The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

them, he says, “Enough … mothers, chiefs.” 32 He greets them
this way to acknowledge their power, a power that includes
everything: long life, growth, old age, and life during the
daytime. Not all the entities involved in the story are addressed
in this fashion. Only those who command great respect are so
titled. Yellow Woman herself is acknowledged “the mother of
all of us” by the katsina chief or spokesman when he pledges the
katsina’s aid in her rescue. 33 Many more examples of the
practice exist among tribes, and all underscore that motherness
is a highly valued characteristic.
But its value signifies something other than the kind of
sentimental respect for motherhood that is reflected in
Americans’ Mother’s Day observances. It is ritually powerful, a
condition of being that confers the highest adeptship on whoever
bears the title. So central to ritual activities is it in Indian
cultures that men are honored by the name mother, recognizing
and paying respect to their spiritual and occult competence. That
competence derives entirely from Mother Iyatiku, and, through
her, from Thought Woman herself.
A strong attitude integrally connects the power of Original
Thinking or Creation Thinking to the power of mothering. That
power is not so much the power to give birth, as we have noted,
but the power to make, to create, to transform. Ritual, as noted
elsewhere, means transforming something from one state or
condition to another, and that ability is inherent in the action of
mothering. It is the ability that is sought and treasured by adepts,
and it is the ability that male seekers devote years of study and
discipline to acquire. Without it, no practice of the sacred is
possible, at least not within the Great Mother societies.
And as the cultures that are woman-centered and Motherritual
based are also cultures that value peacefulness, harmony,
cooperation, health, and general prosperity, they are systems of
thought and practice that would bear deeper study in our