Grandmothers of the light: A medicine woman's sourcebook

by Paula Gunn Allen

This extraordinary collection of goddess stories from Native American civilizations across the continent, Paula Gunn Allen shares myths that have guided female shamans toward an understanding of the sacred for centuries.

Genres: Nonfiction, Indigenous, Spirituality, Womens, Native American, Mythology, Religion

246 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Paula Gunn Allen was a Native American poet, literary critic, lesbian activist, and novelist.

Born Paula Marie Francis in Albuquerque, Allen grew up in Cubero, New Mexico, a Spanish-Mexican land grant village bordering the Laguna Pueblo reservation. Of mixed Laguna, Sioux, Scottish, and Lebanese-American descent, Allen always identified most closely with the people among whom she spent her childhood and upbringing.

Having obtained a BA and MFA from the University of Oregon, Allen gained her PhD at the University of New Mexico, where she taught and where she began her research into various tribal religions.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author attempts to return the creation myths of American Indians back to the Goddess that originally inspired them. Her research seems good and she traces how the original female centered myths changed into male dominated ones. But the author is not a gifted story teller. The re-told legends were a very bad blend of modern terminology and ancient mythology. The language is stiled, many passages are repeated for no particular reason and over all it was just a very boring, badly written book. And that's a shame because the premise was very interesting.
With a goddess as the basis for the myth, the stories are more nurturing and less war-like. The idea behind writing the book was to empower females and to renew and encourage caring for the planet.
Great idea and written by someone more talented it could have been a great book.

[Fuzzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book disappointingly has the feel of a literature course rather than the oral story telling feel of a good first nations story teller. The vocabulary is overly academic and leaves the reader looking up definitions rather than soaking up the myths and legends.

[Angelique McGowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone interested in Native American Spirituality from a Medicine Woman this is a must read!

[Deb]

Referenced in Braiding Sweetgrass

[Jane Barber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need to read it again. Or reference. The stories were a lot to absorb at once.

I did get a lot from the historical parts she wrote. One memorable insight, from pgs 165-166:

"…Within a handful of years, the thriving population of the New Eden [Columbus] had stumbled upon was reduced by many millions. They did not succumb to superior European war technology, nor to superior force of faith, but to superior disease(Brandon 1974, 97)

"…The gold that had adorned their lives [Aztec] — tons of it — began to trickle east in a bizarre echo of Sun Woman's eastward journey a ritual age before. that gold, and the silver for which Mexico is famous, funded Anglo-European monarchies and the terrible wars they waged against each other for five hundred years. With the stolen riches, those monarchies became modern states that exert influence on world affairs far out of proportion to their numbers.

"In another of those strange twists of ritual plot, not only precious metal went east. The idea of political freedom found its way abroad the slave ships, the gold ships, the ships filled with treasures and people of a plundered world. While the disease and disorder that came with Europeans wrought ruin, the freedom and faith they found in the new world created havoc in the old. In the universe of power, all transactions proceed in more directions than one."

[Barbara Brydges · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure that a collection of Indigenous stories should be such hard reading. I appreciate the depth of knowledge Paula Gunn Allen brought to this work but her storytelling ability is lacking. Perhaps her focus on women’s medicine is why humour is missing in all but one of the stories. I found myself more interested in Allen’s introduction and postscript than in most of the stories.

[Jennifer Kubenka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew very little about Native American spirituality or mythos, and now I know more. These stories are mostly simply told, but pack a huge wallop in terms of meaning. I highly recommend this book.

[Autumn Kearney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Grandmothers of the light : a medicine woman's sourcebook was an okay book. It was not at all what I had expected from the title. That was misleading. It could have used a good editor.

[Jacquelyn Fusco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full of ancient stories from different nations, overlapping themes. A great collection of knowledge and culture.

[Eden Silverfox · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book sounded interesting and I decided to give it a read. Paula Gunn Allen does her research well and the history she relates is interesting.

When it came to retelling the stories of the Goddesses, however, it was pretty dull and I had a hard time staying interested.

The book isn't bad, but I just don't think the author is the best storyteller. In my opinion, she does make history and other research interesting. So because of that, I will give this author another chance.

[Holly Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was unfamiliar with the pantheon(s) she was telling stories about, and the names were hard to pronounce. So it sorta made it hard for me to keep track of who was who. I kept a little piece of paper with names and a bit about them as I was reading.

[Marcella · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the idea of this book - a collection of Native American goddess myths - but the execution leaves much to be desired.