Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat

by Paula Gunn Allen

Book Overview

In striking counterpoint to the conventional account, Pocahontas is a bold biography that tells the extraordinary story of the beloved Indian maiden from a Native American perspective. Dr. Paula Gunn Allen, the acknowledged founder of Native American literary studies, draws on sources often overlooked by Western historians and offers remarkable new insights into the adventurous life and sacred role of this foremost American heroine. Gunn Allen...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060730609
• ISBN13: 9780060730604
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

A Different Perspective on Pocohontas

Pocahontas Was a Tobacco Priestess When I was a little boy, my grandmother told me that we were descendents of Pocahontas. The idea aroused my fantasies. Having Indian blood was a special blessing. It endowed me with certain spiritual qualities, psychic perceptiveness and magical abilities--in my imagination. Later I was disappointed to learn that it was fashionable among past generations to claim a blood tie to Pocahontas. I suspected my grandmother's story was of this origin. Much later I realized that a fascination with things Native American was a symptom of a certain affinity. I valued the Indian fantasy as a call of the wild from within. It was to be answered, but in my own, indigenous terms, not in terms borrowed from other cultures. I recently read a book that has added great depth to this perspective. Pocahontas: Medicine woman, spy, entrepreneur, diplomat (HarperSanFrancisco), by Paula Gunn Allen, Ph.D., tells an entirely different history of this American icon than the one we cherish. This award winning author, retired professor from U.C.L.A., credited with originating Native American literary studies, has taken the usual sources, plus those rarely referred to, and re-interpreted the data within the context of the Native American mythical world view. The result is a fascinating account of the transformation of "Turtle Island" into "America the Beautiful." Dr. Gunn Allen begins by explaining the spirit-centered worldview of the Native American at that time. The "manito aki," which pertains to the supernatural, paranormal, spirit inhabited world, was the Native American waking reality, more real to them than the physical world. We might say that they were good "Jungians" at that time, because they respected the experiences of the imagination as real and worthy of attention. The natives at that time also realized that their world was coming to an end. Their calendars and mythologies had prepared them. The coming of the white men was part of the fulfillment of this prophesy. Evidence points to the fact that Pocahontas was a high priestess, initiated into the mysteries of the spirit world and charged with responsibility to these spirits. Based upon her evidence, the author came to the startling conclusion that Pocahontas, rather than falling in love with Captain John Smith, was actually on a pre-planned mission taking advantage of him as an unwitting pawn. Her objective: to insure that the spirit of tobacco would find a home in the new world. Tobacco spirit, the essential shamanic power of the Native American world, needed to find a way to be a part of the coming materialistic world that was being born. This mission was crucial if the spirit of the Native world was to survive destruction of its manifest existence. Pocahontas was the channel by which the transfer of power was achieved. Pocahontas' connection with John Smith was the means by which Native spirituality was preserved, even though it would have to hide for centuries within a plan

Rich, rewarding research and recounting from the intersection of multiple worlds.

Dr. Gunn Allen opens our eyes to the roots of modern American culture that are too often obscured, whether intentionally or not. A reader who approaches this work "in good faith" will be regaled with the astonishingly open, clear, and unique viewpoint she cultivates and communicates. She chooses to stand between two cultures and knowledgeably observe them interpenetrate--rather than take the customary political or religious stances of taking one "side" or another. Only a woman with a solid grounding in both cultures (and a tremendous ability to write beautifully), as Dr. Allen has, can accomplish in her work what she is also showing her readers historically. A discerning reader who is willing to admit--and agree to suspend--culturally-programmed judgment can come away from this book with a much richer, smarter, more beautiful and especially more genuinely compassionate sense of REAL purpose this country's citizens might choose to see in their ancestors' having come here, as well as in the direction they would really like this country to take NOW. In addition, I find that it is an honor (still and despite the rude and terrible behavior the English showed towards the interesting and knowledgeable people already living here) to be so respectfully invited into sharing indigenous views of this world, this land, and the Western Europeans who came here. On top of all of this, the book is a truly great read for most anyone who has an intellect that enjoys exercise, and a love of exploring and rediscovering the past in new ways.

A Triumph of Native Thought

It's true that Gunn Allen's work doesn't fit neatly into any of the normal western categories of biography or history, but then again she's not working within the western tradition to begin with. In order to appreciate what Gunn Allen has accomplished, you first must have a knowledge and appreciation of the Algonquian oral tradition, which embraces a wide range of Indian nations across most of the eastern half of North America, including the state of Virginia, where native communities persist to this day. To begin with the oral tradition, then, is to begin with living communities that still retain the memories of their historical ancestors, such as Pocahontas. From this perspective, as Gunn Allen demonstrates, the story of Pocahontas is less of a romance and more of an adventure, one in which the protagonist is an extension of women's roles and powers in the Powhatan Confederacy. As such, the story of Pocahontas is the story of Native America's fateful encounter with the European powers that would eventually--not annihilate them (though many died, particularly from disease)--but colonize, relocate, and oppress them. In the end, Gunn Allen's eloquent and insightful book is a potent reminder that it is the spirits, the manitou, who ultimately control the world. I highly recommend this book.