The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

States; an analysis of lesbianism in tribal cultures, and some
recommendations and speculations on our futures as we retake
the ground we have lost as women in the centuries of white
male-centered domination.
The years between time immemorial and the present are long
and bloody and filled with despair. But we cannot despair, we
children of the mother, Earth Woman, and the grandmother,
Thought Woman.
American Indian women not only have endured, but we have
grown stronger and more hopeful in the past decade. Our
numbers grow, our determination to define ourselves grows, and
our consciousness of our situation, of the forces affecting it, and
of the steps we can take to turn our situation around grows. The
women and the men of Native America are busily rebuilding
their traditions, and the one most in need of rebuilding at this
time is the way of the mothers and the grandmothers, the sacred
way of the women. When Grandmother returns (and she’s
coming soon) we want to be ready; we intend to be ready. We
are recovering our heritage and uncovering the history of
colonization—the history of gynocide that weakened the tribes
almost to death. And we are busily stealing the thunder back, so
it can empower the fires of life we tend, have always tended, as
it was ever meant to.