Grandmothers of The Light: A Medicine Woman's Sourcebook - Softcover

Allen, Paula Gunn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807081035 ISBN 13: 9780807081037

Publisher: Beacon Press, 1992

Synopsis

This extraordinary collection of goddess stories from Native American civilizations across the continent, Paula Gunn Allen shares myths that have guided female shamans toward an understanding of the sacred for centuries.

About this title

About the Author

Paula Gunn Allen is professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an American Indian of Laguna Pueblo and Sioux heritage. She is author of many books, including The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Tradition and editor of  Spider Woman’s Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American Women, which won an American Book Award in 1990.

From Kirkus Reviews

A scholarly yet charming compilation of distinctly feminine Native American legends--a continuation of the explorations that Allen (English/UCLA) began in The Sacred Hoop (1986) and Spider Woman's Granddaughters (a 1990 American Book Award). Concentrating on creation myths and their reflections in ancient and contemporary ritual, Allen, a Laguna Pueblo/Sioux Indian, blends a wealth of North American tribal tales into 21 elegantly phrased explications of what she terms the ``cosmogyny'' (the ``ordered universe arranged in harmony with gynocratic principles''), a concept all but lost, she says, with the incursion of European patriarchal thought. Far from a one-sided feminist view, the emphasis is on balance, with opposing forces (mortal/supernatural, masculine/feminine, individual/community) seeking ``completion rather than adversariness and opposition.'' As Changing Woman, one of the manifestations of the ``Great Goddess'' common to Native American lore, explains to her suitor, the Sun, ``You and I are of the same spirit stuff and so we are of equal worth...if there can be no harmony between us, then there can never be harmony any place in the universe.'' The best of the stories are respectful retellings of essentially timeless myths, suffused with a gently playful humor. Less successful are several slightly strained attempts to transport the narrative to present-day settings. Not that there isn't a purpose here, for Allen takes seriously Mayan prophecies of renewed attention to the supernatural within the next century, characterizing her work as a guide for ``...the process of return, enabling women to recover our ancient medicine ways...'' An unusual prescription, perhaps, but within the confines of this enchanting work, an effortlessly easy one to swallow. A winsome and valuable addition to the growing catalogues of Native American, spiritual, and feminist studies. (Seven b&w illustrations--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0807081035
• ISBN 13: 9780807081037
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 246