The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

As she read, my heart was lifted in recognition of our power, our
magnificent life. I am Laguna, woman of the lake, daughter of the
dawn, sunrise, kurena. I can see the light making the world
anew. It is the nature of my blood and heritage to do this. There
is surely cause to weep, to grieve; but greater than ugliness, the
endurance of tribal beauty is our reason to sing, to greet the
coming day and the restored life and hope it brings.
A week or so after the Modern Language Association
convention, I saw a CNN report about a powwow in Florida,
“the largest gathering of Indians” in recent times, which was
attended by Indian people from all over the United States and
Canada. The powwow footage was accompanied by a story
about bingo parlors on Indian lands and the attempts of various
states to block sovereign rights, economic prosperity, and the
retribalization that accompanies these events. I was warmed to
see familiar faces on the screen: boys and men in traditional
dress playing the drum, dancing. The sound of their voices, and
of the bells with which they adorned their knees and ankles, are
the sounds of home. A woman dressed in traditional southeastern
garb steadily demonstrated the making of an Indian pot. She
seemed a bit wary of the camera’s beady eye, but went on with
her pottery-shaping, almost undisturbed.
I attend powwows frequently these days. Like so much of
Indian life they have changed dramatically over the years. The
costumes are ever more elaborate, the dancers reaching back
into tribal histories to develop headdresses, bustles, kilts,
dresses, shawls, and accessories that harken back to traditional
times. Even at home in New Mexico, the dancers now dress as
they did long ago; the women no longer wear “mother hubbard”
dresses beneath their traditional black mantas that leave one arm
and shoulder bare. They dance barefoot rather than moccasined