Pocahontas's Granddaughters

Spiritual Transition and Tradition of Carrier Women of British Columbia

Bibliographic Data

ID2743093
AuthorsJo‐anne Fiske (corresponding author), Jo-Anne Fiske
Year1996
Volume43
Issue4
Pages663
Publication date1996-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnohistory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0014-1801 • E-ISSN: 1527-5477
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/483250
OpenAlexW2335342536
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited7

Spirituality and sexuality marked moral boundaries on the North American colonial frontier. Images of women's bodies and presumptions about female morality were central signifiers of relative stages of civilization. Images created in the seventeenth century endure and persist in dividing aboriginal womanhood into the dichotomous and harmful categories of princess and squaw. The continuing appeal of Pocahontas myths reveals the power of these images to affect contemporary understandings of morality and gender. This article considers the contemporary implications of frontier constructs of female sexuality and spirituality. If colonial and postcolonial relations are conceptualized as an enduring im/moral frontier, issues of spirituality and sexuality can be understood as complex negotiations of meaning that reflect changing power relations. Contemporary aboriginal women, metaphorical granddaughters of Pocahontas, confront their spiritual transformations in diverse ways. In central British Columbia they have done so alongside the move to beatify a former student of a residential school

Genealogy · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Canadian Identity and History · Gender Studies · History · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights

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