A Study of Native Women in American Indigenous Literature and Indigenous

Feminism

Natalia Chirino
Grado en Estudios Ingleses, UNED, 2014.

A Final Project
Submitted to the Subject Corrientes Actuales de la Filosofía in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree.

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 Abstract

This final project develops a context for the discussion of the oppression suffered by
Aboriginal women from the beginning of the American Colonization and it explores the
present position of Aboriginal women as they challenge the different forms of patriarchal
colonialism that still intends to subdue them and their people. Through the development of
a tribal activism which acknowledges different levels of oppression and which adopts
decolonization strategies, through politics, literature and arts, Aboriginal women reclaim
the pre-colonial, women-centered and egalitarian principles, which usually situated them in
powerful and respected positions.

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 Table of Contents

Abstract 1
Table of Contents 2
Introduction 3
Part One: Mainstream Feminism : The Exclusion of Indian Women 4
Part Two: Indigenous Feminism 8
Part Three: Pre-Contact Times. Tribal Culture 11
Part Four: Aboriginal Women: Lives of Fortitude 15
Part Five: Impact of Colonialism on Native Women and their People 19
Part Six: Stereotypes about Aboriginal People. Tools of Patriarchy and Colonialism 21
Part Seven: American Indian Literature 25
Part Eight: Lesbianism in Tribes 29
Part Nine: Indian Women Today 31

Conclusion 32
Bibliography 34
Notes 35

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 Introduction

This study examines the domination and violence practiced against Aboriginal
women from the conquest, the ongoing difficulties that they encounter in a harsh
patriarchal and racist society, the development of a tribal feminism and its uneasy
relationship with the mainstream white feminist movement and various pieces of
contemporary Indian literature which generate new images of strong Aboriginal people and
seek the strengthening and survival of ancient tribal culture.
This is an exploratory study, using a qualitative approach with the intention to gather
a profound understanding of the different kinds of subjugation suffered by Indian women
and their people, the hidden reasons and motivations for their enslavement and the
present strategies that can lead to freedom and survival. This project is not representative
of all Aboriginal women, as it acknowledges that the status of Indigenous women varies
enormously according to their particular situations and how gender, race, class and
sexuality are intertwined in their lives. Indigenous women are not only fighting for gender
equality, but also for the eradication of other forms of oppression such as racism, poverty,
land exploitation and cultural genocide. It is the aim of this analysis to gain critical
consciousness of the injustices practiced against the mentioned minority group of women
and the different ways in which they oppose the dominant systems and intend to revive
their past egalitarian orders, so as to reach communal respect, harmony and justice.
Aboriginal women's activism is gathering force toward achieving real liberation. In
many different ways Indigenous women experience marginalization and the need to
change this situation motivates tribal decolonizing activism, challenging dominant political,
social and economic practices. Aboriginal women are creating complex resistance
strategies against racist and sexist colonial structures. These strategies are carried out
through politics and literature, concentrating on the revival of the ancient spiritual cultures
and the recounting of Indian narratives that tell about dynamic, strong and alive Indians, in
opposition to the false image of Indians as fixed, savage and exterminated creatures.
In due course, the study aspires to show the breakup of ancient orders, the change
in customs, tribal social structures and ritual life. It also intends to exhibit the ways in which
Indian culture, with Indian women as leaders, is remarkably strong and durable and how

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through the bonds to land, the spirit world and matriarchal societies, contemporary
activists and writers are constructing the passages to ensure tribal sovereignty and
endurance.

Mainstream Feminism: The Exclusion of Indian Women

Feminism, the movement which is at present divided in different waves, began in

the late nineteenth century, even though its main purpose of the liberation of women
began to gestate in earlier decades when women such as Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-
1797) started to argue for the recognition of equality between the sexes. As it is widely
known, First-wave Feminism defended equal political, economic and social rights for
women, focusing on voting and property rights. But, despite the remarkable efforts and
rights obtained, this project concentrated on the needs of white, middle-class, educated
women and in this way it failed to include woman who did not suffer the patriarchal
oppression of gender but also of race, sexuality, colonialism and poverty. The Second-
wave Feminism, which started in the 1960s and 1970s, still aimed at assimilating women
into a male-dominated society but it centered its struggle largely on rights related to
sexuality, family and employment. Even though, the Second-wave Feminism broadened its
material concerns, it still ignored the reality and suffering of other marginalized minority
groups of women, unconsciously contributing to perpetrate the latter's invisibility and
affliction.
Currently, all the various feminist theories are aware of the different ways and levels
of harshness that millions of women suffer around the world but yet the gap between
traditional feminisms and Indigenous theory and activism is broad because the
contemporary feminist theories are incompatible with Aboriginal women's beliefs,
perceptions and theories of numerous oppressions working together (gender, race and
colonialism) and with their conceptions of spirituality, nature, land and their projects for
liberation.
The fact that at present time American Indian women in general do not adhere to
feminist analysis or action can be better understood when analyzing how Native people
have been denigrated, belittled and objectified throughout history by Western society. In
this sense, the Suffragettes of the late nineteenth century are not really an exception in

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relation to their use of the image of Indians that could help in their interests and projects.
As Teresa Zackodnik explains in her essay Reaching Toward a Red-Black
Coalitional Feminism, Native American women were included in the project of feminism
only if their contributions completely fitted with the political purposes of the white
movement and if Indigenous 's participation could be used to better carry out the white
emancipation plan. In her essay Zackodnik writes:

Similarly, those Native American women whose writing, speaking, and activism have been
included or lauded by white feminists of the first wave are those whose positions can be
easily accommodated to that movement 's political purposes.1

The leader American suffragettes Anna Howard Shaw and Susan B. Anthony
considered that white women, as moral examples of the nation, should get the right to vote
before any other minority group, including Indian or Black population. Even though the
suffrage movement based its claims on abolitionist matters, it also considered that social
justice among white American women should have priority over Aboriginal people. This
idea is grasped in the speech Women vs. Indians given by the feminist Anna Howard
Shaw in 1891:

Indians in blankets and moccasins were received in the State Convention with the
greatest courtesy. Susan B. Anthony and other eminent women were barely
tolerated...
While these Indians were engaged in their ghost dances, the white women were
going up and down in the State pleading for the rights of citizens. 2

As it is clearly shown in this speech, Native Americans were considered to be a low

race not meriting the same treatment as white women because they allegedly were not
fully civilized and responsible citizens.
In addition, the rejection of Aboriginal women not to be related themselves with
white feminism can be better grasped if we highlight the fact that the Woman's National
Indian Association (WNIA), established in 1879 by white women, intending to recognize
Native American rights to law, education and land, paradoxically contributed to the loss of
most tribal land by Native people and the division of tribal communities. 3 The missionary
work of the association participated in the Christianization of Indians and encouraged the

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Indian's exchange of tribal land tittles and citizenship. Also, the WNIA resorted to the
image of the Indian women as a civilizing influence to undertake the national plan of
civilization and colonization of the alleged male Indian savage. These actions were related
to a strong position in the First Feminist Movement which stated that Indians could be
saved as a culture as long as they assimilated the dominant culture and the Aboriginal
woman was considered a key “element” to establish a new system in tribal communities. It
is important to specify that suffragettes admired the ancient matriarchal tribal populations
and the respect that most of the times Native women enjoyed in their gynocratic societies.
However, they did not seem to find any contradiction between this estimation and their
strong will to erase Aboriginal ancient culture because Indians were considered to be
mainly barbaric and even cruel or inhuman. It is in this way that white women saw in their
Native sisters a potential agent to achieve complete colonization. Consequently, white
women could take up a stronger position in the country as examples of morality, virtually
deserving the rights they were fighting for.
All the injustice and offense that Native population in general and Aboriginal women
in particular suffered in the past and still undergo nowadays in the different spheres of
society, including the platforms that were supposed to protect them, had provoked the
feeling of alienation and rupture of Aboriginal communities.
Something similar has occurred between Native women and African American
women in the context of activism. Frances Harper, a recognized African American
abolitionist and feminist, demanded the inclusion of Black population into American society
and the ending of butchering and burning of Black people, insisting that civilization should
triumph, excluding Native people from her speech and, as felt by Native activists, indirectly
suggesting that savagery, mostly associated with Indianness, should come to an end:

Harper 's reference to lynching reinforced her argument, for it suggested that attending to the
greater claim of the Negro could put an end to the butchering and burning alive of hundreds
of black men, women and children. Indeed, Harper ´s stress in the speech is on the nation ´s
claim to civilization, an ironic choice given Fletcher ´s sketch of Indian savagery as a
contagion that was spreading among whites in the West.4

This scenario contributed to the estrangement experienced by Native women in the

past, whose power has reached to current times, shaping the present difficult situation of a
marked limitation for coalitions between Aboriginal Feminism and other waves of the

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movement.
Going back to the main break between white and Aboriginal activists, another gap
between woman's tribal consciousness and white feminist understanding is the different
perceptions as regard gender roles and the essential components for the freedom of
women. While among white feminists the most dominant idea has been one related to
competition between men and women and the equality between the different gender roles
based on the recognition of equal opportunities, the main perception among Native women
has been that of complementarity between the genders. In traditional tribal life, men and
women have a relationship in which ability is the key to perform activities, not power or
fixed roles. Also, whereas mainstream feminism understands gender equality as basic to
the definite empowerment of women, Indigenous sisters do not admit any successful form
of activism which does not include race and land sovereignty matters.
Furthermore, today American Indians in general do not feel comfortable with
feminism because their feelings of fear and anger towards the ruling culture has provoked
a strong refusal to analyze and understand the functioning of white socialization. This
reality is one of the consequences of white domination over Indians. It was principally
through the imposition of Christianity and patriarchy that colonization was carried out,
affecting Indian daily life, thought and culture and finally leading to the present detachment
between both cultures. Nevertheless, as the Native American activist and writer, Paula
Gunn Allen asserts, it is essential to recognize the damaged caused by white-patriarchal
society to Indian culture so as to better comprehend the real consequences of colonization
that aroused, among other problems, the violence within tribal families. After gathering
complete awareness, effective strategies for liberation can be successfully implemented.
As the author proposes, it would be immensely beneficial to combine tribal understanding
with feminism (Tribal-feminism or Feminist-tribalism), using a tribal posture to deal with
feminism in order to enrich a western understanding of the world with the spiritual
conception of ancient culture. Also, feminist content and perspectives could be useful to
deal with American Indian subjects to unveil the male-dominated mechanisms that have
contaminated tribal life at all levels. The combination of both positions could be valuable
with the purpose to illuminate the processes that have contaminated the understanding of
a different culture and a possible inclusive feminism. 5

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 Indigenous Feminism

Indigenous Feminism is based on the central principle of indigenous societies of

reverence for all forms of life. Traditional tribal societies which reverend land are engaged
in honoring earth and life, always intending the balance and harmony with all the elements
in the universe. Aboriginal Feminism is also joined to the traditional tribal gynocratic
lifestyles, which were founded on ritual, spirit-centered and woman-focused views. The
gynocratic systems are focused on responsibility over privilege and different women
realities are accepted and respected. This wave of feminism is considered to crash with
basic ideas of Western feminism because the latter is perceived as intending equality with
men, which may imply sameness, sometimes attacking the figure of the mother as a
limitation for liberty and situating men as enemies. On the contrary, Tribal Feminism strives
to revive the typical gynocratic systems of ancient culture that honor women's own
essence and identity, considering motherhood as a position of empowerment and
admitting men as helpmates in complementary relationships. Moreover, Tribal Feminism
aims at resisting oppression which started with colonialism in the fifteenth century,
reclaiming Aboriginal tradition, culture and land, ending the violence against Indian women
and children, incorporating Indian ways into modern life and reclaiming past positions of
power and voices for women in the government. It is imperative to analyze how women
had always had positions of spiritual, political, economic and social authority in their mostly
matriarchal societies.
Originally women were engaged in the process of building nations, which was
related to their natural capacity to give birth. Motherhood, was in practice and in ideology a
source of woman authority in the family and in government. Indigenous women were
recognized the mothers of the nations because of being mothers and the first teachers.
They were considered the carriers of culture and were highly esteemed. There is clear
evidence that shows the feeling of respect and admiration towards women. In Aboriginal
communities, hundred of deities were female and women/mothers had the power to start
or stop a war, distribute communities 's wealth and decide upon economic transactions,
among many other responsibilities. Related to the respect given to mothers in ancient
culture, many activists find in motherhood a way to seek a lost authority. But, this is a

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difficult point since nowadays the respect of Indigenous motherhood is not so clear and
straightforward as in past times. Taking into account the difficult position of mothers in our
still patriarchal society, it is important to examine to what an extend contemporary mothers
have a real position of power. As it is widely noticed, male leaders are not open to taking
directions from mothers, grandmothers and organizations related to women as it was in
pre-contact societies. For the time being, as we still do not have systems to fully exercise
women's authority, it is yet a great challenge to be hold as mothers of the nations, literally
and ideologically, and be granted real political, economical and social respect and
responsibilities. I reckon it would be entirely positive to recover the position of motherhood
as empowering since the emotional intelligence of mothering is linked with spiritual and
physical force and the life-affirming principles that are crucial in a seemingly collapsing
world. Nevertheless, caution and examination are fundamental since in the case of Native
women who are in a disadvantaged economic and social position to take the
responsibilities of child-bearing with such limitations can result in an overwhelming
responsibility. This can be worsen by the actual existence of some partners and politicians
who do not provide strong practical support. Today women who do not have the help of
the extended families of the past, may find in a desperate situation when systems which
should protect them as mothers of the nation abandon and neglect them. All in all,
maternal feminist practices have to be considered carefully not to limit its success in a
male-dominated world. A possible positive approach benefiting Native women as well as
women in general would be to give to womanhood and motherhood the full power they
once had and to contemplate ways to act according to the new possibilities. The essence
of this conception is clearly expressed by Kim Anderson:

And if we want to embrace essential elements of womanhood that have been problematic
for Western feminists (such as motherhood and the maternal body), then we have to ensure
that these concepts don 't get stuck in literal or patriarchal interpretations. We need to give
the essentials of Indigenous womanhood the full metaphorical power they once had and
figure out ways to act on them now.6

Another important aspect involving Indigenous reality is that despite the fact that
many women do not identify themselves as feminists, they engage in liberating practices
that provide them a means of vigor and strength. For example, Ainu women in Japan reject
being identified as feminists because their main interest is cultural revival and Indigenous

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rights and they feel that feminism with its main concern in patriarchy does not identify
them. But, their engagement with cloth work, art production, traditional dance and
language revival, places them in a strong, active position that has political connotations. 7
The mentioned disconnection of Aboriginal women with major feminist groups has led to
the United Nations to present the Multiple Discrimination Analysis which is a functional and
helpful approach to criticize prevailing practices that still divide women in the world. The
Multiple Discrimination Analysis identifies the double position of women, both as women
and as part of ethnic minorities, the result being discrimination at different levels (race,
gender, class, sexuality,..). This analysis is the one that is infusing into the consciousness
of different groups of activism and some subgroups in society and is the one which creates
growing awareness of the multiple oppressions suffered by excluded groups of women.
Additionally, as Paula Gunn Allen asserts, a significance issue is the notion that Indian
women as a political category of tribal, racial and cultural identification has only been
necessary in contemporary times. In past times, when the proper place and importance of
women as creators were recognized and the great stature of women was a natural part of
collective consciousness any reclamation was unnecessary. As stated by Aboriginal
activists and writers, it was with white conquest and dominance that the status of tribal
women declined. Apart from the subjugation, it has to be acknowledged that Native women
had several decades ago started to regain, with much effort, their initial positions through
their active and strong roles in reservations and Indian communities, also in jobs,
academy and literature. This shows that Indians are not a lost civilization as the
mainstream media insists to spread. Besides, Native activists and Aboriginal women in
different spheres of society are concerned with women's marginalization, with the rights to
their lost lands and tribal culture. They are also fighting to recover their strong positions
and respect in a world which falsely insists in their expiration. This point in time, Native
women are efficiently rebuilding the traditions; the sacred traditions of the mothers and
grandmothers of the strong nations. Paula Gunn Allen explains plainly the necessary
political position of Indian women in contemporary society and also the growing strength
gathered in the last decades:

This self-redefinition among Indian-women who intend that their former stature be
restored has resulted from several political factors. The status of tribal women has
seriously declined over the centuries of white dominance, as they have been all but
voiceless in tribal decision-making bodies since reconstitution of the tribes through

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 colonial fiat and U.S. law. But over the last thirty years women 's sense of ourselves
as a group with a stake in the distribution of power on the reservations, in jobs and
within the intertribal urban Indian communities has grown. 8

Finally, another aspect concerning Aboriginal Feminism is the advantageous

approach proposed by Paula Gunn Allen, already mentioned, called Tribal Feminism or
Feminist Tribalism, in which when dealing with feminism she does so from a strongly tribal
attitude, thus engaging in ceremonial, ritual and spiritual spheres, and when dealing with
American Indian Literature, history and culture, she addresses them from a strongly
feminist stance. This feminist view is indispensable to the study and teaching of American
Indian life because the understanding of Indian culture has been dominated by patriarchal
consciousness throughout history and this has contributed to deform the perception of
tribal life. So, a feminist position combined with an Aboriginal one can reveal the
exploitation of the tribes by the white world and also enrich feminism with the
enlightenment of the ancient gynarchical, egalitarian and sacred traditions of Natives. Allen
´s own voice brings us closer to a solid understanding of her theory:

I have always included feminist content and perspectives in my teaching of American Indian
subjects, though at first the mating was uneasy at best. My determination that both areas
were interdependent and mutually significant to a balanced pedagogy of American Indian
studies led me to grow into an approach to both that is best described as tribal-feminism or
feminist-tribalism. Both terms are applicable: if I am dealing with feminism, I approach it from
a strongly tribal posture, and when I am dealing with American Indian literature, history,
culture, or philosophy I approach it from a strongly feminist one.9

Pre- Contact Times. Tribal Culture.

In order to have a clear conception of the immense impact of colonialism upon

Native women in the United States, Canada and throughout all the American continent and
of the struggles, at the present, aiming at decolonization, a detailed understanding of tribal
traditions and life is necessary.
Even though there is considerable variation among tribes, there are some regular

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patterns associated with most Native cultures and peoples. In most tribes, the work done
by women was highly esteemed, gender roles were understood as complementary and
fluid, not as oppositional or fixed. Also, women and men were willing to share tasks that
would ensure general progress for the community. So, the domestic sphere was not
thought to have an inferior status when compared with public duties. While in industrialized
societies there is still a general perception of household responsibilities and work
associated to women as second-rate, in Aboriginal societies the work done at home by
women was highly valued because it was vital to survival. In the Southwest of the United
States, women and men used to have complementary roles in planting, growing,
harvesting and preparing corn. The responsibility of growing corn, although connected with
women, was actually a shared task. Moreover, even if traditional societies had
differentiated gender roles, most of the times they were very tolerant of their members
transcending these socially established norms. There are numerous accounts of
Aboriginal women having military leadership roles as well as political and economic ones.
This is contrary to European societies that have traditionally confined women almost
exclusively to the roles of mothers, wives and housewives. Moreover, it is documented that
Native women very often had the right to property, land and the means of economic
production. While such rights have been related only with men in the recent past in
industrial countries, Aboriginal women had recognized rights over land and resources in
general.
Another point of strength in past times was that the powerful status that women
enjoyed was reflected and reinforced by their tribal religious practices and beliefs. Unlike
Christian religions which focus on an omnipresent-male God, Native religious practices
emphasize the powerful essence of feminine nature. The creator is understood like an
essence, rather than an individual and this essence is linked with earth, sky, animals,
plants, stones and the natural world in general. This essence of creation is not exclusively
and primarily masculine, in fact in numerous cases is feminine and mighty. The big number
of strong goddesses in tribal traditions and systems strengthened the positive view they
had of female and feminine experience. Some of these goddesses are: White Buffalo
Woman, Tinotzin, Yellow Woman, Thought Woman, Earth Woman, Corn Woman and Sun
Woman.10
For Native people a peaceful and harmonious life is only possible showing great
respect for all living beings and earth and this idea of harmony is parallel to their reverence
for the land. Native people treasure the land because it is symbolic of who they are as a

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people. The importance of the land as part of Aboriginal identity has great weight for Indian
communities and their women. Land is the primary element that human beings need to
survive and likewise in tribal understanding of life it is related to their essence and identity,
vital for the self-determination of people. A picture of this conception is reflected in the fact
that many tribes consider the plant of corn a symbol of life, part of earth, and
representative of ceremonies celebrating existence. In Navajo and Hopi culture, women
have the important task of grinding corn and the duty of this work is attached to their
respect for the land and the world in general that allows the survival of the peoples. In this
way, land, survival, respect and identity are interrelated. It is from the strong connection
between tribal and land that loosing land is also loosing identity and force. At present in
Dine (Navajo) culture, the goddess Changing Woman is believed to be in charge of
growing crops and in this way also of continuing life. She is considered the protector of
what she has created.11 These feelings of protection are related to the emotional bonds
that Navajo women, as well as other Aboriginal women, have with the land. Added to this
reality, is the issue that land is passed matrilineally through clan relations. All these
connections and real perceptions explain why land is a key factor for survival in tribal
culture and the reason for women's absolute refusal to abandon their beloved lands. The
defensive actions in which women continue to participate are parallel to the role that
indigenous women have had as protectors of the soil and as warriors defending the well-
being and survival of their families and homes. Women are connected to the land as it is
part of their own identities and essential to survival.
Additionally, as explained by Paula Gunn Allen in her book The Sacred Hoop, the
two-sided, balanced, complementary social structure of Natives has spiritual and ritualistic
significance. A balanced sensibility and way of life can be seen in the figures of the white-
internal chief and the red-external chief of the American Southeast traditions. The white-
internal chief maintained peace among the people of the tribe and administered domestic
affairs. The red-external chief, also war-chief, managed relationships with outer people
and exterior concerns. Internal harmony is also associated with the traditional leader or
“cacique” and exterior functioning is linked with the “war captain”. 12 These practices show
how populations, mostly gynocratic, were organized on the understanding of
empowerment as fluid and harmonious, as their rules always encouraged equilibrium. The
comprehension of tribal functioning as a harmonious relationship between inside and
outside is typical of clan systems and extend to the concept of gender relationships as
positive, complementary and ritualistic but never destructive or derogatory.

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 Moreover, reliable data that emphasizes the mostly friendly characteristics of
Aboriginal worlds is the enlightening narrative of the Native writer Leslie Marmon Silko.
She gives evidence of how the traditional Pueblo societies, particularly the Pueblo of
Laguna in New Mexico, were strictly communal, egalitarian and peaceful, with their respect
for all living beings, showing kindness for difference and profound regard of women. She
also tells how in the old days, strong and sturdy women like her grandmother Lily, were
most admired. Along her literature, the memories from her childhood and the anecdotes of
her rearing among solid, vigorous women give us an accurate and vivid image of the real
experience of Native women. As she says in her work Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the
Spirit:

One of my most vivid preschool memories is of the crew of Laguna women, in their forties
and fifties, who came to cover our house with adobe plaster. They handled the ladders with
great ease, and while two women ground the adobe mud on stones and added straw,
another women loaded the hod with mud and passed it up to the two women on ladders, who
were smoothing the plaster on the wall with their hands. Since women owned the houses,
they did the plastering.... 13

Throughout this excerpt we can clearly visualize Native women's vitality and vigor,
the strong bonds of the community and the attachment of women to house and land.
Besides, the passage shows how different chores are assigned in tribal culture when
compared with the western norms and the congenial quality of tribal way of living. As the
author explains from her own vital experience, work was related to ability more than to
gender. Respect and cooperation are key characteristics of Aboriginal life-styles.
Following this pattern, identity was acknowledged to be fluid. If a man felt as to
dress like a woman or marry a man, he was free to do it. Likewise, a woman could behave
like a man, marry a woman, hunt or even go to war if she showed the necessary abilities.
In Silko 's accounts of the old Pueblos 's world view, the universe is all a mixture of male
and female and respect to this spiritual and material conception is always accorded.
Aboriginal people privileged balance and harmony, encouraging liberty and respecting
difference and contrast. In this sense, engagement and sexual intercourse among Native
people were generally more open than in white culture. Marriage did not necessarily
required monogamy and that is why any member of the couple could engage in sexual
relationships with someone else. Also, birth-giving was sacred and as such it was

15
celebrated even if it was before marriage. Because children were thought to be of the
mother and her clan, determining paternity was not as crucial as in Christian cultures.
Another aspect exhibiting the openness of Native culture aiming at harmony, in this case of
Laguna Pueblo, is that the old stories tell about women´s daring and heroics acts without
restrictions. For example, Kochininako or Yellow Woman represents all women in old
stories and her deeds are mainly brave acts, allowing her free sexuality to transcend
ordinary behaviour to save her people during crisis. So, in Yellow Woman stories, the
beauty of Yellow Woman is related to her passion and courage to act accordingly when
calamity takes place. In one story, Kochininako has a romantic sexual encounter with
Whirlwind Man and goes back home with her husband some months later with baby boys.
In the future, the boys grow to be the heroes of the people. 14
All in all, in pre-contact times cultures were for the most part women-centered and
they valued peacefulness, harmony, cooperation and general prosperity and allowed their
members to act according to their choices with an openness that would later surprise and
disgust patriarchal colonizers. These orders of unison are the ones which now inspire
women activists who struggle for decolonization based on pre-colonial conceptions.

Aboriginal Women: Lives of Fortitude

Before the Native tribes of America fell under complete patriarchalization,

matriarchal systems constituted the most common modes of organization among
Aboriginal communities. These gynocratic societies had at their centers women who
enjoyed prestige and had powerful voices that allowed them, among other things, to
decide upon the different important issues affecting their people.
The Sunksquaws or queens (hereditary females heads of State) were women
chiefs, who held office before the destruction of traditional tribal governments. They were
in charge during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There are documents which
testify of the many strong women who were part of tribal leadership in the past. Evidence
in this respect is presented by Paula Gunn Allen. Before 1620, a Sachem or chief woman
known as the “Massachusetts Queen” by the Virginia colonizers, governed the
Massachusetts Confederacy. Other commanders include the Pocasset Sunksquaw
Weetamoo, who was King Philip's ally and served as war chief commanding over 300

16
warriors during the war with the British. Awashonks was another queen in the Mid-Atlantic
region. She was Squaw-sachem of the Sakonnet, a tribe allied with the Wampanoag
Confederacy. She reigned in the latter part of the seventeenth century. These women
chiefs and others are mentioned in some early documents and the lack of them in
secondary documents is pervasive, showing the efforts made to carry out complete
colonization, erasing models of powerful Aboriginal women and intending to the social
transformation from egalitarian and gynocentric systems to hierarchical and patriarchal
ones.15
A most important example of the powerful Indian woman is the figure of the
Women's Council, which was highly influential in tribal decisions. In her book Allen says:

The Women 's Council, as distinguished from the District, village, or Confederacy councils,
was powerful in a number of political and socio-spiritual ways, and may have had the
deciding voice on what males would serve on the Councils,...16

The powers of the women in the Council consisted of the right to speak in men 's
Councils, the right to inclusion in public policy decisions, the right to choose whom and
whether to benefit, the right to bear arms and the right to choose their activities outside
marriage. As well as that, women in their Councils had the power to decide upon captives
and the breakout of war.
Different to the colonizing, dominant propaganda, women and the elements
associated with them , enjoyed a great deal of honor and prestige in most tribes. As stated
by Allen and Silko, the Keres people have a supreme figure called Old Spider,
Grandmother Spider or Spider Woman, also referred to as Thought Woman. 17 Old Spider
is the woman-creator, the ritual center, who sang the goddesses Uretsete and Naotsete
into life and taught them the rituals to sing/create everything in their baskets (heavens,
waters, mountains, animals, plants,...). Uretsete may become Iyatiku (Corn Goddess), who
has the power of generation and regeneration and as such is also considered the Mother
of the people, the gods and the animals. In Indian culture deities are not only all-powerful,
they are honored and celebrated women or female spirits. The capacity of creative and
productive work is assigned to women with naturalness and without any limitations, as
opposed to Judeo-Christian customs. The inclination of Aboriginal culture towards feminine
formation and composition can be clearly seen in Silko 's presentation of the female deity
Thought Woman in her book Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit:

17
 Tse'itsi'nako, Thought Woman,
is sitting in her room
and whatever she thinks about
appears.

She thought of her sisters,

Nau'ts'ity'i and I'tcts'ity'i,
and together they created the Universe
this world
and the four worlds below.

Thought Woman, the spider,

named things and
as she named them
they appeared.

She is sitting in her room

thinking of a story now.
I'm telling you the story
she is thinking.18

Several of the views displayed in the journals that men colonizers wrote during their
expeditions to the New Continent, reveal aspects of Aboriginal women's lives that speak of
the fact that women strove not to be subordinated to the actions of the new-comers,
respecting themselves and intending to continue having the control over their lives. As
written by an officer who arrived at Nootka Sound (in the Canadian Province of British
Columbia) : “on our arrival, when the Men were absent, which frequently happened, the
women shut us out of their houses, and Barricaded the doors with chests and planks”. 19
Similar to this proof of strength, Captain Cook wrote about Nootkan women:

They are as dexterous as the men in the management of their canoes, and when there are
men in the canoes with them, they are paid very little attention to on account of their sex,
none of the men offering to relieve them for the labour of the paddle. Nor do they shew them

18
 any particular respect or tenderness on other occasions.20

Apart from this, it is also registered by the Captain James Strange, that Nootkan
women participated alongside with Nootkan men in the new market transactions involving
pelts, always intending to get as much benefit as they could from the dealings with the
new-comers.21
A last testimony of the resolution, determination and confidence of Indian women is
the narration made by the Inuit activist Minnie Grey, in which she lets us know of the
central role of the Inuk woman in the survival of her family. She writes about her mother, a
young widow who raised five children on her own, providing food and clothing for them and
her fellows. She also worked her dog teams, hunted and fished to help her extended
family to survive. In her work she narrates:

She was a mid-wife, a traditional care-taker, and later during my childhood, she embraced
the modern world of her day by becoming an income earner. She was a housemother to
young girls who were taken from their traditional camps to start school in the federal day-
school system. She worked as a cook and cleaning woman for the Hudson 's Bay Company
and for the construction companies, and later in her life she cooked for the tourists who came
to the fishing camps in Kangirsuk. My mother passed away on New Year 's Day 2005 at the
age of eighty-three. Give it to my mother to go out with a bang. She maintained her
independence and refused to be helpless to the very end. After celebrating the coming of the
new year with her community, she went peacefully alone the next morning in her living room.
Even in her death, my mother left a message to me and others: that she was present and,
above all else, cared about her family and her community to the very end.22

This is the real life of endurance and tenacity of Aboriginal women in the past and in
a different way of Aboriginal women in urban environments today. As exposed in most
Indigenous literature, the real images of astute, active and strong Native women are the
ones needed to know the real history of Aboriginal population, to be aware of the true past
that can contribute to the practice of decolonization with the imperative of veracity and
recognition.

19
 Impact of Colonialism on Native Women and their People

The conquest of the American Continent which started in the fifteenth century and
the consequent genocide practiced against the Aboriginal inhabitants of the land aimed,
among other things, at the disintegration and elimination of egalitarian societies based on
tribal tradition. The nearly extinction of the Indigenous culture was accomplished through
the implementation of policies that caused great affliction and misery to the tribal peoples
of the Americas. The acculturation policies included prohibition of ceremonial practices,
Christianization, loss o languages, education and reeducation of children through Christian
mission schools, change of economic resources, degradation of the status of women,
change of traditional government and judicial systems and the general adoption of Anglo-
American values and norms. All these policies have had a lasting, negative impact on
Indian people in general and on Native women in particular and the consequences have to
be acknowledged since they pose great challenges for contemporary people, who work to
change the dramatic effects of colonization.23 One of the policies implemented by the
dominant culture consisted in the exclusive recognition of male political leaders. The
traditional tribal governments that were recognized encouraged a dominant role of tribal
men over women. To carry out this plan, Aboriginal men were introduced in intercultural
dealings with white society. Through commerce and cultural influence, the new dominant
role of men had a strong effect on clan systems and Indian women's lives. Between the
years 1808 and 1825, male leaders, pressed by the United States government helped to
introduce laws transforming marriage, property rights, family line and the political influence
of women, with the principal purpose of debilitating women and urging male leaders to
transfer land and resources to the white-American government. Also, with the intention to
control women, the US government introduced, as part of its reservation policy, the Courts
of Indian Offenses (CFR courts), which prohibited many tribal customs related to marriage
and religious ceremonies. Some cases of the CFR courts involved women punished for
adultery when they left their husbands according to their customary tribal practices.
Another method intending to eradicate Aboriginal culture was the boarding school system
which had serious consequences for thousands of Indian families. Women traditionally had
much of the responsibility to educate children and this task was done with the help of the

20
community. But, the removal of Indian children from their families to attend boarding
schools prevented the transmission of cultural education by their families and tribal
members. This separation caused physical, psychological and emotional trauma to many
children in residential boarding schools. It also gave rise to troubled family relationships
and increased domestic violence, substance abuse and sexual abuse; problems still
present in many Native communities and reservations. Until the Indian Child Welfare Act
was dictated in 1978, a great number of Native children were removed from their families
and placed with non-Native ones; producing great psychological damage to mothers and
children.
The various Federal Indian Policies enforced by the American government have
provoked a situation of poverty and unemployment to thousands of Indians and serious
problems of cultural alienation and isolation.
Exposing the serious difficulties faced by Native families, Leslie Marmon Silko
narrates the case of the US government making sure to sever Aboriginal children's ties
with their families by taking them from their communities and relocating them to the
boarding school of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.24 The children were not allowed to return home
in the summer and were hired to white families for domestic and farm work. The intention
was to provoke a complete break of family bonds so children would be fully acculturated.
In order to reach this aim completely, Carlisle graduates were given a copy of a book
called Stiya, The Story of an Indian Girl, written by Marion Bergess under the fake Indian
name Tonka in 1881.25 In this book, the main character Stiya, is a Pueblo girl, who after
returning home, struggles to retain her new identity as a “civilized” girl, rejecting and
despising traditional Pueblo culture (clothes, language, dances,...). When she is almost
completely affected by Pueblo alleged wrong practices, she is saved by white justice. This
book, as explained by Silko, intended to reinforce all the civilizing instruction given at the
school and secure the complete disconnection between children and families. This is a
vivid demonstration of how destructive the so called acculturation policies were for Native
families, inflicting intense and prolonged suffering to Aboriginal populations and to women
who were denied the right to raise their own children according to their traditions and
beliefs.

21
 Stereotypes about Aboriginal People. Tools of Patriarchy and Colonialism.

Throughout the more than five hundred years of colonization beginning in 1492, the
countless narratives portraying Aboriginal people in highly detrimental ways have served,
along with material violence and social condemnation, to carry out the still ongoing
process of colonization, affecting Indian societies. In order to fully understand how
patriarchy and colonization have been forced upon Indians it is urgent to develop critical
and collective consciousness of how negatively Aboriginal people have been stereotyped
throughout history, with the intention to serve to the purposes of subjugation and conquest.
In general terms, Americans divide male Indians into two categories: the noble
savage and the howling savage. The first is considered to be interesting but condemned to
fatality because of the inevitable evolution from a primitive order to a postindustrial one.
The American belief in progress only allows the noble savage the status of victim. In this
way, the generous Indian is in the collective mentality perceived as a component whose
only options are assimilation or death. The latter view of Indians as hostile savages who
capture white women to torture them and who massacre innocent colonists is the most
deeply inserted in the popular unconscious and it forms the basis for social oppression,
extending to other people of colour and women. The generalized ideas of Indians unable
to assimilate into the dominant culture or perceived as the personification of evil, have
been widely used to justify the intention to exterminate Aboriginal societies:

Americans divide Indians into two categories: the noble savage and the howling savage.
The noble savage is seen as the appealing but doomed victim of the inevitable evolution of
humanity from primitive to postindustrial social orders. The American belief in progress and
evolution makes this a particularly difficult idea to dislodge, even though it is a root cause of
the genocide practiced against American Indian since the colonial period. This attitude, which
I characterize as the Progressive Fallacy, allows American Indians victim status only. And
while its adherents suffer some anguish when encountering the brutal facts of
exterminationist policies, they inevitably shrug resignedly and say- quite directly-that Indians
have to assimilate or perish. So the Progressives allow the noble savage to be the guardian
of the wilds and on occasion the conscience of ecological responsibility, the end result of their
view for Indians is the same as its counterpart viwe of American Indians as howling denizens

22
 of a terrifying wilderness.26

Regarding the construction of stereotypes about Indian women, from the starting of
European expansion, they have been characterized as facilitators of colonization,
choosing the colonists over their own people. At the same time, the historical roles of many
women as powerful and beloved women of their societies had been greatly distorted.
Laura E. Donaldson in her essay “' But we are your mothers, you are our sons'. Gender,
Sovereignty and the Nation in Early Cherokee Women 's Writing”, narrates the case of the
Cherokee woman Nan-ye-hi (1738-1822/24), known to the Europeans as Nancy Ward. 27
She was a Ghigau or most beloved woman of the Cherokee society. She is widely known
for having been saved the prisoner Mrs. William Bean when she was about to be burned
by the Cherokees after she was taken captive. One popular account of the story says that
after Ward learned of the doomed destiny of the white woman, she jumped to the hill
where Mrs. Bean was tied, kicked out the fires at her feet and cut the ropes, finally saving
the white woman 's life. The story recounts That Ward took the freed woman to her
dwelling and learned from her how to make butter and cheese. In the popular minds, Ward
is depicted as the friend of the pioneers, saving a victim from the savagery of the Indians.
However, a more accurate account would acknowledge that Nan-ye-hi / Ward, as a Ghigau
woman, had the role of cultural mediator, connected with the Cherokee balanced structure
of towns as red-war towns and white-peace towns. Ward 's town, Chota, was a white town
of peace and her role as beloved woman was not only a supporter of peace but also a
defender of women. This clarification may be a good example of how fixed and deformed
characterizations of Aboriginal women have contributed to justify colonization, positioning
Indigenous women as helpers of the conquest.
Other distinguished cases of negative stereotypes include Sacajawea (1786-1884)
and Pocahontas (1595-1617), whose real names were Tsakakawea and Matoaka. 28
Sacajawea is respected in America as the Shoshone woman who was part of the famous
Lewis and Clark Expedition, acting as an interpreter and guide and helping in the
exploration and consequent domination of the Western part of the United States. The
suffragettes used her image of heroine who helped in the creation of a more civilized
society to encourage white men to follow Sacajawea 's example and continue the mission
of a more just society, including white women in the nation's project.
Fortunately, as a response to this governing thought Native theatres started to
emerge in the 1960s and 1770s (accompanying Native 's peoples move to cities and the

23
revival of Aboriginal activism) as a means of exploring social relations with Aboriginal
communities and aiming at social change. Immersed in this response, the Spiderwoman
Theatre was founded in 1975 as a group creating feminist drama and engaged in Native
activism.29 Related to the work of this revolutionary theatre is the actress and writer
Monique Mojica, whose play Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots examines the
dimensions of patriarchal colonialism, rewriting the narratives of Native women 's
complicity in colonialism and patriarchy and making visible the true roles of Sacajawea and
Pocahontas, also, helping to give a new meaning to their political identities. In a Native
and feminist anti-colonial politics, Monique Mojica allows Sacajawea speak her truth in the
play Birdwoman and the Suffragettes: a story of Sacajawea. In the play Sacajawea 's real
story is exposed, since she helped in the famous mentioned expedition because after
having been won in a gamble by her French husband Charbonneau, she was forced to
follow the team to contribute as an interpreter between the colonists and her people. In the
play, she requests not to be remembered as a traitor but as the strong woman who made
her best not to perish in her coerced existence:

SACAJAWEA (INT.): ….
If you remember me,
remember the child fighting to stay alive
remember a slave girl gambled away
remember a mother protecting he child
remember a wife defying the whip
remember an old one who loved her people
remember I died at home on my land.
Now, the Birdwoman 's name-
Tsakakawea
is caged in statues, paintings
lakes, rivers
….30

Similarly, the story of Pocahontas is retold in Mojica 's innovative play. In the
popular version, she supposedly saved the captain John Smith in 1607 by placing her
head upon his own when her father, the Indian chief Powhatan, was about to kill him. After
this alleged episode, it is known that she was captured by the English and after a year of

24
failed negotiations with her people for her liberation, she was renamed Rebecca, married
to the tobacco planter John Rolfe and converted to Christianity. She was admired when
presented to English society as an example of the “civilized savage” and died while
returning to Virginia with Rolfe and their little child. She is popularly portrayed as having
preferred the English over her own people. Frequently, she is presented as a traitor for her
people and as a heroine for white society because she supposedly chose the “noble race”.
In her play Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots, Monique Mojica defies the prevailing
notion of Matoaka as collaborator of the Europeans for providing help for colonial
foundation, presenting an alternative more correct history of her that demonstrates that
Native women were victims of sexual assaults and emotional violence and murder and
they struggled to survive in their plight. In the play Lady Rebecca says:

LADY REBECCA: Now see you here, I wear themselves

clothes of an Englishwoman and will
disturb you less when I walk. Here,
I am Princess and Non Pareil of
Virigina. I am Lady Rebecca. For me
the Queen holds audience. Treachery,
Captain, I was Kidnapped.31

In another part of the play, Princess Buttered-On-Both-Sides, associated to

Pocahontas and embodying the stereotypical Indian woman expresses:

PRINCESS BUTTERED-ON-BOTH-SIDES:

(pointing to the ear of corn) Corn.

(pointing to herself) Maiden.
For the talent segment of the Miss North American Indian
Beauty Pageant, I shall dance for you, in savage splendor,
the “Dance of the Sacrificial Corn Maiden”, and proceed to hurl
myself over the precipice, all for the loss of my one
true love, CAPTAIN JOHN WHITEMAN. (swoons).32

Altogether, colonization aimed at disempowering women as a primary means to be

25
effective. Negative representation of Aboriginal women was used in the past and is used in
the present to encourage the false idea that Indian women were collaborators in the
process of conquest , justifying genocide. The reality is that Aboriginal women mostly
performed the roles assigned to them by European patriarchs who exploited women 's
sexualization to introduce a patriarchal mode. They depicted women as associates in the
imperial mission but the real story is that Native women did their best in their struggle to
survive.

American Indian Literature

Early works of fiction by American Indian writers, concentrated mainly in the theme
of the dying Indian because it was the image of the Indian as conquered that had deeply
affected American Aboriginal self-perception and because it was more acceptable for
possible publishers. Indians used the theme of colonization to tell their stories as a way to
organize the seemingly chaotic tribal life after invasion. But ,with the passing of time,
Native American writers have immersed in the exploration of more positive images of
Indians as survivors and of tribal and urban life as interconnected in an attempt to define
life in Native American terms.
Also, most of the works of contemporary writers are ritualistic as regards approach,
structure, theme and meaning. These works rely on Native forms and are not colonial in
any way. They are based on the tribal oral tradition at different levels and are spirit oriented
in the way of understanding the world. Even though works of Indian literature still deal with
the effects of colonization and the loss of self,as an inevitable part of their reality , they
now do it with the element of ritual tradition that gives them new significance. As explained
by the Native writer Paula Gunn Allen, American Indians are tribal people who define
themselves and are shaped by ritual understandings; that is to say by spiritual or sacred
ceremonials that are part of their identities and lives. Rituals are an essential part of tribes
and many of the structural and symbolic elements of Indian literature come from ancestral
rituals and the myths joined to them. Following this dynamic, traditional tribal narratives
mostly have a circular structure and they are not fixed to any particular time structure,
main character or event. They usually concentrate on point of view or on a specific idea
that is part of a tribe 's tradition.33

26
 Further important aspects of Indian literature are related to the idea of wholeness
and the role of ritual in tribal culture. Indian cultures understand that every creature is part
of a living whole and that all parts of the whole are interrelated. This assumption of
wholeness leads to a concept of unity between people and universe. Also, for ritual-based
cultures the universe is alive and ordered in a supernatural way, consequently, life is
organized around sacred and metaphysical principles. The importance of the sacred is
reflected in the importance of ceremonies and rituals. Ceremonies involve rituals that tell
about a cosmic relationship with the main purpose of transforming people and things.
Ritual is the activity that intends to direct cosmic energies to some goal and it aims at
purification, integration, healing and transformation. This issue is illuminated by Allen:

Thus a healing ritual changes a person from an isolated (diseased) state to one of
incorporation (health); a solstice ritual turns the sun 's path from a northerly direction to a
southerly one or vice versa; a hunting ritual turns the hunted animal 's thoughts away from
the individual consciousness of physical life to total immersion in collective consciousness.34

Ritual is the foundation of tribal life so it is present in the different activities of life
such as agriculture, hunting, art, music and literature. The recognition of ritual and its
interconnected elements (ceremony, myth, and the oral tradition of storytelling) are
fundamental to comprehend the core of tribal literature. An example of how the search for
wholeness and the importance of ritual are manifested in Indian literature can be seen in
some Aboriginal characters who are devastated because of the disintegration of the unity
constituted by person, land/universe and ceremony. In such cases healing is possible
when characters are able to accept the interconnection necessary for the unity of self and
universe. In Indian reality this fulfillment is always gained through traditional ceremony and
ritual.
Another key characteristic of American Indian literature is the oral tradition, which is
also a basic part of tribal culture. Contemporary poets and writers concentrate in oral
tradition to develop themes, symbol and structure. Their works take significance and
veracity from the oral tradition and it constitutes a major force in Indian resistance since
through it Aboriginal artists have maintained their values and beliefs. Oral tradition is
indispensable for Indigenous people in general and for writers in particular because it is
through the stories that tribal peoples know who they are. Passing knowledge through
successive generations depends upon collective memory which is a way to transmit an

27
entire culture. This is a view of the world that is essential for survival. The oral stories are a
complex medium to preserve knowledge and belief and this medium is an essential
attribute of Indian literature as it informs of its true nature. The oral tradition of storytelling
is Aboriginal essence because it is part of the tribal people 's consciousness and history.
This veracity is explained by the writer Leslie Marmon Silko in her book Yellow Woman
and a Beauty of the Spirit:

Traditionally everyone, from the youngest child to the oldest person, was expected to listen
and be able to recall or tell a portion of, if only a small detail from, a narrative account or
story. Thus, the remembering and the retelling were a communal process.35

She also recounts very vividly the crucial role that storytelling plays in Indigenous
survival:

But hunting stories were not merely after-dinner entertainment. These accounts contained
information of critical importance about the behaviour and migration patterns of mule deer.
Hunting stories carefully described key landmarks and locations of fresh water. Thus, a deer-
hunt story might also serve as a map. Lost travelers and lost piñon-nut gatherers have been
saved by sighting a rock formation they recognize only because they once heard a hunting
story describing this rock formation.36

In such manner, the telling of stories has been decisive in the survival of Aboriginal
peoples in the past and in the present, since now the strong tie between storytelling and
contemporary Indian literature forms an alliance defending continuance of the ancient
people and culture.
Contemporary Indian literature constitutes a powerful means of present resistance
and survival. It functions as an exploration of the options of Native peoples in times when
they are surrounded mainly by non-Indians. Novels and other literary productions with their
basis in storytelling constitute a tool for Indian transformation and continuance.
A last important topic of Indian literature is the sense of sorrow and anger present in
tribal works, consequent of the awareness of intended genocide. The threat of racial
extinction has marked tribal life in such a dangerous way that all tribal literature alludes to
it in some way or another. Assessing this subject from the position of many American
Indian women writers, it can be stated that they face it with vigor and hope. This strength

28
stems from a feeling of hope facing the bitter reality of historical racial violence and the
present condition of tribal existence. The feeling of hope has as its origin the confrontation
of extreme brutality and the following endurance and survival. Indian women writers
confront the sadness of their stories as a people and at the same time express confidence
for tribal persistence and continuity. They do their task combining the elements of tribal
tradition and history with contemporary experience. These women writers strive to
harmonize the contradictions between Indian/non-Indian and traditional/contemporary
notions. It is through balance and unity that these women intend to articulate racial and
time dichotomies, impregnating their works with a spiritual view of the universe that
provides their literature with equilibrium. All these characteristics make literature by Indian
women a tool of reconciliation between opposites, creating a feeling of psychic unity which
is vital to the feeling of hope expressed above.
Combining elements of balance and aiming at articulating past and present, Indian
and American, the Creek poet Joy Harjo presents her powerful writing of reconciliation. I
would like to cite her poem Remember:

Remember the sky that you were born

under,
know each of the star 's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun 's birth at dawn, that is
the
strongest point of time. Remember
sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother
struggled
to give you form and breath. You are
evidence of
her life, and her mother 's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life,
also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white

29
 earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life
who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too.
Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice.
She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all
people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is
you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.37

In conclusion, despite the massacre committed against tribal people and its effects
on Indigenous literature, Indian culture is wonderfully strong and through ceremony, ritual,
oral tradition, spirituality and the search for harmony, it has developed a defiant and
encouraging contemporary tribal literature informing of the tenacity and future life of Indian
societies.

Lesbianism in Tribes

The subject of lesbianism among Aboriginal people is transparently illustrated by

Paula Gunn Allen in her book The Sacred Hoop.38 As she explains, present scholarly work
shows the extensive presence of homosexuality and lesbianism in tribal life and the

30
special respect and honor often given to gay men and women and the alteration of this
status as a result of colonization. Such studies demonstrate how conquest and the
homophobia of colonists were internalized among the colonized, since such aversion was
uncommon among the traditional peoples in the Americas. Unfortunately, nowadays it is a
reality among Indians who changed their tribal values for more conservative ones. The
historian Walter Williams acknowledges homosexuality among tribes such as the Maya,
Ojibwa, Crow, Hopi, Navajo, Iroquois, Cheyenne and many others. According to him,
homophobia was a characteristic of most white colonizers but not of traditional Indians,
who accepted gayness with respect.39
However, even if most tribes tolerated homosexuality easily, direct references to
lesbianism among American Indians is very sparse, as stated by Allen. This may be
explained by the fact that the body of information about tribal life has been controlled by
white patriarchal society throughout history. So, the information about lesbianism
presented here is based on Allen´s deep knowledge of American Indian social systems
and customs, from her formal study and personal experience. Considering that tribal
culture is based on the interconnection of all living things and profound respect for life, it
may be the most true fact that male and female gayness traditionally worked in a very
positive way among tribal groups.
In tribal system, the actions of individuals were believed to be guided by spirits
through dreams, visions, encounters and the power of objects. In connection with this
perception it is quite possible that lesbianism was practiced commonly within tribes, since
it could be considered a will guided by immaterial forces. American Indian women most
likely found safety and security in the bond with another woman because it was perceived
to be destined or guided by spirits and in this way acceptance and respect could be
expected.
Furthermore, women spent a great deal of time together, without the company of
men. They shared rituals specific for women, some of them related to menstruation and
childbearing. They used to spend weeks in menstrual huts, working in the fields, collecting
food and herbs, preparing skins and doing different activities. Women spent lots of time
together while men stayed in men 's houses or hunting and fishing. Young women and
men were often separated from the larger groups for periods of months or years.
Considering these circumstances, lesbianism and homosexuality were probably common
practices. It would be interesting to expand the topic reading Allen own words:

31
 Indeed, same-sex relationships may have been the norm for primary pair-bonding. Families
did not consist of nuclear units in any sense. There were clans and bands or villages, but the
primary personal unit tended to include members of one 's own sex rather than members of
the opposite sex. It is questionable whether these practices would be identified as Lesbian by
the politically radical lesbian community of today; for while sex between women probably
occurred regularly, women also regularly married and raised children, often adopting children
if they did not have any.40

One more vivid illustration of such materiality is shown in a ritual by the Lakotas. In
the Lakota community a woman who does not want to marry a man is called Koskalaka
(young man or woman who does not want to marry). If she wants to join another woman
both are said to be the daughters of a spirit in charge of linking them in her power. The
ritual of their union involves a dance in which a rope is twined between them and turned to
form a “rope baby”. So, the significance of the ceremony is to unite the women by the
power of the deity. In a culture in which motherhood is highly valued, two women who will
not have their own babies, have to be unified by the ritual in which validation of their
relationship is shown by the creation of a baby rope. 41

Indian Women Today

Modern Aboriginal women are engaged with the effort to redefine themselves. In
this struggle they intend to reconcile traditional tribal definitions of women (which tell of
who they are) with postindustrial non-Indian definitions which are part of their daily lives.
While these definitions defer and have different degrees of inclusiveness, they endeavor to
harmonize and integrate both views in their present lives. This task requires to bring to the
present the old ways, so that the world-view of the tribes is maintained and can be an
instrument to enrich a modern, at times chaotic existence. In practical ways, Indian women
are intertwining historical perspectives, rituals, myths, motherhood, the ancient bonds to
the land and the spirit world with the contemporary possibilities for a politics of resistance.
The parallel vital issue that confront American Indian women is survival, both at
physical and cultural levels. The American Indian people are still facing the threat of
genocide, since consciously or unconsciously present policies continue their efforts to

32
acculturate, assimilate and extinct tribal peoples. Indian cultural survival is meant to
acknowledge the real history of colonization, the passing of customs and values that can
strengthen the lives of Indian women today and can encourage the development of more
Aboriginal literature that illuminates tribal and contemporary forms.
For Native women, endurance in practice and everyday life includes fighting the
battering by Indian and non-Indian men, also fighting alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual
abuse, poverty, sterilization by governmental policies, destruction of the land, loss of
language, poor educational opportunities, suicide, racial homicides and all the actions that
intend to the death or violence towards Aboriginal peoples.
All in all, Indian women in the present world in the United States and throughout the
whole Continent strive to stop violence against their people and themselves and struggle
to maintain their tribal roots, intending to social change and working in the different
spheres of society including politics, education, art and literature.
Indian women are confident in endurance because they fight, they care, they laugh, they
love and do not surrender, because as the Indian saying rightly expresses: “ A nation is not
conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground”.

Conclusion

This study has intended to expose the many motivations and processes that have
facilitated the colonization and subjugation of Indian population in the Americas starting
with the conquest, in order to gain complete awareness of the difficulties and challenges
that Native women face at present time. The analysis has also had as a priority the
unveiling of Aboriginal people 's endurance as a result of their dedication to protect the
ancient cultures, the peoples and the land. As presented throughout this work, Native
people have survived physically and culturally because of their strength and great efforts
to keep their traditions, spiritual beliefs, practices, links to the land and group cooperation.
Nowadays, the survival of Indigenous societies involve resisting oppression at its
various levels, fighting gender violence, racism, poverty, reclaiming ancestral tradition and
culture, incorporating traditional ways into modern life, replacing stereotyped, patriarchal
images of Aboriginal men and women and elaborating strategies to preserve the remaining
lands and resources related to identity and life-ways. All these practices of resistance are

33
taking place in the different spheres of society through activism, literature, theatre and
other forms of expression encouraging transformation.
Altogether, this piece of research has concentrated on the reading and
exemplification of challenging and illuminating Indian literature, which acknowledges the
history of suffering of Aboriginal people, their fortitude, endurance and future survival.
Moreover, the project has aspired to examine the development of a Native Feminism that
seeks equality, justice and survival based, not only on gender, but also on tribal
sovereignty, including material and metaphysical realities and integrating notions of
traditional feminism with tribal experiences and practices.
It has been shown in this paper that Native Feminism fights relentlessly for
decolonization and the surviving of Aboriginal communities, encouraging both the
empowering of women and the promotion of tribal sovereignty that can lead to a definite
liberation of Native cultures and people, ensuring harmony between the different genders
and cultures.
Lastly, the author of the project actively wants to encourage and continue further
reading and investigation involving issues and questions that have been brought up
throughout the study but that still could be improved and expanded, so as to reach a
deeper comprehension of Aboriginal reality and eliminate cultural and racial prejudices,
stimulating beneficial changes that would enrich peoples and societies.

34
 Bibliography

Allen, Paula Gunn. The Sacred Hoop. Boston: beacon Press, 1986.

Harjo, Joy. She Had Some Horses. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012.

Mojica, Monique. Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots. Toronto: Women 's
Press, 1991.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1996.

Suzack, Huhndorf, Perreault, Barman, ed. Indigenous Women and Feminism.

Politics, Activism, Culture. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.

Ross, Luana, “From the “F” Word to indigenous/feminisms,” Wicazo Sa Review, vol.
24, n°2 (2009), pp. 39-52.

Tong, Rosemarie. Feminist Thought. Philadelphia: Westview Press, 2014.

35
1
Teresa Zackodnik, “Reaching Toward a Red-Black Coalitional Feminism,” in Indigenous Women and
Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture, ed. Suzack, Huhndorf, Perrault, Barman (Vancouver: UBC, Press, 2010), p. 110.
2
Ibid., p. 114.
3
Ibid., p. 115.
4
Ibid., p. 117.
5
Paula Gunn Allen, The Sacred Hoop (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), p. 222.
6
Kim Anderson, “Affirmations of an Indigenous Feminist,” in Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics,
Activism, Culture, ed. Suzack, Huhndorf, Perrault, Barman (Vancouver: UBC, Press, 2010), p. 88.
7
ann-elise lewallen, “Beyond Feminism,” in Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture, ed.
Suzack, Huhndorf, Perrault, Barman (Vancouver: UBC, Press, 2010), p. 153.
8
Paula Gunn Allen, Ibid., p. 30.
9
Ibid., p. 222.
1
0 Ibid, p. 45.
1
1 Rebecca Tsosie, “Native Women and Leadership,” in Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism,
Culture, ed. Suzack, Huhndorf, Perrault, Barman (Vancouver: UBC, Press, 2010), p. 33.
1
2 Paula Gunn Allen, Ibid., p. 18.
1
3 Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p.
66.
1
4 Ibid., p. 71.
1
5 Paula Gunn Allen, Ibid., pp. 34-35.
1
6 Ibid, p. 36.
1
7 Ibid., p. 119.
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ibid., p. 64.
1
8 Ibid., pp. 125-126.
1
9 Jean Barman, “Indigenous Women and Feminism on the Cusp of Contact,” in Indigenous Women and
Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture, ed. Suzack, Huhndorf, Perrault, Barman (Vancouver: UBC, Press, 2010), p. 96.
2
0 Ibid.
2
1 Ibid, p. 97.
2
2 Minnie Grey, “From the Tundra to the Boardroom and Everywhere in Between,” in Indigenous Women and
Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture, ed. Suzack, Huhndorf, Perrault, Barman (Vancouver: UBC, Press, 2010), pp. 21-
22.
2
3 Rebecca Tsosie, Ibid., pp. 34-36.
2
4 Leslie Marmon Silko, Ibid., pp. 160-162.
2
5 Ibid., p. 162.
2
6 Paula Gunn Allen, Ibid., p. 4.
2
7 Laura E. Donaldson, “ ' But we are your mothers, you are our sons'. Gender, Sovereignty, and the Nation in
Early Cherokee Women 's Writing,” in Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture, ed. Suzack,
Huhndorf,
Perrault, Barman (Vancouver: UBC, Press, 2010), pp. 43-46.
2
8 Shari M. Huhndorf, “ Indigenous Feminism, Performance, and the Politics of Memory in the Plays of
Monique Mojica,” in Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture, ed. Suzack, Huhndorf, Perrault,
Barman (Vancouver: UBC, Press, 2010), pp. 181-195.
2
9 Ibid, p. 189.
3
0 Monique Mojica, Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots (Toronto: Women 's Press, 1991), p. 84.
3
1 Ibid, p. 30.
3
2 Ibid, p. 19.
3
3 Paula Gunn Allen, Ibid., p. 79.
3
4 Ibid., p. 80.
3
5 Leslie Marmon Silko, Ibid., p. 31.
3
6 Ibid., p. 32.
3
7 Joy Harjo, She Had Some Horses (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012).
3
8 Paula Gunn Allen, Ibid., pp. 245-261.
3
9 Ibid., p. 198.
4
0 Ibid., p. 256.
4
1 Ibid., p. 258.