The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

A Stranger in My Own Life:
Alienation in American Indian
Poetry and Prose
Although one of the major themes in contemporary American
Indian literature is alienation, traditional American Indian
literatures display an attractive absence of a sense of otherness.
Indeed, the overwhelming message of belonging, of
enwholement, that characterizes traditional American Indian
literature makes it and the tribes to which it belongs appealing to
the American and European mind.
Belonging is a basic assumption for traditional Indians, and
estrangement is seen as so abnormal that narratives and rituals
that restore the estranged to his or her place within the cultural
matrix abound. The primary thrust of traditional narratives and
chants is wholeness because relationship is taken as fundamental
to creaturely existence. Aliens are so designated because they
belong to another group of people, not because they are excluded
from group membership altogether. Their alien condition is thus
normal. It occasions no intrapsychic conflict because the basic
assumption of belonging is not in question. The rules for dealing
with strangers are clear in tribal traditions, and the normative
bias remains unchallenged. Even when a group member is
ostracized for severe violations of tribal laws, the narratives
point to his or her eventual return to the people, often bringing
new laws or rituals, like Handsome Lake of the Seneca or
Kochinnenako of the Keres, or coming as a leader of great