On October 24, 1939, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Paula Gunn Allen was born from a Lebanese father and a Laguna Pueblo and Scottish mother (“Paula Gunn Allen: 1939-2008”). Before adopting her maternal grandmother's name (Gunn) along with her husband's last name, she was known as Paula Marie Francis (“Paula Gunn Allen”). Her childhood was spent growing up in New Mexico on the Laguna Pueblo reservation (“Paula Gunn Allen”). Gunn Allen died on May 9, 2008 (“Paula Gunn Allen: 1939-2008”).
Paula Gunn Allen first attended college at Colorado Women's College before leaving to raise a family (“Paula Gunn Allen”). After receiving her Bachelor's in English literature and her Master's in Fine Arts in creative writing at the University of Oregon, Gunn Allen received her PhD from the University of New Mexico (“Paula Gunn Allen;” “Paula Gunn Allen: 1939-2008”). Gunn Allen taught Native American studies at a number of universities such as the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and San Diego State University (“Paula Gunn Allen”).
The majority of Paula Gunn Allen's work involved Native American literature along with poetics (“Paula Gunn Allen: 1939-2008”). Gunn Allen advocated for Native American literature to be included in American literature as indigenous works were often excluded (“Paula Gunn Allen').
The Blind Lion (Poetry) (1974)
Shadow Country (Poetry) (1982)
Studies in American Indian Literature (Scholarship) (1983)
The Woman Who Owned the Shadows (Historical Nonfiction) (1983)
The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (Scholarship) (1986)
Carolyn Dunn
Rain Prud'homme-Cranford
Joy Harjo
The long-standing consensus of Indigenous American writing in the euro-dominated cultural space was that it was less developed and less correct than western writings and accounts. This misunderstanding comes from a perfectly pragmatic and equally functional, yet rival, system of metaphysics and ethics that indigenous writing uses (though this category of indigenous writing is VERY diverse and is as far from a monolith as one could possibly get). This improper conception of indigenous writing being less developed is the topic of the first page (Gunn Allen 173) and is disproved comprehensively through the rest of this article.
Firstly, the label of ‘folklore’ is disproven, as often only academics in indigenous societies had these stories and historical accounts memorized or in their possession. This is why there is such a paucity of indigenous accounts today. (173)
Secondly, there is a critical difference in what metaphysical system is used in these societies which European scholars attempt still to this day (though this practice is, thankfully, dying out week by week) to compare. This leads to a difference in what importance is given to various rituals (in the Durkheimian sense), social groups, and concepts in society. For example, Gunn Allen goes into the purpose of literature. The purpose of European literature is, roughly, to celebrate the individuality of the author, the reader, and/or selected characters. This is nearly the opposite in indigenous literature, as it seeks to take the individual (an inherently social animal and idea) and make it part of the whole of society and the world, a living thing in itself. The view of society and of the larger world is a lot more social, a lot more communally oriented and is viewed in terms of balance and imbalance, rather than the realist battle of competing individual interests that exists in European and European-adjacent societies *ahem*the anglosphere and other former colonies-turned colonial projects themselves*ahem* (174).
One example which Gunn Allen goes in depth on is the plains’ tribes’ idea of the Sacred Hoop. As stated before, the world and all things in it are social and “harmonically balanced” (174-5). All things are part of a larger, “fluid and dynamic” system (175) where they react to each other, creating new possibilities (175). It is in this way, for help in understanding, that the individual or the tribe or whoever can change their fate through their own actions.
Imagine being in a large swimming pool. You want to make a floatie on the other side move, but the only thing you can do is move yourself. By making waves with your arms, you can move the water and eventually move the floatie, but it may cause other things that you did not want to move to start moving. The system in plains tribes’ metaphysics, like this commercialist swimming pool example, is “dynamic and reactive” (175). Compare this to the Christian religious system of metaphysics, and to continue the swimming pool analogy, we are stuck in Jello and only the divine creator can let us free, though he would instead opt to hear our pleas and move the floatie on our behalf or do nothing and argue that the floatie in its current position and the Jello around us are ultimately good for us.
To get back to the Hoop, now that we have our framework in place, the actions which happen in the future (from the western perspective) can be changed by the indigenous person or tribe. Since one can change the future, in a way creating is, they are, themselves, part of the sacred process of creation, “To the Indian, the ability of all creatures to share in the process of life (creation) makes us all sacred” (175). To retire our swimming pool scenario, the pool is the hoop, and all things in it are sacred as they can affect the water and other things in the pool.
On Cooperation, there is the conception in western culture that we are over here, and nature is over there, and that god created this system for us as ideal. Attempts to change it is a subversion of the ideal divine system. In the indigenous view (specifically these plains’ tribes), the world is somewhat created ideally, but living beings can change the system somewhat in order to live better and easier (175-6)
“In English, one can divide the universe into two parts - one which is natural and one which is 'supernatural'” (Gunn Allen 177). Man is really neither, more an alienated observer / interactor who bends the world as necessary to his whims, to the benefit or behest of a god.
Indigenous languages do not have this division, instead “he is part of a living whole, and that all parts of that whole are related to one another by virtue of their participation in the whole of being” (Gunn Allen 177).
In English, where concepts of morality (good and bad, for example) are separate things, often in Indigenous languages, good concepts are described as part of the whole, in harmony with the whole. For example “In Native American thought, God is known as the All-Spirit, and other are also spirit - more spirit than body… The natural state of existence is whole… Beauty is wholeness. Health of wholeness. Goodness is wholeness” (Gunn Allen 177).
Another thing to note is the emphasis on repetition in indigenous literature. Scholars say there are two primary reasons for this: the form of oral literature and the emphasis on memorization and performance, and the importance of repetition in ceremonies and the “psychic” effects on it, a more spiritual relationship (179-182).
“The two forms basic to Native American literature are the Ceremony and the Myth. The Ceremony is the ritual enactment of a specialized perception of cosmic relationships, while the Myth is a prose record of that relationship” (Gunn Allen 177). The ceremony is the action, and the myth is the record of that relationship that ceremonies recognize. These ceremonies are interconnected, which leads to difficulty in classification among non-indigenous collectors / scholars. This tendency to separate literature is a European phenomena that comes from our linguistic separation. It is only when this understanding is confronted and when this is bypassed that indigenous literature can be properly understood (Gunn Allen 178-9).
Some effects of Europeans misunderstanding the difference of metaphysics and believing it to be underdevelopment or stupidity are that:
The metaphysical difference leads to misunderstandings in the metaphysical qualities of objects in indigenous groups.
The example listed on page 186 is the “unimaginable amount of force into all things… one of its chief symbols ['of the four quarters of the earth'], Umane” (Gunn Allen 186). It is said that “In the old days men used to have an Umane altar made of raised earth in their tipis on certain special occasions. It was so wakan you couldn't touch it or even hold your hand over it” (186, emphasis original). One in the west would observe this as a symbolic or physical untouchableness, in that it may have been taboo to touch it or it was placed too high up to physically reach, but that's not the case at all. “He is saying that one couldn't touch it. The Umane doesn't represent the power, it is the power” (186, emphasis original). It is a metaphysical power and a metaphysical quality that cannot be touched, despite being metaphysically present in that altar of Umane. The altar made of raised earth isn't just a shrine to Umane, it is Umane himself, made manifest. This is slightly similar to the Christian idea (though not widely followed and only developing in the 1950s during the US and NATO's side of the Cold War) that God could see you through pictures of him or Jesus and was always watching. As if god himself was there, with the picture as a conduit for god's metaphysical presence, the altar is also literally Umane there, in metaphysical presence.
“Paula Gunn Allen: 1939-2008.” Poets. org, https://poets.org/poet/paula-gunn-allen.
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica Article History.”Paula Gunn Allen.“ Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paula-Gunn-Allen.~~AUTHORS~~