The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

Grandmother of the Sun: Ritual
Gynocracy in Native America
I
There is a spirit that pervades everything, that is capable of
powerful song and radiant movement, and that moves in and out
of the mind. The colors of this spirit are multitudinous, a
glowing, pulsing rainbow. Old Spider Woman is one name for
this quintessential spirit, and Serpent Woman is another. Corn
Woman is one aspect of her, and Earth Woman is another, and
what they together have made is called Creation, Earth,
creatures, plants, and light.
At the center of all is Woman, and no thing is sacred (cooked,
ripe, as the Keres Indians of Laguna Pueblo say it) without her
blessing, her thinking.
… In the beginning Tse che nako, Thought Woman finished
everything, thoughts, and the names of all things. She
finished also all the languages. And then our mothers,
Uretsete and Naotsete said they would make names and they
would make thoughts. Thus they said. Thus they did. 1
This spirit, this power of intelligence, has many names and
many emblems. She appears on the plains, in the forests, in the
great canyons, on the mesas, beneath the seas. To her we owe
our very breath, and to her our prayers are sent blown on pollen,
on corn meal, planted into the earth on feather-sticks, spit onto
the water, burned and sent to her on the wind. Her variety and
multiplicity testify to her complexity: she is the true creatrix for