The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

they were being applied in a given situation. They did not rely
on external social institutions such as schools, court, and
prisons, kings, or other political rulers, but rather on internal
institutions such as spirit-messengers, guides, teachers, or
mentors; on tradition, ritual, dream and vision; on personal
inclination (understood more in a geological sense than in a
hedonistic one) and the leadership of those who had
demonstrated competence with the foregoing characteristics.
Thus to traditional American Indians, social and personal life
is governed by internal rather than external factors, and systems
based on spiritual orders rather than on material ones are
necessarily heavily oriented toward internal governing
mechanisms.
Among traditionals the psychospiritual characteristics of the
individual are channeled to blend harmoniously with those of the
rest of the group. This channeling is done by applying custom, by
sharing appropriate items from the oral tradition, and by helping
and encouraging children in tribally approved endeavors that are
matched to individual inclinations but that will provide useful
skills, understandings, and abilities for the good of the entire
group. The young person is trained in a number of ways, formal
and informal, and by a number of individuals in the tribe.
Traditionally, female children (or female surrogates) are trained
by women, while male children (or male surrogates) are trained
by men in learning their ritual roles within their social system. In
some groups such as the Cherokee, however, shamans are
typically trained along cross-gender rather than same gender
lines. Thus male shamans train female apprentices, and female
shamans train male apprentices. Traditionally, proper behavior
falls along gender lines, as did expectations, but gender is
understood in a psychological or psychospiritual sense much
more than in a physiological one.
Thus the high position held by women as a group and by