t
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I felt like a tourist. 3 Simon J. O
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ecause others hated her whites hate
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choose to perceive themselves as th
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acceptably Indian (with all the pai
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and the yellow wind make me shiver
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The violence in which Abel finds hi
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cattle and fields because Rocky see
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seeing for some time, and by this m
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stasis of Loney as he approaches th
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Momaday’s portrayal of Abel as lo
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The Ceremonial Motion of Indian Tim
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death with life. Francisco understa
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hoop dance I was watching in my ima
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to a nearly chronological narrative
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thought I heard them talking, comin
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Answering the Deer: Genocide and Co
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witness is one solution, but it is
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ago and they fought over Acoma land
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ut i can see an eagle almost extinc
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A contemporary American Indian is a
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joined to blood and flesh. There’
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This Wilderness in My Blood: Spirit
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crazy. But I also know, in another
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Hogan speaks of a phase she went th
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world of creatures, human and nonhu
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toward one another. Their pulses be
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eturned to the Alaskan Koyukon vill
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Your small shape remained In mornin
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present in the work of “marginal
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here? Shall I go mumbling into my k
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from Paguate to a small land-grant
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dead society, but the reworking of
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and cannot sing it into line. 3) as
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Pushing Up the Sky
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States; an analysis of lesbianism i
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extinction which for several hundre
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death. A headline in the Navajo Tim
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human life and human dignity was ha
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in South America—Brazil, Argentin
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example, the Kaska of Canada would
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were contemptuous of Gay traditions
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considerable stature on Native Amer
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lands. One of the women, identified
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childbearer, and nurturer, they no
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human agency. For Mrs. McCabe, havi
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are inextricably interwoven with fe
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certain women as individuals result
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healing is a matter of restoring th
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traditionalism. The Native American
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Native America. America does not se
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The Matrons held so much policy-mak
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convinced that those wars were and
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Dye declared that Sacagawea, whose
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worlds occurred, come to mark much
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ody responsible for implementing po
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ought here as slaves. Ethnographer
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Kochinnenako in Academe: Three Appr
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approach reveals not only the explo
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are not possible in English. Langua
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and are so painted at death so that
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woven from the silks of corn, a bel
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mood. On approaching the city, he f
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have white markings upon them. From
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A Keres Interpretation When a tradi
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exchange of dominance, and thus eac
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to accept a life bereft of warmth a
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males as one of them in order to bu
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constitutes his declaration of his
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e able to see how the interpolation
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features of the forest. When a woma
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materials. Western technological-in
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tale. I am acutely aware that much
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the manly hearted woman divorces he
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concept of women, the concept of bo
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household as an economic unit but h
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Actually, the legitimacy of motherh
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questioner and the newcomer. Again,
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as men on the eve of combat, or pre
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accepted as part of the woman’s c
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together women tilled their fields,
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The Lakota have a word for some of
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ecome anathema; her presence has be
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Stealing the Thunder: Future Vision
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power, all the life ways and values
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grandmother/mother/Peacemaker/farme
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American Indian studies is not pure
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materials selected and erected to h
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Something of the vastness of the ch
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paw, the healer rushes out of the h
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of Adrian Recinos (Norman: Universi
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Niantic, Scaticook, Piscataway, and
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12. Margot Astrov, American Indian
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8. N. Scott Momaday, House Made of
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of the ritual significance of the d
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11. Momaday, House, p. 64. 12. Lesl
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Press, 1985), p. 56. 12. Paula Gunn
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and forced them to give up their un
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foremothers created a feminist hero
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I think he was doing the translatio
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perhaps permanently altered the nar
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Selected Bibliography Autobiographi
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Brandon, William. The Last American
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University of Nebraska Press, 1983.
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Rinehart and Winston, 1984. Harjo,
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Cochran, Jo (Lakota), et al. Bearin
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Larson, Charles R. American Indian
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“Black-feet, Blood and Peigan Hun
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INDEX Abanaki Indians, 23 Abzug, Be
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ceremonies) Beloved Woman of the Na
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(“rope baby”), 258; and women a
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Crazy Horse (Sioux leader), 115, 26
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Elderly, the: treatment of, 49, 191
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Ghost Dance, 115. See also Dances G
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life, 196-99, 202, 205, 245-47, 250
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Kilpatrick, Jack and Anna, 116 King
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Patriarchy Malinalli (La Malinche;
Page 415 and 416:
Moraga, Cherrie, 214 Morgan, Lewis
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Ortiz, Simon J., 101, 131-32, 264 O
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Quakers, 3, 35. See also Christiani
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Sacred Twins, 19, 27. See also Uret
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Squaws, see Sunksquaws Standing Bea
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Oral tradition Trobriand Islands, 2
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52, 264 West, the (as symbol): colo
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World War II, 21, 125 Wovoka (Paiut
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American Indian studies; Marta Fiel
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May they hold this writing in their
Page 435 and 436:
All rights reserved, including with
Page 438 and 439:
Open Road Integrated Media is a dig
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