The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

miserliness, and cruelty, supremacy of the good over the bad,
why does the hero grant his antagonist rights over the village and
Kochinnenako for half of each year?
The contexts of Anglo-European and Keres Indian life differ
so greatly in virtually every assumption about the nature of
reality, society, ethics, female roles, and the sacred importance
of seasonal change that simply telling a Keres tale within an
Anglo-European narrative context creates a dizzying series of
false impressions and unanswerable (perhaps even unposable)
questions.
For instance, marriage among traditional Keres is not
particularly related to marriage among Anglo-European
Americans. As I explain in greater detail in a later essay,
paternity is not an issue among traditional Keres people; a child
belongs to its mother’s clan, not in the sense that she or he is
owned by the clan, but in the sense that she or he belongs within
it. Another basic difference is the attitude toward conflict; the
Keres can best be described as a conflict-phobic people, while
Euro-American culture is conflict-centered. So while the orderly
and proper annual transference of power from Winter to Summer
people through the agency of the Keres central female figure is
the major theme of the narrative from a Keres perspective, the
triumph of good over evil becomes its major theme when it is
retold by a white man.
Essentially what happens is that Summer (a mask dancer
dressed as Miochin) asks Kochinnenako permission, in a ritual
manner, to enter the village. She (who is either a mask dancer
dressed as Yellow Woman, or a Yellow Corn Irriaku) follows a
ritual order of responses and actions that enable Summer to
enter. The narrative specifies the acts she must perform, the
words she must say, and those that are prohibited, such as the
command that she not “throw any of the husks out of the door.”
This command establishes both the identity of Miochin and