Women’s Power to Give: Their Central Role in Northern Plains First Nations

Abstract

JoAllyn Archambault and Alice Beck Kehoe explain the essential role of women in the most important Blackfoot ceremony, that of the Sun Dance (okan). Blackfoot tradition requires that a woman vows to lead it. This crucial role was not recorded by Western ethnographers who disregarded the participation of women. Archambault and Kehoe detail the elements of this ceremony illustrating the complementary and absolutely necessary activities of both women and men.