LITERARY ANALYSISThe Round House

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The history of abuse against Native American women

EARLY NATIVE WOMEN HISTORY

• The women of tribes were always respected.

• Sacred beings, creators of life.

• A lot of responsibilities; agriculture, tanning hides, etc.

• Seen as equal to the men; each had an important role to provide to their existence.

• Clan Mothers of the Iroquois Confederacy chose, advised, and guided their chiefs.

THE ROUND HOUSE

• Joe speaks of what his mother’s existence in their lives meant to him;

• “Women do not realize how much store men set on the regularity of their habits.

• “We absorb their comings and goings into our bodies, their rhythms into our bones.”

• “Our pulse set to theirs; her absence stopped time.”

• The Old Buffalo Woman lead Nanapush in guiding his people in “a good way.”

• She gave him, in his mind, the structure of the Round House.

THE ARRIVAL OF EUROPEAN SETTLERS

• Put change in action.

• Viewed men superior to women.

• Portrayed Native women as, “sexual savages.”

• Deeply romanticized, then and still today.

• The movie, Pocahontas, shows this stereotype of Native women.

EUROPEAN SETTLERS

• Brought diseases.

• Brought devastating warfare.

• Stripped food supply, stole the children, raped the women, kept the men drunk.

• Divided Turtle Island in to small stolen land claims covered in blood and tears of the people.

• Would not allow the precious children to speak their native language.

NATIVE WOMEN PREVAIL

• Ancestors survived through all the hardships and hopelessness.

• Became integrated and learned to adapt to the Euro-American lifestyle.

• Carried their old teachings and beliefs.

• Keepers of Mother Earth.

LILLIE ROSA MINOKA HILL

• Born 1876, on the St. Regis reservation in New York.

• “Became a doctor in a time when doctors were rare and Indian doctors almost nonexistent.”

• Moved to Oneida Reservation in 1905, when she married Charles Hill.

• Called the “kitchen doctor.”

• Someone who gave everything and expected very little in return.

POLITICS & LEADERSHIP

• Does it matter who leads the tribe in today’s modern society?

• Either a woman or a man?

• Is it about who has more education?

• Maybe, who has more experience working with the government?

• Or should the choice of the people be more traditional?

• These are types of question we ask ourselves when it comes to electing a leader.

ADA DEER

• Born on the Menominee Reservation in 1935.

• Father a member and her mother a white woman.

• She is a woman if her time.

• Well educated, first member of her tribe to earn a master’s degree.

• Helped restore the Menominee reservation.

MALE VS. FEMALE

• Traditionalists, including Buddy Chevalier, believe women do not think women should run the government.

• Buddy and Ada disagree on this issue.

• Ada doubts the importance of the male-female issue.

• Buddy a member of the militants that over took the Alexian Brothers Novitiate, demand that 3 female tribal leaders step down.

• Ada, in the year 1975, was the chairwoman of the Restoration Committee.

FACTS

• Women were once seen as equal to men.

• Rate of Violent Crimes against Native American women is 2 ½ times the rate for other females.

• 1 in 3 will be raped.

• 3 in 4 will be physically assaulted.

• Stalked a higher rate.

• We as Native Americans need to realize that abuse against our women is not a tradition.