RIP Paula Gunn Allen

A monumental figure on many levels, and I say this with the greatest regret that I still don't know her work as well as I should beyond scattered pieces I've read over the years.

In the 1960s, when some in academia still denied the existence of Native American literature, Paula Gunn Allen embarked on a career that proved them wrong -- and altered the required reading lists of literature classes on U.S. college campuses.

The former UCLA professor helped define the canon of Native American literature, encouraged its development by anthologizing new American Indian writers and nurtured a broader audience for the work.

"This is great literature -- American literature," Allen said in a 1990 article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "What I want from readers is a fundamental recognition that American Indian culture is alive and thriving."

....

With her 1986 book, "The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions," Allen broke new ground again, countering the stereotypical view of Native American women with provocative essays examining female deities, the honored place of lesbians and the importance of mothers and grandmothers to Indian identity.

One of the most anthologized essays -- "Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism" -- asserts that early feminists in the United States owe a debt to women of the female-centered Iroquois, who were their role models.

"When Paula was writing this, the portrayal we had of native women was the docile squaw, or the savage woman, as this kind of sexual prey," said Mary Churchill, a former student and long-time friend who now teaches at Sonoma State. Allen showed the women in crucial roles, vital to their societies.