Native women’s experiences and their relationship to natural and cultural artifacts depend on several factors, including mythology, sacred landscapes, gender relations and gender-specific roles. They can only be understood in terms of cultural growth and survival in the face of colonization. Representations of native women within the landscape are present in all of America. Paula Gunn Allen begins her book The Sacred Hoop with these words: “In the beginning there was thought, and her name was Woman�?(2). Grandmother Spider spins the web of life, directs the spiritual life of the people and is represented in the landscape in the form of Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly, a reminder of the powerful spirit who, according to the Keres, resides at Sipapu, the emergence place of the people. This female power is central in all native traditions even though these many traditions call her by different names: she is Corn Woman, Serpent Woman, Earth Woman, Sky Woman. All of these names find meaning in the land and are represented in different parts of native landscapes.

Mythology sets the stage for women’s relationship to landscape and the material cultural that each nation developed over time. Each nation has its own unique story of origin that not only designates gender specific relations with the landscape but which also designates gender specific roles and obligations. The peopling of the world within the cosmology of native societies almost unanimously incorporates a central female figure. In the Northeast, the Iroquois story of the creation of the earth involves Sky Woman falling from the Sky. With the help of the winged creatures she descends to the ocean. When the creatures of the ocean saw her falling they came together to decide how they could best help the woman and turtle agreed to let her rest on his back. Terrified that she would die, she asked the creatures of the ocean to bring her some soil so that she could plant the roots she had pulled from the great tree at the hole from which she had fallen. Muskrat was the only one to succeed at retrieving earth from the bottom of the great ocean; the woman took the soil, placed it in the center of turtle’s back and planted the roots. From this time on women tended the fields and the earth’s bounty.

Across the continent in Northeastern California the creation of the Modoc people took on different dimensions but it contains similar characteristics to the Iroquois creation. The Creator’s daughter died and, fearing loneliness, he followed her to the spirit world in the West. He found that his loneliness did not dissipate in the spirit world because the spirits only came to life at night and returned to bones during the day. He decided that he would try to bring his daughter back to the other world and gathered her bones in a basket. After three attempts, he finally emerged back into the world he had known with his daughter’s bones. He dispersed her bones and when they touched the ground they became the people. He named all the people and placed the bones who would be the Modocs in the center of the world. 

Female figures are prominent in the stories that have influenced and continue to influence native societies throughout the Americas. In these two examples women play key roles in the creation of the earth and the people. These female figures descend to the world, though in different forms, to create the life that the people will live, and they have remained central players in the formation of the people. The creation of the people finds a direct correlation with native women and their relationship to the land.

In the Southwest and the Plains, female powers instruct the people how to live properly, how to treat each other and how to treat the Earth. Instruction of the people in ritual and ceremony also finds roots in mythology featuring powerful female figures. White Buffalo Woman gifted the Lakota with the sacred pipe, which represent the essence of life. Lame Deer related White Buffalo Woman’s teaching: “With this holy pipe you will walk a living prayer. With your feet resting upon the earth and the pipestem reaching into the sky, your body forms the living bridge between the Sacred Beneath and the Sacred Above�?(3). She instructed the people on the proper respect they must give to all living things including the Earth. 

The power that these female figures bring to the people is also recreated in the everyday life of native women in their capacity of childbearing. In native societies, the source from which woman gains her ultimate power is her capacity to bear children. The creation of the people mirrors women’s ability to bring forth life. While men strive to gain power through ritual, ceremony, and dreaming, women do not have to seek power: they sustain the generations just as Corn Mother sustains the people. Ultimately this feature of native origins ties directly into women’s roles in food production and the concept so often tied to Native American spirituality—Mother Earth. Woman as child bearer, nurturer and food producer is represented in agricultural pursuits in many nations. Most widely known is the cultivation of the “Three Sisters�?in the Northeast. Corn, beans and, squash are mainstays for most nations in the Americas. It is the womb of mother earth from which the Three Sisters emerge to provide sustenance to the people. In addition to planting, nurturing and harvesting the Three Sisters, women performed horticultural activities as well; this includes maintaining knowledge of herbs and their uses in both medicinal and culinary arts.

The division of labor in native societies necessitated women’s direct tie to the productivity of the land, but food production was not the only activity that linked women to the Earth. Artistic forms such as basketry and pottery emerged as predominantly female pursuits, retaining mythological roots. California native women are renowned for their weaving and basketry. Each tribe has forms and designs unique to their area and beliefs, and performs rituals and ceremonies that incorporate baskets. At times Pomo women incorporated weaving with shamanistic pursuits. Basket making enhanced a female shaman’s ability at healing and in rituals. Thus collection of materials was as important as the actual production of them. The weaver might dream of a basket or come up with a certain design, then select proper material and give thanks. Similarly, in the Southwest a potter will dream of a particular pot or design and gather the material for the specific pot. Made with love and great attention to detail, the production of baskets, clothing, pots and other everyday items is time-consuming and incorporates the mundane with the spiritual. These items come directly from the earth and symbolize the importance of women’s roles in society and their attachment to the landscape—at no point does the production of such items become separate from the spiritual or the sacredness of land. 

The maintenance of native societies through oral tradition and artistic forms continues to nurture spirituality and a common bond with the land. However, as native societies changed over the last five centuries so have the nature of women’s roles and their productivity. Contact brought women’s roles as traders, diplomats and vital participants in the survival of the people to the forefront of Indian-white relations. Cortes�?expedition into Tenochtitlan in present-day Mexico could not have been successful without La Malinche and her knowledge not only of Aztec culture and political structures but of the lay of the land as well. She led Cortes to Tenochtitlan, acted as his interpreter and ultimately became known as Mother of the Mexican people. The establishment of Spanish rule would not have been as successful, had the conquistadors not appropriated Aztec religious beliefs. They built churches on native altars, including one of the more sacred ones—that of the Moon Goddess—hoping that the natives would more willingly accept Christianity.

This tactic was not as successful further north. The altars of Central and South America were not in evidence in North America. Colonization took on a different facade in North America. Europeans viewed natives as heathen and savage, their cultures as lacking religion and their gender relations in complete opposition to European norms for civilized behavior. Since they did not find the mineral wealth so abundant in Central and South America, Europeans began to focus on the acquisition of land and the consequent dispossession of Native Americans. Their justification for doing this related directly to native women’s positions and roles within their own societies.

Native societies did not designate women as solely homemakers and child bearers. They served as diplomats, politicians and arbiters. With few exceptions such as La Malinche, Pocahontas and Sacajawea, Europeans ignored native women as shapers of public and social policy. Excluding women from arbitration or council meetings was in direct opposition to native belief systems. Although all natives perceived land value in terms of use, not exchange, the transference of land was unethical without women’s input. Thus when land became a commodity with European contact, Europeans categorically ignored native women and their roles within native societies. Once land transferred ownership or shifted boundaries, Europeans expected gender roles to change as well. The common belief was that natives did not cultivate the land. Clearly, Europeans and Euro-Americans ignored women’s participation in their own societies and further displaced the importance of their roles as successful cultivators and cultural mediators.

Native land bases shrank as the United States government attempted to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream American culture, expecting native men to cultivate individual plots of land. For native men this meant drastic change. They could no longer perform the duties that their societies expected of them because they could no longer hunt or participate in warfare, and the ramifications of this were far reaching. Gender roles and relations shifted to reflect those of white society. Both men and women had to make adjustments, but women were able to continue some of their traditional activities. Although the men were now in charge of their field labor, women retained basket making, pottery, homemaking and childbearing within their purview. When Maria Chona met Ruth Underhill in the early part of the century, she was still living as her grandmother had, with relatively few modifications. 

The late twentieth century has ushered in a new era for Native American women. They have begun to reclaim landscape and cultural artifacts for all Native Americans. One such movement is the campaign to remove the word, “squaw,�?a derogatory designation for an Indian woman, from all national place names. Led by Dawn Litzau, Angeline Losh and other high school women, the target for this movement are areas such as Squaw Valley in California, Squaw Peak in Arizona, Squaw Lake Village in Minnesota and well over 1,000 additional sites. Other current issues include land claims and removals like those at Big Mountain and Black Mesa in Arizona. Hopi and Navajo Grandmothers lead the fight to stop the removal of the people from their homelands. For the Navajo, relocation, being separated from the place where the Creator intended the people to be, means “to disappear forever.�?Such a removal will result in the destruction of subsistence patterns the peoples of the Southwest have been performing for centuries.

Native women have created a place in different landscapes throughout Native North America; women have influenced mythical, political, economic, domestic and artistic landscapes. No place in the Americas can be viewed that a native woman has not touched in some way. From Spider Rock in Arizona to the land of the great Iroquois Confederacy, women shaped the land, sustained the people and ensured the survival of future generations. Native American women continue to shape the earth through producing food, making ritualistic and everyday items, and reclaiming their status within their own nations and the United States.