Native American Women's Society May Be Reborn
Story-Date: 07:07 p.m. PST Sunday   , July 20, 1997

Native American Women's Society May Be Reborn

BY K. MARIE PORTERFIELD, INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY, RAPID CITY, S.D.
Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News

YANKTON, S.D.--Jul. 21--They call themselves the Brave Heart Society.

``Long ago, the members of the Brave Heart Society were strong women. They
brought back the dead after a battle,'' Faith Spotted Eagle, the group's
organizer, said. ``In a way that encompasses what we are trying to do
now,'' she said.

This summer these women of the Yankton Sioux Tribe hope to rediscover and
revive old teachings so that American Indian women can once again assume
their traditional place in society.

Last week they rented a mini van and headed to Kansas City where they
planned to explore the public archives there, hoping to learn more about
their past through the papers of Ella Deloria, a Yankton woman writer
who, wrote The White Swan Band.

Under a grant from the Lannan Foundation, they are researching the
traditional roles of women's societies, as well as looking at how
leadership was passed on from woman to woman.

They hope to create a forum for other societies to form and interact.

``Within the last six months we've begun to create relationships between
pairs of women,'' Ms. Spotted Eagle said.

``We're hoping this will be a kind of mentorship,'' she said.

The project began four years ago when Ms. Spotted Eagle began leading
healing retreats in the Black Hills as part of a fetal alcohol syndrome
prevention program in Wagner, S.D.

Women not only grew close on the excursions, they learned from each other
and had fun.

``Traditionally, the circles of the women's societies were a place where we
could retreat, where we could be educated and where we could be ourselves,
where we could play,'' Ms. Spotted Eagle said.

After Kansas City, the women planned to drive across South Dakota, stopping
to talk with American Indian authors and activists as part of their
information quest.

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(c) 1997, Indian Country Today, Rapid City, S.D. Distributed by
Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News.



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