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4.33 AVERAGE
4.33 AVERAGE
julenetrippweaver's review
5.0
Beth Brant's book is a gem. A series of essays on being a Native American mixed race lesbian writer and what that means. Native Americans come from an oral tradition, so their writing is a translation. She explains this better that I can.
One of my favorite essays is "Grandmothers of a New World" where she writes the truth about Pocahontas and Nancy Ward, two Native American Indians who made the choice to bond with white men for the sake of their people. She broadens the story we think we know about these women. She understands their roots and weaves the thread of connection as to their motives for these bondings. In a world where we have a president who when talking to Native Americans says the word Pocahontas totally out of context, it is important to read and know the truth. For it is us, the white people, who colonized and exterminated a race of people. They subcomed to the diseases we brought them.
About Nancy Ward, and also about Pocahontas, she writes, "Because she maintained this balance and peace, "Nanye'hi has been seen by some of her descendants as a traitor and lackey to the British. But this story is old and familiar. Take strong Nationalist women and turn them into pale myth. Make our own people believe the lies. This is what oppression is—the enforcement of amnesia—to make us forget the glory and story of our own history."
Beth Brant's Native heritage is Mohawk. She started writing when she was 40, back in the early 80s during the time of a feminist uprising. I remember this time, there were bookstores stocked totally with books written by women. She was a guest editor for the journal Sinister Wisdom, founded by Adrienne Rich and Michelle Cliff, she curated the works of other Native American women. The book that came from that first is A Gathering of Spirit, a classic that gave opportunities for Native women's voices to be heard. By that time she was fully in her two-spirit, and had left an abusive marriage she had stayed in for 14 years.
She writes, "Writing was/is Medicine." It is the only thing I know that brings complete wholeness while it is making a visitation." She goes on to compare it to an orgasm, both a spiritual communication.
One of my favorite essays is "Grandmothers of a New World" where she writes the truth about Pocahontas and Nancy Ward, two Native American Indians who made the choice to bond with white men for the sake of their people. She broadens the story we think we know about these women. She understands their roots and weaves the thread of connection as to their motives for these bondings. In a world where we have a president who when talking to Native Americans says the word Pocahontas totally out of context, it is important to read and know the truth. For it is us, the white people, who colonized and exterminated a race of people. They subcomed to the diseases we brought them.
About Nancy Ward, and also about Pocahontas, she writes, "Because she maintained this balance and peace, "Nanye'hi has been seen by some of her descendants as a traitor and lackey to the British. But this story is old and familiar. Take strong Nationalist women and turn them into pale myth. Make our own people believe the lies. This is what oppression is—the enforcement of amnesia—to make us forget the glory and story of our own history."
Beth Brant's Native heritage is Mohawk. She started writing when she was 40, back in the early 80s during the time of a feminist uprising. I remember this time, there were bookstores stocked totally with books written by women. She was a guest editor for the journal Sinister Wisdom, founded by Adrienne Rich and Michelle Cliff, she curated the works of other Native American women. The book that came from that first is A Gathering of Spirit, a classic that gave opportunities for Native women's voices to be heard. By that time she was fully in her two-spirit, and had left an abusive marriage she had stayed in for 14 years.
She writes, "Writing was/is Medicine." It is the only thing I know that brings complete wholeness while it is making a visitation." She goes on to compare it to an orgasm, both a spiritual communication.