The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions
This pioneering work, first published in 1986, documents the continuing vitality of American Indian traditions and the crucial role of women in those traditions.\ \ \ This pioneering work, first published in 1986, documents the continuing vitality of the American Indian tradition and of women's leadership within that tradition. In her new preface to this edition, Allen reflects on the remarkable resurgence of American Indian pride and culture in recent times.\
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This pioneering work, first published in 1986, documents the continuing vitality of American Indian traditions and the crucial role of women in those traditions.Publishers WeeklyThe average life expectancy of the American Indian woman is only 55 years; up to one-fourth of all Indian women have been sterilized without informed consent; the federal government's policies of relocation, forced acculturation and destruction of the wilderness threaten the existence of Indian women and men alike. These harsh realities take on a particular irony, notes Allen, when one considers that many tribal systems were originally gynocracieswoman-centered societies in which female goddesses were worshiped. Allen, a Laguna Pueblo writer and teacher, here assesses the Amerindian woman's status, past and present, in 17 essays. Several pieces deal with contemporary novelists and poets (Silko, Wendy Rose, Momaday, Welch, Mourning Dove). Other essays examine the honored role of lesbians in tribal life, myth and ceremony as the bedrock of literature, genocide in the poetry of Indian women and the ways scholars have largely ignored American Indian women's values and contributions. (May 5)
Preface to the 1992 EditionAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1The Ways of Our Grandmothers9Grandmother of the Sun: Ritual Gynocracy in Native America13When Women Throw Down Bundles: Strong Women Make Strong Nations30Where I Come from Is Like This43The Word Warriors51The Sacred Hoop: A Contemporary Perspective54Whose Dream Is This Anyway? Remythologizing and Self-definition in Contemporary American Indian Fiction76Something Sacred Going on Out There: Myth and Vision in American Indian Literature102The Feminine Landscape of Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony118A Stranger in My Own Life: Alienation in American Indian Poetry and Prose127The Ceremonial Motion of Indian Time: Long Ago, So Far147Answering the Deer: Genocide and Continuance in the Poetry of American Indian Women155This Wilderness in My Blood: Spiritual Foundations of the Poetry of Five American Indian Women165Pushing Up the Sky185Angry Women Are Building: Issues and Struggles Facing American Indian Women Today189How the West Was Really Won194Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism209Kochinnenako in Academe: Three Approaches to Interpreting a Keres Indian Tale222Hwame, Koshkalaka, and the Rest: Lesbians in American Indian Cultures245Stealing the Thunder: Future Visions for American Indian Women, Tribes, and Literary Studies262Notes269Selected Bibliography287Permissions, Acknowledgments295Index297
\ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ The average life expectancy of the American Indian woman is only 55 years; up to one-fourth of all Indian women have been sterilized without informed consent; the federal government's policies of relocation, forced acculturation and destruction of the wilderness threaten the existence of Indian women and men alike. These harsh realities take on a particular irony, notes Allen, when one considers that many tribal systems were originally gynocracieswoman-centered societies in which female goddesses were worshiped. Allen, a Laguna Pueblo writer and teacher, here assesses the Amerindian woman's status, past and present, in 17 essays. Several pieces deal with contemporary novelists and poets (Silko, Wendy Rose, Momaday, Welch, Mourning Dove). Other essays examine the honored role of lesbians in tribal life, myth and ceremony as the bedrock of literature, genocide in the poetry of Indian women and the ways scholars have largely ignored American Indian women's values and contributions. (May 5)\ \ \ \ \ BooknewsReprint of the monograph originally published in 1986 with a new (6 p.) preface by Allen. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)\ \
