The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

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evaporates and it gathers. Survival and continuance are contingent on its presence. Whether it is in a cup, a jar, or an underground river, it nourishes life. And whether the ritual traditions are in ceremony, myth, or novel, they nourish the people. They give meaning. They give life.
Something Sacred Going on Out There: Myth and Vision in American Indian Literature It is difficult if not impossible at the present time to speak coherently about myth because the term has become so polluted by popular misuse. Yet no discussion of American Indian literature is complete without an examination of what mythic narrative and the concept of myth itself mean in a tribal context. Popularly among Americans, myth is synonymous with lie; moreover, it implies ignorance or a malicious intent to defraud. Thus, any attitude or idea that does not conform to contemporary western descriptions of reality is termed myth, signifying falsehood. Labeling something a myth merely discredits the perceptual system and world-view of those who are not in accord with the dominating paradigm. Thus, current dictionary definitions of myth reinforce a bias that enables the current paradigm of our technocratic social science-biased society to prevail over tribal or poetic views just as it enables an earlier Christian biblical paradigm to prevail over the pagan one. Indeed, terms such as pagan, tribal, and poetic—often used interchangeably—imply ignorance, backwardness, and foolishness. They allow dismissal by western readers, just as their allied term, myth, does. A definition such as the following makes it clear that any story called a myth is not to be taken seriously. 1. a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some
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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
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during the council that decided on
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Cherokee gynocracy, of a region tha
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possession of Cherokee lands. The C
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each other and experienced it at ea
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nonauthoritarian social system wher
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degynocraticization is subject to i
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adversarial and dualistic perceptio
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II Since the coming of the Anglo-Eu
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were about power, not about sin or
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am trying to get non-Indian approva
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and white, explains the situation d
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The acts of aggression committed ag
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literature, in fact, is known only
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Geronimo’s autobiography, Frederi
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thus be exiled from the perfect pla
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the one, significance is a necessar
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emphasize restoration of wholeness,
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should be interrelated, given the b
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Page 139 and 140: Saint Plumero Bigfoot. A total inno
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Page 191 and 192: and the yellow wind make me shiver
Page 193 and 194: 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;
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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
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All rights reserved, including with
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Open Road Integrated Media is a dig
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