Resuming Gynocratic Principles: Cultural Reterritorialization of Native Traditions in Linda Hogan’s Fiction

Sun Xiao-Fang

doi:10.5539/ells.v11n4p36

Abstract

Native Americans&rsquo; cultural system has been utterly undermined in the early colonial conquest and the later neo-colonial expansion. Cultural annihilation is primarily caused by the forced cultural assimilation, especially by the white government&rsquo;s practice of eradicating native traditions and beliefs. To rebuild the native culture system, Native American writer Linda Hogan attempts to employ the pre-colonial gynocratic principles in her literary creation, thus reterritorializing their cultural identity among the modern natives. This paper reveals how Hogan effectively resumes the ancient gynocratic principles by portraying a series of typical female images in the woman-centered native community, with an aim to fight against cultural assimilation guided by the white male-dominated western metaphysical epistemology.

Highlights

In the postcolonial context, cultural fragmentation among Native Americans is often discussed in terms of the annihilation in a cultural level, especially the eradication of native values
The changes in native people’s values produced by the colonial exploitation and cultural invasion are reflected in their daily lives, and part of the postcolonial condition manifests itself in a cultural alienation involving an elimination of tribal traditions in the native community
The practice of constructing a female-centered community in light of the pre-colonial gynocratic principles in Hogan’s fiction is proved to be a radical attempt to fight against the cultural assimilation guided by the male-dominated western metaphysical epistemology

Summary

Introduction

Cultural fragmentation among Native Americans is often discussed in terms of the annihilation in a cultural level, especially the eradication of native values. Confronting the issue of cultural fragmentation, Hogan attempts to reconstruct the native people’s cultural identity by resuming some traditional native values and gynocratic principles are taken as her typical tenet in the cultural reterritorialization. In her fiction, Mean Spirit (1992), Solar Storms (1995), Power (1998) and People of the Whales (2008), Hogan’s attempt of resuming the traditional gynocratic principles has been proved to be an effective strategy against western ideology, and of reconfiguration of cultural identity in the modern native community. This paper is intended to focus on the strategy of gynocratic principles employed in Linda Hogan’s literary practice reflected in her two novels, Solar Storms and People of the Whales, thereby foregrounding the significance of native traditions in reconstructing the modern native cultural system

Resuming Gynocratic Principles

Dora-Rouge

Ruth: The Woman Warrior of Sustaining Gender Harmony and Kinship

Conclusion