The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

at least referred to in the Peyote ceremony in Los Angeles (104–
106), and in the Bull and Horse ceremony at the pueblo (80).
They are most present in the superb descriptions of the land, in
which Momaday expresses the reverence for the land and its
creatures that is the hallmark of American Indian consciousness
and of tribal literature.
The question of witchcraft enters powerfully into the tale
Momaday weaves. Nicolas teah-whau, as the children called the
Bahkyush witch, cursed Abel when he was young (15–16). It
seems that years before, Francisco had engaged in sexual
relations with Porcingula, Nicolas’s daughter, who was also
considered a witch and whose involvement with dark powers
was made clear when the child she carried as a result of her
affair with Francisco was stillborn. Momaday suggests that
Nicolas holds Francisco responsible for that event, cursing not
only Abel but his mother and his brother, both of whom died
when Abel was young.
As a youth, Francisco was chosen by the supernaturals, an
honor that was signaled when he ran a perfect race, winning
against his rival, Mariano. On that day he did everything
perfectly, and “from then on had a voice in the clan and the next
year he healed a child who had been sick from birth.” It is clear
that Francisco has bear power, for he tracks a large bear, and it
agrees to give him its life (178–184). He is also a favorite of the
old Spanish priest, Fray Nicolas, who is rumored to have been
his father (184). The old priest rejects the boy after Francisco
becomes a man, for he sees that Francisco is a longhair, “one of
them & goes often in the kiva & puts on their horns & hides &
does worship that Serpent which even is the One our most
ancient enemy” (50).
From the old priest’s point of view, there is no good in
paganism; it is all of the devil. But from a tribal point of view,
all paganism is sorcery; if one accepts tribalism as a way of life,