Article 5: The Power of Indigenous Women

Madison Gurniak

Indigenous groups were mainly traditionally matrilineal as women in the societies existed as sacred in numerous Indigenous communities. Women were honoured and respected from time immemoriable, and their divine power has been well understood and held up high since then. Several Indigenous stories and myths in the required readings of the course, Indigenous Women and Literature (ENG 3301), depict women as the creators and the preservers of life. Women are shown to be teachers and creators of tribal laws and rituals. Everyone in their communities recognized the wisdom, importance and power of the Indigenouswomen, but when they were colonized by the Europeans, women’s power was not recognized because the colonizers wanted to get power or rule over the Indigenous people (Barker, 3). The colonizers destroyed the power that women held in pre-colonial society. With the advent of the colonizers, patrilineal a society was developed, and its values were forced on the society during the phases of assimilation. Consequently, the high level of importance that women held was slowly eradicated (Barker, 2). The four texts, The Grass Dancer by Susan Power, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot, and The Woman Who Owned the Shadows by Paula Gunn Allen, all depict the importance of Indigenous women in the past and present. The four texts show how women’s power has influenced families and communities.

The Grass Dancer by Susan Power is a great example when analyzing women’s situation in Indigenous culture. It features several different but extremely powerful women who show the uniqueness of women in their strength. Charlene, the Red Dress, and Mercury are the three characters who hold power in the book. Mercury is an extremely powerful character, and she is known for her strength in the book. However, her strength and power are misused. Charlene’s grandmother, Mercury understands the strength and power of women, but she does not respect ancient history; she has no respect for the Earth as well as humankind. Instead, she disrespects the people she deems unfavourable to her family. Mercury diminishes and disrespects men in order to portray women’s power. An example is when she talks to Charlene and describes men as devils but acknowledges that there are no devil women. She adds that if she could, she will be a hot queen and blow kisses of fire to the devil Jack and toast him (Power, 44). Mercury sees herself as God and the devil, and even though her powers are not pure, she proudly upholds them.

On the other hand, Charlene sees the strength that her grandmother holds. She also sees how lost she could become under her grandmother’s influence. She admits that her grandmother has a strong influence on her, and she could be as evil as her. The cruelty that her grandmother experienced at the hands of men provoked her to use power in a negative way. Charlene uses the downfalls of her grandmother as lessons instead of blindly falling into her grandmother’s influence. Charlene finds healing and strength through the lessons learnt from her ancestors. Finally, Red Dress spiritually guides member of her family, and thus, she represents the power that women should uphold. Red Dress was a warrior. She fought for her family and watched over the entire Sioux people. This is shown through the text “My spirit never abandons the Dakota People” (Power, 281). Therefore, the guidance, wisdom and protection that Red Dress gave to her people even when she was not physically with them are an evidence of their ancestors’ influence over their people. This influence never dies. Red Dress continuously reminds her people that they are Dakota. Dakota women are leaders, protectors, as well as nurtures, and they are the glue that holds the community together (Power, 282).

In Leslie Marmon Silko’s book Ceremony, the importance of women is represented uniquely and differently in the character, Tayo, the protagonist, who is a traumatized veteran of World War II, but was healed with the help of the women in his life. As much as the other books use female protagonists to show the strength of Indigenouswomen in society, Silko uses male protagonists to show a similar effect of Indigenous women’s powers. Silko’s way is equally important. The male protagonist, Tayo, connects with his divine femininity through his connection with Earth, and the earth is described as Mother Earth (Farooq et al, 16). The connection brings about new beginnings to his life through the healing of Mother Earth. In Tayo’s journey, he meets Ts’eh who would become one of the most influential women in his life. Ts’eh portrays great wisdom about the earth, and her ability to manage cattle is impressive and infinite. Tayo is touched and sparked by Ts’eh’s wisdom and knowledge of herbs and her vast love for cattle (Silko, 215). Ts’eh exudes power and strength, and like Betonie, she is a healer and a gatherer; therefore, she has a great connectuion with Mother Earth.  Ts’eh also helps Tayo to recover Josiah’s cattle through her vast knowledge and love for cattle. The woman’s capability to connect Tayo with the ancestors, culture, and spirits through the Earth is impressive, and her sacred understanding of all this is depicted in one of their last moments together. Tayo and Ts’eh want everything to end and their lives to be choked away. The struggle of the Indigenous Indians is represented towards the end (Silko, 215).

Ts’eh understands how white people have negatively influenced their people. This is because they brought sickness and other poisonous items to their community. The poisonous items included liquor and drugs, which corrupted Indigenous people quietly living in their respective community. She tells Tayo that they must not let the white people win, that they should fight. Her spiritual wisdom is represented or illustrated in the novel when the author says that she could hear voices low and distant in the night; she could see reflections in the sand rock pools of rainwater, and she could also see images shifting in the flames of Juniper (Silko, 216). To Tayo, Ts’eh was the perfect embodiment of wisdom and strength, and she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Although Silko, the author, does not put Ts’eh at the centre of the novel or as the protagonist, Ts’eh’s words are heard throughout Tayo’s healing processas. She has strong influence over Tayo,  the protagonist, and over his  wider community. “As long as you remember what you have seen, then nothing is gone” (Silko, 215). Through her words, the strength and power and the influence that Indigenous women has are well represented (Silko, 215).

In Terese Marie Mailhot’s memoir, Heart Berries, the bareness left behind in her life by trauma is reflected. Unlike the other books where the strength and power of Indigenous women are related with creation, in this memoir, Mailhot demonstrates how she herself overcame  the devastation experienced through intergenerational trauma. In the memoir, Mailhot’s individual experiences and the experiences of other Indigenous women are depicted. In her introduction, she uses the river as a metaphor, and she equates women with the endless current of a river. She adds by saying that these Indigenous women outrun themselves. Hardly two paragraphs into the material, Mailhot’s readers are forced to reckon with the depth of the river’s current. The river illustrated by Mailhot nourishes the tribes of Salish of the Pacific Northwest as well as the ancestral pain that Salish women experience (Mailhot, 3).

In her memoir,  Mailhot talks about her post-traumatic stress disorder as well as her bipolar disorder, both of which lead to her hospitalization. The memoir, mostly written as conversations with her second and current husband, recognizes that their relationship started messy and was not stable, but men don’t usually care about that (Mailhot, 57). The memoir mostly depicts the unapologetic ownership of mental health and her experience with trauma. She uses her vast knowledge to lay side-by-side her experiences as well as her perspectives of the two sides that make her whole. Mailhot presents herself as whole but damaged, and she resists explaining the lens through which she views the world.

Heart Berries exemplifies the power of Indigenous women by the stories of her grandmother, mother and herself; they all have their demons that they are constantly fighting. In the memoir, Mailhot writes to the man she is dating about the breakdown that she feels. She accuses him of being partly to blame for her suicidal ideation. She states that sometimes, suicide does not seem dark but fair. On her motherly side, she writes that she remembers Isaiah crying all night and she held her hand over his mouth long enough to realize that she was a horror to her child. And finally, regarding her sexual assault, she says that she does not think her father was wrong for demanding love; his methods were just not conventional. Her writing also describes the fights in her mental state. These observations show the entirety of an Indigenous woman’s trauma. It causes an off-balance, and pity develops as one realizes that society has completely illegalized a woman’s trauma. And this, in turn, causes horror to the people around her (Holmes, 53).

In Heart Berries, Mailhot’s abuse is extensively illustrated, and by so doing, multi-generational trauma is unearthed. The memoir portrays a huge self-healing process. She also talks about her mother in a passage about self-esteem. She states that her mother was not big on self-esteem and, therefore, it was not fostered in her. She says that self-esteem is a white man’s invention to keep people apart. She adds that it seems like capitalism of identity as it asks people to evaluate their values, and it also implies that everyone has worth (Mailhot, 66). Her brevity in writing is seen elsewhere where she says that love can be safe and mediocre, and it can be hurtful and unhinged. Mailhot invites people to see deeper meanings in everything, deeper than it might be imagined. In a memoir, Mailhot does the opposite of everything she is supposed to, and she succeeds while doing it. Through her memoir, while the vulnerability of Indigenous women is depicted, the power of herself as a writer is attested through the text, which she uses as catharsis for her emotional stress and success.

The Woman Who Owned the Shadows by Paula Gunn Allen is a traditional woman-centred narrative that attempts to override the patriarchy through the transgression of cultural as well as psychic limits. Allen develops two complementary images that are important in opening the doors of what lies beyond the two suffocating limits, the Spider and the shadows. The Spider refers to the female creator of the Laguna Pueblo tradition, while the shadows are the vast spaces that Ephanie Atencio, the protagonist, lives in as she has sunk to the depths of darkness – the patriarchy colonization. Paradoxically, Spider’s power contradicts Ephanie as she cannot convincingly interpret creation; however, the two stories are well brought together to show the power of Ephanie’s  ancestral women power which was passed down to her  (Allen, 89).

In the beginning, Ephanie loses her identity as she is relegated to a secondary position because she is a woman as well as of Native American descent. She feels like her traditions have been eroded, and she now speaks a strange tongue instead of Guadalupe (Allen, 70). Additionally, she is alienated from the western world, and she receives Christian education which teaches her the sin concept so that she even feels  that her body is sinful. Her ability to create connections with women is neglected because the ideologies of Christianity condemn and punish the love of discovery and exploration as well as natural curiosity. Further, she cannot experience love from men either as they see her as inferior, and they place her on whichever pedestal they wish. For these reasons, her relationships with her two husbands and her almost brother are damaging. Ephanie eventually gets into a traumatic spiral of fear in her attempts to try to fit in.

Ephanie’s gender and ethnic identity trap her in fear, resulting in feelings of displacement. The fear prevents her from sharing her problems in the westernized society she is living in. Since she is a Native American, she is considered someone who is a savage, and consequently incapable of having feelings. Within the two clashing worlds, her Native American descent and the Westernization, Ephanie finds her healing in the Spider’s storytelling. It propels her to connect with her Native American roots while disrupting the flow of dominance in both time and space. This enables Ephanie to transform her story into history. The journey of healing embarked by Epiphany is shown depicting the power and strength of Indigenous women. Even though she was an outcast, she finally realized that she could claim her power by embarking on a journey of reconnecting with her roots (Allen, 66).

One of the themes that have developed in this paper is feminism. Indigenous feminism focuses on the human rights in regards to women and their families and also decolonizization (Farooq et al, 13). This has been seen through Charlene and Red Dress. Even though Charlene’s grandmother, Mercury, held women on a higher pedestal, she did not do the same for the men. She considered women as superior creatures and, therefore, could walk over men. Mercury describes men as devils. On the other hand, Charlene strives not to be like her grandmother and treats everyone equally  because she does not like her grandmother’s cruelty. Red Dress also reminds the Dakota people that women are protectors and nurturers, and they are the glue that holds the society together (Power, 282). This shows the feminism in her, as she fights to hold women to the same level as men. She is a warrior and a protector of her family; thus, showing that also women can do what men can do. Feminism is also portrayed in the Ceremony. Even though the protagonist is male, he is seen to support women’s rights. He idolizes women. As stated in the novel, he channels his feminist energy from Mother Earth.Tayo also idolizes Ts’eh who is spiritually strong, and knows how to handle cattle.

Women are extremely powerful, and this has been reiterated throughout history. Even though the power of Indigenous women was inherently suppressed during the colonial period. Reading texts such as The Grass Dancer by Susan Power and Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, we are inclined to remember the importance and strength of women within an Indigenous community (Power, 282). In contrast, the traditional concept of trauma relies on the traumatic memories that Indigenous women have. The trauma that Indigenous women are faced with reminds us that the damaging experiences that women experience can have a negative influence on their mental health. This is depicted in the Heart Berries of Terese Maihart’s memoir, where the author shares her traumas that have caused unimaginable horror to the people around her. Trauma is also depicted in The Woman Who Owned the Shadows, as the protagonist, Ephanie, tries to understand and fit in the new world, but she finds light by getting closer to her roots, and she gains her power back. In both novels, trauma makes the protagonists question everything they have ever known (Allen, 66). Indigenous women are, however, reminded through the texts that they can tap into their power to rise above their trauma.

In conclusion, The four texts, The Grass Dancer by Susan Power, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot and The Woman Who Owned the Shadows by Paula Gunn Allen, all portray the power of Indigenous women in unique ways. While The Grass Dancer and Ceremony depict the power of women in their traditions as well as their current roles. Heart Berries represent the intergenerational trauma of Indigenous women, while The Woman Who Owned the Shadows shows the journey of an Indigenous woman rising above her trauma. For centuries, Indigenous women are portrayed as strong and powerful; they fight their own battles within themselves and should therefore be given the benefit of the doubt in today’s society. However, what remains true is that Indigenous women or women as a whole have been respected since the dawn of time due to their connections with Mother Earth and their ability to give life.

Works Cited

Allen, Paula Gunn. “Native Woman, Native Voices.” Medicine, Education, and the Arts in Contemporary Native America: Strong Women, Resilient Nations (2022): 47.

            The Woman Who Owned the Shaddows. Aunt Lute Books, 1984

Barker, Joanne. “Indigenousfeminisms.” Handbook on IndigenousPeople’s Politics (2015): 1-17.

Cook, Barbara. “Ephanie’s Vision Quest: Blending Native American and Feminist Elements.” Reclaiming Native American Cultures (2013): 20-27.

Farooq, Sardar Amad, and Muhammad Safeer Awan. “Environmental Justice and IndigenousFeminism: An Eco-Critical Study of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony.” NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry 16.1 (2018): 1-VIII.

Holmes, Jessica. “The Trouble with Resilience.” Communicating in the Anthropocene: Intimate Relations (2021): 53-?.

Mailhot, Terese Marie. Heart berries: A memoir. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.

Power, Susan. “Native in the Twenty-first Century.” World Literature Today 91.3 (2017): 44-282.

            The Grass Dancer. Berkley, 1997

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony Penguin, 2016

Annotated Bibliography

Barker, Joanne. “Indigenousfeminisms.” Handbook on IndigenousPeople’s Politics (2015): 1-17.

This source by Barker is important in this study as it represents the importance and the power of Indigenous women. It depicts their power and strength in their communities as well in their families for generations. Indigenous women for centuries have been respected for their ability to give birth. They have also been respected as they are great leaders, and they always strive to treat everyone in the society equally. In this Handbook, Indigenouswomen have been praised for leading their communities and maintaining equality.

Cook, Barbara. “Ephanie’s Vision Quest: Blending Native American and Feminist Elements.” Reclaiming Native American Cultures (2013): 20-27.

This source by Cook is important in this study as it shows feminism in Ephanie. The author describes the journey of Ephanie in the western world. The author takes us through a journey to show how resilient Ephanie was in her quest to learn about her culture. Despite the odds against her, she proceeded to learn about her Native American culture and stopped any efforts to try and fit in with the Christians. The protagonist, Ephanie, and Spider are discussed in this text therefore bringing together the novel.

Farooq, Sardar Amad, and Muhammad Safeer Awan. “Environmental Justice and IndigenousFeminism: An Eco-Critical Study of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony.” NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry 16.1 (2018): 1-VIII.

This source provides us with the perspective of Joni Adamson’s theory of Environmental Justice and Indigenous feminism. Adamsons focuses on the manipulative nature of women. Since centuries ago, Indigenous women have always been great at nurturing. Adamsons adds that due to the colonization by the Europeans, this nature has been wreaked, and they have also been displaced from their natural homelands. Since colonization, the resources owned by women have been continuously exploited and therefore environmental exploitation continues to cause havoc on females. This source therefore shows the struggles of Indigenous women over the years.

Holmes, Jessica. “The Trouble with Resilience.” Communicating in the Anthropocene: Intimate Relations (2021): 53.

“Trouble with Resilience” is one of the chapters in the book Communicating in the Anthropocene by Holmes. It depicts the resilience of Indigenous women even when they are away from their homelands. They are resilient in wanting to learn about their culture and roots, and they are not swayed by the western world. However, it is seen that being resilient may lead to more trouble for an individual. This is because in wanting to learn about one’s culture, one maybe considered an outcast while the culture is suppressed by the colonial narrative. This is what has happened to numerous Indigenous women over                                                         the years.

Instructor’s Remarks: “Reconciliation is achieved through indigenization. Indigenization is achieved through the institution’s adoption of decolonizing processes and ideology and the implementation of indigegogy across the organization” (See “Connecting Reconciliation, Indigenization, Decolonization and Indigegogy” https://soar.ucn.ca/ICS/Programs/RRAI/Centre_for_Learning_Education__Research/Reconciliation/).  Indigenization in teaching is achieved through as many subjects and courses as possible.  Madison’s “The Power of IndigenousWomen” came out of the course IndigenousWomen and Literature (ENG 3301), the last course she took at UCN before starting a new career path. This course focuses on intensive reading and analysis of selected works by Aboriginal women in Canada and America. The novels for this course in the winter term of 2022 are Paula Gunn Allen’s The Women Who Owned the Shadows,  Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries: A Memoir, Susan Power’s Grass Dancer,  Leslie Marmon Silko’s  Ceremony, and Katherena Vermette’s The Break.  Madison’s “The Power of Indigenous Women” demonstrates Madison’s knowledge of the key roles which Indigenous women play in reconciliation despite their traumas from the colonial era. (Dr. Ying Kong)