The Spirit of Indian Women

July 25, 2005
One of the great callings of art is to excavate a lost part of our culture, and the Fitzgeralds answer this summons handsomely here in a compact exploration of Native American women's spirituality. Focusing on the nomadic Plains tribes, the book pairs writings and oratory alongside stunning photographs, most of which have never been published before. The editors hold fast to those individuals who received their (oral) training from the "old timers," people who knew the pre-reservation way of life that honored women as the complementary, spiritual equals of their husbands. A section on the role of Indian women offers mostly male voices on that topic, while "Celestial Femininity" preserves tribal tales that delve into divine femininity, and "Intercessors with the Sacred" highlights traditional tribal stories that champion the sacred roles of women. In "Women's Voices," happily encompassing half of the book, we read the exquisite thoughts and feelings of bygone women from a lost time in American history. In portrait after portrait, the souls of the women haunt the frontiers of the human spirit with a staunch beauty that is both refined and raw. The wisdom in these faces is alone well worth the price of the book.

March 1, 2006
World Wisdom has recently inaugurated a series of books, Sacred Worlds, that combines impressive imageryboth new and old fine arts, as well as contemporary and vintage photographywith selections from world faith traditions.The Sermon of All Creation is founded on the very ancient and venerable Christian tradition of insight drawn from God's second Book. Dazzling photographs, saturated with color, share pages with quotations from the likes of Catherine of Siena, Augustine of Hippo, and William Penn; the volume includes an index of authors for easy reference.Yet more innovative, and hence more striking, isThe Spirit of Indian Women, which is an act of reclamation as much as of spirituality: it reproduces precious and seldom-seen photographs of Native American women, most of them from the later 19th century. Their images are interwoven with oral accounts, songs, and other documents that offer priceless glimpses into the little-understood lives and experiences of America's foremothers; Janine Pease's brilliant introduction sets the Fitzgeralds' anthology in a whole historical context. These entries in the Sacred Worlds series are delights to the eye and the mind, andThe Spirit of Indian Women is a special treasure. Highly recommended.

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