The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions

desire will ensure its gratification. Let us ignore the obvious fact
that shamans, dancers, and other adult participants in the
ceremony are not children and concentrate on actual ceremonies
to see whether they contain factors that are or might appear
“threatening” to the tribe or whether they simply repeat wishes
over and over. Nothing in the passages quoted so far could be
construed as threatening, unless beauty, harmony, health,
strength, rain, breath, life unending, or sacred mountains can be
so seen. Nor are any threatening unknowns mentioned in the
songs and chants Astrov includes in her collection; there are
threats implicit in death or great powers, but while these
constitute unknowns to many civilized people, they are familiar
to the tribes. And, by Astrov’s own admission, the works
approach death or severe illness in positive ways, as in this
death song:
From the middle
Of the great water
I am called by the spirits. 15
“Light as the last breath of the dying,” she comments, “these
words flutter out and seem to mingle with the soft fumes and
mists that rise from the river in the morning”—hardly a
threatening description. She continues:
It is as though the song, with the lightness of a bird’s
feather, will carry the departing soul up to where the stars
are glittering and yonder where the rainbow touches the
dome of the sky. 16
Nowhere in her discussion of Indian songs does Astrov indicate
that the singers feel threatened by the chants. Instead, she points
out that they express serenity and even joy in the face of what
might seem frightening to a child. Nor do there appear any