The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

to accept a life bereft of warmth and love. A feminist reader
might imagine that Kochinnenako, like many women, has been
socialized into submission. So obedient is she, it seems, so
lacking in spirit and independence, that she doesn’t seize her
chance to escape a bad situation, preferring instead to remain
obedient to the patriarchal institution of marriage. As it turns out
(in Gunn’s tale), Kochinnenako is delivered from the clutches of
her violent and unwanted mate by the timely intervention of a
much more pleasant man, the hero.
A radical feminist is likely to read the story for its content vis
à vis racism and resistance to oppression. From a radical
perspective, it seems politically significant that Sh-ah-cock is
white. That is, winter is white. Snow is white. Blizzards are
white. Clearly, while the story does not give much support to
concepts of a people’s struggles, it could be construed to mean
that the oppressor is designated white in the story because the
Keres are engaged in serious combat with white colonial power
and, given the significance of storytelling in tribal cultures, are
chronicling that struggle in this tale. Read this way, it would
seem to acknowledge the right and duty of the people in
overthrowing the hated white dictator, who by this account
possesses the power of life and death over them.
Briefly, in this context, the story can be read as a tale about
the nature of white oppression of Indian people, and
Kochinnenako then becomes something of a revolutionary fighter
through her collusion with the rebel Miochin in the overthrow of
the tyrant Sh-ah-cock. In this reading, the tale becomes a cry for
liberation and a direct command to women to aid in the people’s
struggle to overthrow the colonial powers that drain them of life
and strength, deprive them of their rightful prosperity, and
threaten them with extinction. An activist teacher could use this
tale to instruct women in their obligation to the revolutionary
struggle. The daughter, her sisters, and the mother are, after all,