The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

paw, the healer rushes out of the house in pursuit of the heart,
and when it is found, the war captains take it. At this juncture,
the healer loses consciousness and is revived by female
relatives. Mentioned by Boas, Keresan Texts, pp. 118–122.
13. Mathew W. Stirling, “Origin Myth of the Acoma and
Other Records,” Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 135
(Washington, D.C., 1932), p. 32.
14. See the story “The Cacique Who Visited the Dead” in
Tales of the Cochiti Indians, ed. Ruth Benedict (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1981), pp. 30–31; cf.
Benedict, p. 255.
15. Anthony Purley, like Franz Boas, believes that the trend to
refer to Uretsete as male is a late development and may reflect a
Keres gesture to white tastes in deity. Uretsete is not always
male, even in present-day narratives or sacred myths, but
changes gender midstream, as it were.
16. For more on this, see Fred Eggan, Social Organization of
the Western Pueblos (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1950), pp. 283–284; Boas, Keresan Texts , p. 94; Elsie Clews
Parsons, Notes on Ceremonialism at Laguna, Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 19, pt. 4
(New York: Kraus, n.d.), pp. 109–112, and Tyler, Pueblo Gods,
p. 106.
17. Boas, Keresan Texts , p. 285, says that war captains are
the representatives of Ma’sewe and O’yo’yo’we. He adds, “It
seems therefore twin heroes must be considered helpers and
assistants of all these supernatural beings and that they are types
rather than individuals. In the pueblo the twin heroes are
represented by the war captains, the ‘out of town chiefs.’ They
are in charge of all public functions. They take care of the
shamans, accompany them on their ceremonial visit to Mt.
Taylor; they attend curing ceremonials; they are in charge of the
rabbit hunt; they make prayer-sticks for hunters and sacrifice for