The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

from the group; in other words, it is a by-product of alienation.
Based on denial, it arises from a split-off of element from
context. In literary terms, decontextualization of tribal elements
that are recombined to suit a nontribal perceptual mode gives
rise to alienation as the dominant theme of literature of and about
American Indians.
Aside from the historical reasons for this—which are
undeniable, numerous, and at base genocidal—the contemporary
Indian writer’s preoccupation with alienation in its classic
dimensions of isolation, powerlessness, meaninglessness,
normlessness, lowered self-esteem, and self-estrangement,
accompanied by anxiety, hopelessness, and victimization, may
be so pervasive because the writers are one way or another
predominantly breeds themselves. Exactly what this means in
terms of writers’ rendering of personal experience is necessarily
a central concern of American Indian literary criticism.
What is the experience that creates this sense of alienation?
The breed (whether by parentage or acculturation to non-Indian
society) is an Indian who is not an Indian. That is, breeds are a
bit of both worlds, and the consciousness of this makes them
seem alien to traditional Indians while making them feel alien
among whites. Breeds commonly feel alien to themselves above
all. The Indian world informally classifies individuals according
to their “Indianness.” No one is exactly sure what the qualifying
characteristics are (though various definitions have been
advanced, most recently during congressional hearings that
sought to establish a definition of Indian, and there is common
agreement that blood quantum and community membership or
recognition are the most significant qualifiers), nor is the content
of the definitions to the point.
But this classification imposes on people the need to conform
to the qualifying standards, often without knowing more than
vaguely what these might be or how conformance may be