The sacred hoop Recovering the feminine in American Indian traditions : with a new preface

Allen uses both her own life experiences of growing up as a Laguna/Sioux woman and her academic background in literature to provide a collection of essays that focus on the feminine traditions of American Indian cultures and the expression of those traditions in contemporary literature. The 17 essays were written over a period of several years, and each discusses what Allen labels ``gynocratic cultures'' from the Abanaki in the northeast to the Keres in the southwest. The female deities, whether they be called Spider Woman, Serpent Woman, Corn Woman, or Earth Woman, exist in all cultures as creative forces. Allen discusses all major American Indian writers within the theoretical framework she establishes. She analyzes novels by N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch, and Gerald Vizenor as well as discussing her own novel, The Woman Who Owned the Shadows (1983). Particularly through their poetry, American Indian women writers confront the central issues of physical and cultural survival. Allen speculates on the role of lesbians in American Indian cultures and shows how contemporary expressions of feminist thought reflect the traditional cultures. Throughout these essays Allen emphasizes the importance of myth and ritual, the Indian sense of time, and the themes of alienation, continuation, and spirituality that are central to contemporary Indian literature. Her book is a valuable addition to the growing number of volumes that focus on feminism and American Indian literature. Appropriate for students (community college through graduate) and general readers.-G.M. Bataille, Iowa State University

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) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved