Description: These nine essays blend documentary history, oral history, and ethnographic observation to shed light on the complex world of grandmothering in Native America. The human and emotional resources of their ethnic traditions help American Indian grandmothers grapple with the myriad social, economic, cultural, and political challenges they face in the late twentieth century. As grandmothers, they are almost universally occupied with child care and child rearing at some point, but lineal descent, clan membership, kinship patterns, individual behavior, and cultural ideology vary the definition, role, and status of grandmothers from tribe to tribe. Indian tradition often reveres the history, stability, and wisdom that grandmothers offer and symbolize, but late-twentieth-century society impoverishes and marginalizes them. The case studies collected here explore grandmothering among Navajos, Puget Sound Salish, Tewas, Hopis, Otoes, Choctaws, and Sioux. In addition to Marjorie Schweitzer, volume contributors include Karen Ritts-Benally, Ann Lane Hedlund, Pamela Amoss, Bruce G. Miller, Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Alice Schlegel, Joan Weibel-Orlando, and Pat McCabe.

Please Wait