Daughters of Mother Earth: The Wisdom of Native American Women (Native America: Yesterday and Today)

152 Pages·2006·0.54 MB·English

by  Barbara Alice Mann

Daughters of Mother Earth
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Native America: Yesterday and Today
Bruce E. Johansen, Series Editor
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Bruce E. Johansen
Daughters of Mother
Earth: The Wisdom of
Native American Women
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Edited by Barbara Alice Mann
Foreword by Winona LaDuke
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Native America: Yesterday
and Today Series
Bruce E. Johansen, Series Editor
LibraryofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Daughtersofmotherearth:thewisdomofNativeAmericanwomen/editedby
Barbara Alice Mann;foreword byWinonaLaDuke.
p. cm.—(NativeAmerica: Yesterday and Today,ISSN1552-8022)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-275-98562-8(alk. paper)
1. Indian women—United States. 2. Matriarchy—United States. 3. Indians
of North America—Social life and customs. 4. Indiansof North America—
Public opinion. 5. Public opinion—United States. 6. United States—Social
life and customs. I. Mann, BarbaraAlice, 1947– II. Series: Native America
(Praeger Publishers)
E98.W8D38 2006
305.48'897—dc22 2006015392
British LibraryCataloguing in PublicationData isavailable.
Copyright #2006byBarbara Alice Mann
All rights reserved. Noportion of thisbook maybe
reproduced, by anyprocess ortechnique, without the
express writtenconsent ofthe publisher.
Library ofCongress CatalogCard Number: 2006015392
ISBN: 0-275-98562-8
ISSN 1552-8022
First published in2006
Praeger Publishers, 88Post RoadWest, Westport, CT06881
Animprint ofGreenwood PublishingGroup, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed inthe UnitedStates ofAmerica
The paper usedin thisbook complies withthe
Permanent PaperStandard issued bytheNational
Information Standards Organization(Z39.48-1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the Seventh Generation

Contents
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Series Foreword ix
Foreword xv
Preface xvii
1. Does Euro-Think Become Us? 1
Paula Gunn Allen
2. Decolonizing Native Women 29
Lee Maracle
3. Weeping for the Lost Matriarchy 53
Kay Givens McGowan
4. Slow Runners 69
Barbara Alice Mann
Bibliography 111
Contributors’ Biographies 121
Index 125

Series Editor’s Foreword
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H
ow many people in today’s world, even reasonably educated
people, know in detail the roles played by Native American women in
much of North America—in the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confed-
eracy, for example? How many people realize the role that Haudeno-
saunee women played in shaping our early feminist movement, which
developed (and matured) after the Seneca Falls conference of 1848?
Today, SallyRoeschWagnerandothershaveprovideddetailedhistory
describing how Matilda Joslyn Gage, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, among others, drew inspiration from the matrilineal
societies of the Haudenosauneee.
Gage, in particular, was shaped because she was adopted by the
Mohawks. The Haudenosaunee social geography contrasted vividly
with the Anglo-American society in which they lived, whose institu-
tions Euro-Americans sought to change. Early feminists, emerging
from a socioeconomic culture in which most women owned nothing
and were defined as legal appendages of their husbands, were awed by
Haudenosaunee culture, in which women owned the home and much
of the means of production and a man moved in with his new wife’s
relatives if he was judged fit to do so by the Clan Mothers.
Howmanyofushaveconsideredtheimplicationsoflivinginatruly
matrilinealsociety,wherewomenmindthehearthandcareforchildren