Messengers of the Wind

by Jane Katz

For generations the lives of Native American women have been kept in the shadows. Now, in Messengers of the Wind, these extraordinary Americans illuminate their diverse traditions, roles, and present-day realities. For though they share common threads of experience and history, Native women do not inhabit one contained world with a specific name, but rather many worlds. Native American women old and young, from a variety of tribal groups, speak with eloquence and passion about their experience on the land and in urban areas; about their work as artists, activists, and healers; as grandmothers, mothers, and daughters; as modern professional women with a link to the past. On an Ojibway reservation, a grandmother faces arrest rather than relinquish treaty rights; an Inupiat woman shares her spiritual connection to the Alaskan landscape; an Upper Skagit elder speaks of ancient tribal values and ceremonies she is helping perpetuate. All the women testify to the struggle of keeping Native wa