Summary of The Sacred Hoop

In The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions, Paula Gunn Allen covers a wide array of roles that American Indian women struggle with in today’s society. These roles include historical roles as chiefs, healers, dreamers, shamans and more modern roles as wives, mothers, daughters, lesbians. Allen explores the struggle that American Indian women face as they try to find their voice as an American Indian, as an American and as a woman in today’s world. She discusses the obstacles of physical survival and cultural survival that Native women face as a result of their historical role in a gynecentric society to their role today in a patriarchal society. Allen provides a history of tribal traditions such as myths and the importance of women’s roles in these stories. She addresses the change that occurred due to the presence of the white man and their patriarchal views. The status of American Indians has declined in recent years and this is another point that Allen attempts to explore to find out why this has happened and the implications that it holds. Native women struggle to find balance and duality in a modern world that no longer holds the woman as the central rock and focal point that so many tribal myths and stories are based upon. Allen’s book relates not only to the voice that American Indian women are trying to preserve but also to all women in general.