The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

Woman. The Lakota are connected to her still, partly because
some still keep to the ways she taught them and partly because
her pipe still resides with them.
The pipe of the Sacred Woman is analogous in function to the
ear of corn left with the people by Iyatiku, Corn Woman, the
mother goddess of the Keres. Iyatiku, who is called the mother of
the people, is in a ceremonial sense another aspect of Thought
Woman. She presently resides in Shipap from whence she sends
counsel to the people and greets them when they enter the spirit
world of the dead. Her representative, Irriaku (Corn Mother),
maintains the connection between individuals in the tribe as well
as the connection between the nonhuman supernaturals and the
tribe. It is through the agency of the Irriaku that the religious
leaders of the tribe, called Yaya and Hotchin, or hochin in some
spellings of the word, (Mother and leader or chief), are
empowered to govern.
The Irriaku, like the Sacred Pipe, is the heart of the people as
it is the heart of Iyatiku. In the form of the perfect ear of corn,
Naiya Iyatiku (Mother, Chief) is present at every ceremony.
Without the presence of her power, no ceremony can produce the
power it is designed to create or release. 12 These uses of the
feminine testify that primary power—the power to make and to
relate—belongs to the preponderantly feminine powers of the
universe.
According to one story my great-grandmother told me, in time
immemorial when the people lived in the White Village or Kush
Katret, Iyatiku lived with them. There came a drought, and since
many normal activities had to be suspended and since the people
were hungry and worried because of the scarcity of food from
the drought, Iyatiku gave them a gambling game to while away
the time. It was meant to distract them from their troubles. But
the men became obsessed and began to gamble everything away.
When the women scolded them and demanded that they stop