I have memories of tired women, partying women, stubborn women, sullen women, amicable women, selfish women, shy women, and aggressive women. Most of… - Paula Gunn Allen

In the culture and literature of Indian America, the meaning of myth may be discovered, not as speculation about primitive long-dead ancestral societies but in terms of what is real, actual, and viable in living cultures in America. Myth abounds in all of its forms; from the most sacred stories to the most trivial, mythic vision informs the prose and poetry of American Indians in the United States as well as the rest of the Americas. An American Indian myth is a story that relies preeminently on symbol for its articulation. It generally relates a series of events and uses supernatural, heroic figures as the agents of both the events and the symbols. As a story, it demands the immediate, direct participation of the listener. American Indian myths depend for their magic on relationship and participation. Detached, analytical, distanced observation of myth will not allow the listener mythopoeic vision. Consequently, these myths cannot be understood more than peripherally by the adding-machine mind; for when a myth is removed from its special and necessary context, it is no longer myth; it is a dead or dying curiosity. It is akin, in that state, to the postcard depictions of American Indian people that abound in the southwestern United States.

The purpose of a ceremony is to integrate: to fuse the individual with his or her fellows, the community of people with that of the other kingdoms, and this larger communal group with the worlds beyond this one. A raising or expansion of individual consciousness naturally accompanies this process. The person sheds the isolated, individual personality and is restored to conscious harmony with the universe. In addition to this general purpose, each ceremony has its own specific purpose. This purpose usually varies from tribe to tribe and may be culture-specific.

Can we, as scholars and teachers facing the twenty-first century, fail to realize that "something there is that does not love a wall"? Can we in all good conscience persist in walling off the mainstream of American literature for a tiny group of writers, and from the great majority of writers in this century? Isn't it time we realized the absurdity of calling a tiny brook a mainstream, consigning the great river to marginality? It certainly makes the margins the center of the action-an odd way for margins to act! Surely in this time we can cease to behave as though Thoreau's Walden Pond requires we keep literature forever enclosed. Even Henry David came out of prison in time! Let's join him. Let's open ourselves to multiplicity, and let the winds of change and of life blow freely through our conversations.