The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

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endurance, of patient persistence and unfaltering courage exemplified in your life, in our efforts to lead men through the Pass of justice, which goes over the mountains of prejudice and conservatism to the broad land of the perfect freedom of a true republic; one in which men and women together shall in perfect equality solve the problems of a nation that knows no caste, no race, no sex in opportunity, in responsibility or in justice! May ‘the eternal womanly’ ever lead us on! 10
Kochinnenako in Academe: Three Approaches to Interpreting a Keres Indian Tale I became engaged in studying feminist thought and theory when I was first studying and teaching American Indian literature in the early 1970s. Over the ensuing fifteen years, my own stances toward both feminist and American Indian life and thought have intertwined as they have unfolded. I have always included feminist content and perspectives in my teaching of American Indian subjects, though at first the mating was uneasy at best. My determination that both areas were interdependent and mutually significant to a balanced pedagogy of American Indian studies led me to grow into an approach to both that is best described as tribal-feminism or feminist-tribalism. Both terms are applicable: if I am dealing with feminism, I approach it from a strongly tribal posture, and when I am dealing with American Indian literature, history, culture, or philosophy I approach it from a strongly feminist one. A feminist approach to the study and teaching of American Indian life and thought is essential because the area has been dominated by paternalistic, male-dominant modes of consciousness since the first writings about American Indians in the fifteenth century. This male bias has seriously skewed our understanding of tribal life and philosophy, distorting it in ways that are sometimes obvious but are most often invisible. Often what appears to be a misinterpretation caused by racial
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EARLY BIRD BOOKS FRESH EBOOK DEALS,
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For Native people everywhere: may o
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Angry Women Are Building: Issues an
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throughout the United States, incre
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As she read, my heart was lifted in
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of women in native life across the
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Something sacred indeed is going on
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essays in this volume. 1. Indians a
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unquestioned power of such magnitud
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wilderness. The view of Indians as
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context. However, I know from exper
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The Ways of Our Grandmothers
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North America since white contact,
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she is thought itself, from which a
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engendering), Thought Woman is not
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Woman. The Lakota are connected to
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There is an old tradition among num
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matrifocally resorted to their accu
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esult of defeat as well as of victo
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communication with animals, plants,
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among Indians) that was empowered b
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ody of a bird and the head of a wom
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makes them the preponderant powers
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them, he says, “Enough … mother
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When Women Throw Down Bundles: Stro
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function in present-day American In
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Canadian border defeated. Pressed f
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during the council that decided on
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Cherokee gynocracy, of a region tha
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possession of Cherokee lands. The C
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each other and experienced it at ea
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nonauthoritarian social system wher
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degynocraticization is subject to i
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adversarial and dualistic perceptio
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II Since the coming of the Anglo-Eu
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were about power, not about sin or
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am trying to get non-Indian approva
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and white, explains the situation d
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The acts of aggression committed ag
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literature, in fact, is known only
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Geronimo’s autobiography, Frederi
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thus be exiled from the perfect pla
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the one, significance is a necessar
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emphasize restoration of wholeness,
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should be interrelated, given the b
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epetition integrates or fuses, allo
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Seated at home behold me, Lo, here,
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desire will ensure its gratificatio
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The westerner’s bias against nono
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commonplace are one. To you symbols
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presume that thoughts are idiosyncr
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particular talent that human beings
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tales and songs, which may be humor
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from the point of view of its peopl
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its way takes up themes that pervad
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on human life, largely because conf
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incorporating event within event, p
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American novelists’ use of ritual
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complementarity. The women’s trad
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United States (and is still occurri
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that is, accepted the whites’ pea
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esult in either genocide or deicide
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ceremonials known as chantways. The
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then one must accept “devil” wo
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coyote, an ant, but who in any case
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In his early thirties, Loney, who w
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Francisco thus shows that the signi
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connect a person with the world wor
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Saint Plumero Bigfoot. A total inno
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counseled by the Spirit of Thought,
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narrative counterparts, stories, an
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Something Sacred Going on Out There
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muteness. 2 So while μ οσ is tra
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caused myth to be regarded as “a
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Classical myths could be rescued by
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sought, and his vision was bestowed
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associated with Thunder and the Wes
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And in this mystic body, or mythic
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This sequence reveals to Black Elk
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movements and action and in charact
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eyond the small hoop of the Lakota
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incorporates both. Lastly, the myth
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We are the land, and the land is mo
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waters of life that flow from a wom
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about Tayo’s life is ordinary whi
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After Tayo completes the first step
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this disordered thinking into motio
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A Stranger in My Own Life: Alienati
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I wolde think their life moste happ
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signaled. Then, too, one can meet t
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I felt like a tourist. 3 Simon J. O
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ecause others hated her whites hate
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choose to perceive themselves as th
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acceptably Indian (with all the pai
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and the yellow wind make me shiver
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The violence in which Abel finds hi
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cattle and fields because Rocky see
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seeing for some time, and by this m
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stasis of Loney as he approaches th
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Momaday’s portrayal of Abel as lo
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The Ceremonial Motion of Indian Tim
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death with life. Francisco understa
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hoop dance I was watching in my ima
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to a nearly chronological narrative
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thought I heard them talking, comin
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Answering the Deer: Genocide and Co
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witness is one solution, but it is
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ago and they fought over Acoma land
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ut i can see an eagle almost extinc
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A contemporary American Indian is a
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joined to blood and flesh. There’
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This Wilderness in My Blood: Spirit
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crazy. But I also know, in another
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Hogan speaks of a phase she went th
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world of creatures, human and nonhu
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toward one another. Their pulses be
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eturned to the Alaskan Koyukon vill
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Your small shape remained In mornin
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present in the work of “marginal
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here? Shall I go mumbling into my k
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Page 249 and 250: Pushing Up the Sky
Page 251 and 252: States; an analysis of lesbianism i
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Page 259 and 260: in South America—Brazil, Argentin
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Page 267 and 268: lands. One of the women, identified
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Page 293: ought here as slaves. Ethnographer
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Page 309 and 310: A Keres Interpretation When a tradi
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Page 319 and 320: e able to see how the interpolation
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ecome anathema; her presence has be
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Stealing the Thunder: Future Vision
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power, all the life ways and values
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grandmother/mother/Peacemaker/farme
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American Indian studies is not pure
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materials selected and erected to h
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Something of the vastness of the ch
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paw, the healer rushes out of the h
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of Adrian Recinos (Norman: Universi
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Niantic, Scaticook, Piscataway, and
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12. Margot Astrov, American Indian
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8. N. Scott Momaday, House Made of
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of the ritual significance of the d
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11. Momaday, House, p. 64. 12. Lesl
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Press, 1985), p. 56. 12. Paula Gunn
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and forced them to give up their un
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foremothers created a feminist hero
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I think he was doing the translatio
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perhaps permanently altered the nar
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Selected Bibliography Autobiographi
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Brandon, William. The Last American
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University of Nebraska Press, 1983.
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Rinehart and Winston, 1984. Harjo,
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Cochran, Jo (Lakota), et al. Bearin
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Larson, Charles R. American Indian
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“Black-feet, Blood and Peigan Hun
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INDEX Abanaki Indians, 23 Abzug, Be
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ceremonies) Beloved Woman of the Na
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(“rope baby”), 258; and women a
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Crazy Horse (Sioux leader), 115, 26
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Elderly, the: treatment of, 49, 191
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Ghost Dance, 115. See also Dances G
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life, 196-99, 202, 205, 245-47, 250
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Kilpatrick, Jack and Anna, 116 King
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Patriarchy Malinalli (La Malinche;
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Moraga, Cherrie, 214 Morgan, Lewis
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Ortiz, Simon J., 101, 131-32, 264 O
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Quakers, 3, 35. See also Christiani
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Sacred Twins, 19, 27. See also Uret
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Squaws, see Sunksquaws Standing Bea
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Oral tradition Trobriand Islands, 2
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52, 264 West, the (as symbol): colo
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World War II, 21, 125 Wovoka (Paiut
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American Indian studies; Marta Fiel
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May they hold this writing in their
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All rights reserved, including with
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Open Road Integrated Media is a dig
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