The Sacred Hoop

The most important aspect of The Sacred Hoop for me is its unapologetic uplifting of American Indian culture and custom. Allen's goal with the book is to set out for her audience a sampling of the ideas that drive American Indian culture. She does this by repeatedly calling up concurring examples from the many tribes and traditions she is familiar with. She also spends a substantial amount of time explaining how American Indian understandings of the world conflict and contradict the Western view. She speaks of the power of women in their tribes and how the idea power itself is constructed differently. She speaks of how contemporary American Indian writers use their culture to fuel their narratives, as opposed to the Western basis that everyone else clings to. She complicates ideas of myth, ceremony, and religion, calling into question the Western tradition of reasonableness and primitiveness.
Throughout her essays, she tenaciously defends the American Indian tradition and uses that lens to show the shortcomings, peculiarities, and destructive urges that have come from a Western dominated world. Must we live in a world where power is held and used punitively against those who do not conform? Where is the boundary between what is real and not real? Fiction and fact? The key is not that these questions are answered, but how they are answered. Only when Westerners understand and respect the fundamental differences in thought can they hope to appreciate the full depth and complexity of the American Indian cultural tradition. And The Sacred Hoop is a great place to begin that quest. Allen is eloquent and always interesting, her examples and arguments are lucid and well thought out. Most importantly, what she says is true and needs to be heard.