A review by megatsunami
Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat by Paula Gunn Allen

3.0

This book was intriguing at times, maddening at other times. I really liked the way the author just laid it out there at the beginning that she was going to mix up traditional Western linear biography narrative with a cyclical-time-based spiritual understanding of history. Her opening chapter describing this is really brilliant. While reading the rest of the book, I felt that (on the one hand) she had some super insightful ways of envisioning Pocahontas' history. It never would have occurred to me that Pocahontas was a spy but it makes total sense when put in this perspective. On the other hand, I wanted to be more clear about when she was giving known historical (Western linear etc etc) fact, when she was looking from a more cyclical-time lens, and when she was speculating. And sometimes she got really too into the whole trip of Native Americans having a unitary philosophy/ way of seeing things. As a side note, I loved how she made parallels between Native American spiritual worlds and the pagan English alternative spiritual world (alchemy, ceremonial magic, fairies, etc). That was fun and unusual.