Paula Gunn Allen\u27s novel, The Woman Who Owned the Shadows, is important -- one of few written by an American Indian woman focusing on an Indian woman\u27s life. (Other examples are Sophia Alice Callahan\u27s Wynemia: A Child of the Forest, 1891, and Mourning Dove\u27s Cogewea, the Half Blood, 1927). Allen writes out of her Laguna Pueblo heritage (she says she is Laguna Pueblo/Sioux/Lebanese-American), and gives the reader a view of a contemporary Indian woman\u27s life through her character, Ephanie

Van Dyke, Annette

English

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Ital ian Americans in his extensive set of references,  I want to cite several recent  works a b o u t  I ta l ian  Americ a n s  in other regi o n s .  Micae la  deLeonardo's The Varieties o f  Ethnic Experience: Kinship, Class a n d  Gender amon!? Ca lifo rnia Italian A mericans (Cornell  University Press ,  1 984) i l lustrates how history , economy and generation affect the ways in which individuals respond to their ethnicity.  An anthropologist ,  deLeonardo uses excerpts from her interviews and observations of families in the San Francisco area to analyze the class and gender aspects of the ethnic experience.  Other studies overlooked by Alba include Dino Cinel 's  From Italy to San Fra ncisco: Th e Immigra nt  Experience (Stanford University Press ,  1 982) and several dissertations ,  some published ,  such as Vincenza Scarpaci ,  Italian Immigra nts in Lo u isiana 's Sugar Pa rishes (Arno Press ,  1 980) ,  Phylis Cancilla Martinelli ,  Ethnicity in the Sunbelt:  Italian America n Migra n ts in Sco t tsdale, A rizona (Arizona State University, 1 984) and my own study ,  Th e Italian A merican Co m m unity of San Fra ncisco: A Desc rip tive Study (Arno Press ,  1 980) .  E ven though there have been two U.S.  Presidents from the West over the past  decade ,  the East Coast  still does not know we exist .  Although Italians came in relatively smal l  numbers to the West (and current immigration is j ust  a trickle) ,  the experience here was different from that in the East ,  with a different historical and socio-economic context .  Students of ethnicity could learn m uch by analyzing these regional  differences ! - Rose Scherini University of California ,  Berkeley Paula Gunn Allen.  The Woman Who Owned the Shadows. (San Franciso:  Spinsters Ink,  1 983)  2 1 3  pp. ,  $8.95 paper. Paula Gunn Allen ' s  novel ,  The Wo man Who O wned the Shadows, IS important-one of few written by an American Indian woman focusing o n  an Indian woman's life .  (Other examples are Sophia Alice Cal lahan's  Wynemia: A Child of  the Fo rest, 1 89 1 ,  and Mourning Dove's  Coge wea, the Half Blood, 1 927) .  Allen writes out of her Laguna Pueblo heritage (she says she is Laguna Pueblo/Sioux/Lebanese-American) ,  and gives  the reader a view of a contemporary Indian woman's  life through h er character, E phanie.  Exp loratio ns in Sights and Suu nds No. 5 (Summer 1 985)  3 As a mixed-blood, E phanie exemplifies many of the difficulties facing American Indian women today,  a large proportion of whom are mixed­bloods . First ,  she is alienated from her Pueblo cultural tradition which, l ike other tribes ,  is based on the concept that all  things inanimate and animate are related and p art of the world. Plants,  animals ,  rocks ,  and people are i n  a reciprocal relationship ,  and people must carry on rituals ,  prayers,  and offerings to keep things i n  balance.  I n  Ephanie's p articular case ,  she has not been allowed by the full-bloods of her tribe to participate ful ly  in  the spiritual life of her tribe: One thing she could n ot go back to, though she had tried symbolically ,  in  dreams,  in books ,  was the old heathen tradition .  S he had never been t o  a masked dance.  Had n ot been allowed. Second, she is caught literally in the middle in antagonisms between the Indian and the non-Indian members of her family:  "What do you do when y ou l ove everybody on every side of the war'?" She is also caught in  the middle psychological ly .  She has been to college;  yet  the old tribal stories and myths told to her as a child keep haunting her.  Third, she comes from a Pueblo tribe in  which the m aj or deities are female  and which is  both m atrilineal (descent recognized through the fem ale  l ine)  and m atri local (ownership of houses held by women) .  H owever,  the tribe has been affected by the non-Indian society sur­rounding it ,  and the young Indian veterans back from World War I I  have "begun to hate the Spider, to ask why their God was not a m a n . "  With the passing of respect for the old ways,  E phanie and the other women in her tribe l ose their respected status and are even further alienated. Fourth, E phanie has to battle with non-Indians '  stereotyped views of her a s  an exotic and a victim .  She does not conform to what n on-Indians expect of an "Indian Maiden":  she does not " keep her eyes  cast  down,"  n or does she "say nature loving things ."  On victimization she says :  Of course we are  victims . Who isn ' t'? But we have a history too. We didn 't  j ust stand there and have all this  done to us .  We helped the cause along.  We are not victims.  We are co-creators . Besides the strength of Allen ' s  depiction of some of the difficulties of being a mixed-blood Indian woman,  the novel has other important facets .  Urban Indians will particularly like that Allen does not glorify the rural reservation at the expense of the city. Her character spends most of her time in San Francisco as opposed to the Pueblo land in New Mexico. Unlike Leslie Silko' s  Cer2mony and N .  Scott Momaday's  Ho use Ma de of Dawn, returning to the reservation is  not the answer to the character's  spiritual dilemma. Like Sil ko's  Ceremony, The Wo man Wh o Owned t h e  Shadows is  essential ly a curing ceremony in the tradition of Laguna storytell ing .  It  i s  an  attempt to tel l  a modern story which will  hel p  readers make sense out of today's  complicated world and yet connect to the important 4 Exp lorations in Sigh ts and Sounds N o . 5 (Sum m er 1985) " stories" or values of the p ast-to bring things back to balance.  To do this Allen weaves tribal history,  cultural traditions,  and mythology of the Laguna Pueblo into the novel .  If  there is  a difficulty with the novel, it is  that sometimes reading about the inner spiritual j ourney of the m ain character in  the context of Laguna storytelling and tradition is  a difficult task .  Often the language of the novel itself reads better aloud than it does on the page which is understandable since Allen i s  using an oral tradition .  The structure of the novel itself is  circular and spiraling which also adds to the difficulty. H owever, those willing to make the effort will find Allen' s  novel rich and rewarding.  As Judy Grahn says ,  " if  you come with an honest heart, ' it '  will  change the way you think and feel . "  - Annette Van Dyke St. Paul ,  Minnesota American Indian Culture and Research Journal. Special Water Rights I s sue, Vol.  7 ,  No. 1 ( 1 983) $5.00 single issue. Indian water rights is the subj ect of most of a "Special Water Rights Issue" of the A merican India n Culture and Research Jo urnal, published by the American Indian Studies C enter of the University of California ,  Los Angeles.  The issue provides valuable m aterials on this  issue ,  although it is  marred by freq uent typographical errors (e .g . ,  consistently spelling McC arran wrong in the key article) . An article by Robert Peregoy offers a history of Indian w ater rights ,  something assumed by the other articles and essential to an under­standing of them. This article explains the following:  the origin of Win ters Doctrine rights in  the United States Supreme Court early in this century as  a bel ated recognition of aboriginal  rights neither surrendered by treaties or other agreements nor abrogated by Congress ;  the expansion ofthis right in subsequent decades to establish the principles that I ndian w ater rights,  unlike rights arising under state laws based on the appropriations doctrine,  are not limited to irrigation but reserve water for future as well as  present uses;  the passage by Congress of the McC arran Amendment,  which allows state courts to litigate federal ( including Indian)  water rights as  part of comprehensive efforts to determine all water rights on a river system; the issue of whether to quantify future rights. This excellent review of these is sues is essential to understand what appears to be a strong,  well-established legal basis for Explorations in Sigh ts and Sounds No. 5 (Summer 1 985) 5 

[Review of] Paula Gunn Allen. The Woman Who Owned the Shadows

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[Review of] Paula Gunn Allen. The Woman Who Owned the Shadows

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