Navajo Women Research Articles

Breast Cancer Education for Navajo Women: a Pilot Study Evaluating a Culturally Relevant Video

This pilot study evaluated a culturally specific video designed to teach Navajo women about breast cancer treatment options. Fourteen Navajo women diagnosed with breast cancer and 26 healthcare providers participated in a mixed-method evaluation that documented their perceptions immediately and 6 months after viewing the video. After initial viewing, women reported reduced anxiety about treatment and interest in support groups. Six months later, women said the video prompted them to seek more information from printed sources and their provider. Younger Navajo women who were 44 to 51 years old were more likely to attend support groups than women who were 55-67 years. Providers corroborated the positive effects of the video. The providers believed the video encouraged patients to seek information about breast cancer and to ask questions about treatment plans and side effects. A culturally relevant video for Navajo women can be an effective teaching tool and can enhance patient-provider communication.

<i>Living through the Generations: Continuity and Change in Navajo Women's Lives</i>, and: <i>Weaving Women's Lives: Three Generations in a Navajo Family</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Living through the Generations: Continuity and Change in Navajo Women's Lives, and: Weaving Women's Lives: Three Generations in a Navajo Family Jennifer Denetdale Joanne McCloskey . Living through the Generations: Continuity and Change in Navajo Women's Lives. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007. 240 pp. Paper, $24.95. Louise Lamphere . Weaving Women's Lives: Three Generations in a Navajo Family. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007. 344 pp. Paper, $24.95. In 2007, almost simultaneously, yet two more ethnographies of Navajo women were published. Each study is situated in two different Navajo communities, covers roughly the same period, from the early twentieth century to the present, [End Page 288] and represents Navajo women's life experiences across three generations. Weaving Women's Lives: Three Generations in a Navajo Family by anthropologist Louise Lamphere and Living through the Generations: Continuity and Change in Navajo Women's Lives by anthropologist Joanne McCloskey, who was a student of Lamphere, reaffirm the dictum that in the face of ongoing colonialism under American rule, Navajo women have been the bearers of tradition and the vestibules of cultural knowledge. Navajo women have drawn upon tradition as a powerful source of authority to meet adversity, beginning in the early reservation period and into the present with the impositions of modernity. Both studies depict Navajo women's lives in similar ways, first by creating a framework for "tradition," based on the oldest living generation of women, now grandmothers, and then gauging the transformations in Navajo culture as reflected in Navajo women's lives across three generations—grandmothers, mothers, and daughters. While Lamphere traces the continuity of tradition through one Navajo family, McCloskey casts a wider net and interviews groups of women in each generation to map the continuity of tradition. The oldest living generation of Navajo women was born in the early twentieth century, and many of them lived the pastoral life that is most commonly associated with Navajo culture. As children, the grandmothers stayed home and cared for the livestock. Their care of the sheep was crucial to instilling traditional values such as industry, love, reciprocity, and the good of the community over the individual. Upon reaching womanhood they underwent the Kinaaldá, the ceremony that celebrated their power to bring forth the next generation. Generally, most entered arranged marriages, relationships that are characterized traditionally as partnerships of planning for the future. Many of the women contributed significantly to the economic well-being of their families through maintaining thriving livestock and with weaving textiles for the market. The next generation of women, who were born in the late 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, were met with a changing world, principally one transformed by forced livestock reduction and its accompaniment, the entrance of wage work. From 1868 to the 1930s Navajos had amassed an impressive herd of livestock, over 1.2 million by the 1880s. In the face of destroyed grazing lands, limitations on regions in which they had access to pastures, and competition with non-Indian ranchers for grazing lands along the boundaries of the Navajo homeland, Navajos were forced to reduce their livestock. By the end of the 1940s, with the decimation of their herds, Navajos could no longer depend upon livestock as a viable means of making a living. While men moved between their homeland and regions of the United States in search of jobs, women were left to care for their families. They also sought alternative means for supporting their families. Weaving, which had once been a viable source of income prior to 1868, fell under the control of traders, who turned the textiles into rugs for the tourist trade. Other women sold [End Page 289] food and other goods in the informal reservation economy, while still others left their communities in search of wage work. This generation of women was the first to attend American schools. As McCloskey notes, children's labor had been crucial to the maintenance of the herds, and with reduction, children were now seen as free to attend schools. Most likely, the extreme poverty that families faced was a factor for enrolling children in boarding schools, for then children would have shelter, food, and clothing. As...

Living through the Generations: Continuity and Change in Navajo Women's Lives

Navajo women's lives reflect the numerous historical changes that have transformed the Navajo way.? At the same time, in their behavior, beliefs, and values, women preserve the legacy of Navajo culture passed down through the generations. By comparing and contrasting three generations of Navajo womengrandmothers, mid-life mothers, and young mothers'similarities and differences emerge in patterns of education, work, family life, and childbearing. Women's roles as mothers and grandmothers are central to their respected position in Navajo society. Mothers bestow membership in matrilineal clans at birth and follow the example of the beloved deity Changing Woman. As guardians of cultural traditions, grandmothers actively plan and participate in ceremonies such as the Kinaalda, the puberty ceremony, for their granddaughters.Drawing on ethnographic interviews with 77 women in Crownpoint, New Mexico, and surrounding chapters in the Eastern Navajo Agency, Joanne McCloskey examines the cultural traditions evident in Navajo women's lives. Navajo women balance the demands of Western society with the desire to preserve Navajo culture for themselves and their families.

Weaving women's lives: three generations in a Navajo family

Louise Lamphere met Eva Price in 1965 in Sheep Springs, New Mexico, on the eastern side of the Navajo Reservation, while Lamphere was doing fieldwork for her dissertation in social anthropology at Harvard University. Over the next forty years, Lamphere developed a strong friendship with Price that expanded to include Eva's daughter, Caroline Cadman, and granddaughter, Valerie Darwin. When Price expressed her desire to pass along her teachings about Navajo life to her children and grandchildren, Lamphere saw an opportunity to pursue her own interest in writing a book on Navajo women that would encompass their transformative experiences through the twentieth century. Lamphere collaborated with Price, Cadman, and Darwin to create a narrative that highlights the voices of three generations of Navajo women, placing them in the context of larger American society rather than presenting the Navajo as an isolated indigenous culture. Emphasizing the vibrancy and strength of Navajo culture, Weaving Women's Lives illustrates the process of incorporating new practices and ideas while retaining distinctive Navajo beliefs, values, and orientations. As individual threads are woven to create a unique pattern, so have Navajo women pulled together elements of Navajo and Anglo culture to create a new blueprint for their lives.

Living through the generations: continuity and change in Navajo women's lives

Living through the generations: continuity and change in Navajo women's lives

Discursive geographies in science: space, identity, and scientific discourse among indigenous women in higher education

Despite completing undergraduate degrees in the life sciences, few Indigenous women choose to pursue careers in scientific research. To help us understand how American Indian students engage with science, this ethnographic research describes (1) how four Navajo women identified with science, and (2) the narratives they offered when we discussed their experiences with scientific discourse. Using intensive case studies to describe the experiences of these women, my research focused on their final year of undergraduate study in the life sciences at a university in southwestern US. I point to the processes by which the participants align themselves with ideas, practices, groups, or people in science. As each participant recounted her experiences with scientific discourse, they recreated for me a discursive geography of their lives on the reservation, at home, at community colleges (in some cases), and on the university campus. In the construction and analysis of the narratives for this research, mapping this geography was critical to understanding each participant’s discursive relationship with science. In these discursive spaces, I observed productive “locations of possibility” in which students and their instructors: valued connected knowing; acknowledged each other’s history, culture, and knowledge; began to speak to each other subject-to-subject; and challenged normative views of schooling. I argue that this space, as a location of possibility, has the power to transform the crushing impersonalized schooling that often characterizes “rigorous” scientific programs in a research institution.

IUD-related knowledge, attitudes and practices among Navajo Area Indian Health Service providers.

The IUD once accounted for about half of contraceptive use among Navajo women but is now little used in this population, which has a high rate of unintended pregnancy. Identifying barriers to use--including those stemming from providers' IUD-related knowledge, attitudes and practices--could help expand use of the method. In 2000, 107 Navajo Area Indian Health Service providers who offer contraceptive services completed a mailed survey. Responses of women's health providers and other types of providers were compared, using the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel method. Overall, 69-78% of providers had good factual knowledge about the IUD and felt adequately prepared to insert a device or counsel women about it; considerably larger proportions of women's health providers than of others felt able to counsel about and insert IUDs. Sixty-five percent of providers (88% of women's health providers and 50% of others) currently inserted IUDs, and only 8% (none of them women's health providers) never recommended the method. The main reasons providers cited for not recommending the IUD were concerns about its safety and about side effects (mentioned by 69% and 44%, respectively); these concerns did not differ by provider type. Provider education and training should focus on insertion techniques and on the safety of available IUDs. Training should be targeted not only to women's health providers, but to family practice physicians, nurse practitioners and other providers who offer family planning counseling and services.

Chairmen, Presidents, and Princesses: The Navajo Nation, Gender, and the Politics of Tradition

Chairmen, Presidents, and Princesses:The Navajo Nation, Gender, and the Politics of Tradition Jennifer Nez Denetdale (bio) In 1998, when LeNora Fulton announced her candidacy for the president of the Navajo Nation, she faced criticism from Navajo/Diné men and women who argued that Navajo women should not be leaders because it would lead to chaos in society, as a traditional narrative stipulated.1 Navajo women have been discouraged from full political participation in the Navajo Nation government even as they exert considerable influence within their families and in local community politics. At the same time, women are most visible in the Navajo government as Miss Navajo Nation, the official representative and ambassador of the Navajo Nation. What does it mean to valorize Navajo women as princesses and beauty queens who represent ideal Navajo womanhood? How are women signifiers of culture and tradition in the construction of the Navajo Nation and, at the same time, denied full political participation in the Navajo government? How has the establishment of a modern Navajo government shifted traditional gender roles in ways that have been detrimental to Navajo women? This study examines the intersection of the Navajo nation and gender by considering women's presence in the governmental structure and how Navajo leaders, who are primarily men, reproduce Navajo nationalist ideology to re-inscribe gender roles based on Western concepts even as they claim that they operate under traditional Navajo philosophy. As feminist scholars note, the idea of nation relies on the language of family and casts women as the mothers and the culture [End Page 9] bearers of the Nation.2 Significantly, although many Navajo men, and even women, declare that Navajo women should not hold the highest office in Navajoland, both men and women draw upon traditional narratives to challenge ideas about appropriate gender roles modeled on Western ideals. With the imposition of Western democratic principals, Navajo women find themselves confronted with new oppressions in the name of "custom and tradition." Further, my study is informed by the scholarship on the status of Native/Navajo women and examinations of the establishment of Native governments and the ongoing quest for sovereignty. First, many Native and non-Native feminist scholars have pointed out that prior to Euro-American colonization, Native and Navajo women enjoyed a significant amount of respect and autonomy in their societies. In traditional societies, gender roles were often egalitarian, meaning that both males and females were crucial to the survival and perpetuation of culture and society. Although it is difficult to find many examples where women were chiefs or leaders, women were consulted about important decisions that affected all of their people on matters that extended to the economic and the political. Foreign ideas about proper gender roles have affected Native women's roles and Western perceptions of them have been just as detrimental. Native women have suffered under colonialism, but they have continued to challenge and counter gender oppression.3 Second, studies of the Navajo Nation government have followed approaches established by previous research on Indian nations, including examinations of the meaning and significance of Indian sovereignty, the relationships between the federal government and Indian nations, and the ongoing struggle to compel the U.S. government to honor its treaty obligations.4 Native intellectuals also propose that our research should focus on claiming and preserving Indian sovereignty.5 Such analyses emphasize a materialist approach that privileges state bureaucracies and other apparatuses in establishing and reproducing national ideologies and boundaries. Further, as feminist scholar Nira Yuval-Davis points out, such approaches render women invisible in the establishment and perpetuation of nations even though women reproduce nations—biologically, culturally, and symbolically. Women are part of the nationalist project where, as producers of the coming generations, their bodies are patrolled; they are the biological reproducers and so are referred to as mothers; they are invoked as cultural symbols and signifiers of the nation in many masculinist discourses; and women participate in the nationalist discourse by positioning themselves as creators of the nation as mothers, writers, and artists.6 Just as women are hidden in the various theorizations of the nationalist phenomena, so, too, are they hidden in the discourse surrounding Indian nations and...

Navajo Women and Abuse: The Context for Their Troubled Relationships

In this article, on the basis of interviews with seven Navajo women, the author discusses the Navajo woman’s perspective on domestic violence. These discussions reveal several factors that distinguish the Navajo woman’s experience of abuse from that of the Anglo3 woman. These factors are examined in light of historical and contemporary understandings of the Navajo world. Three cultural elements can help us understand the Navajo woman’s experience of abuse: the cultural concept of hozho, the searing tale (in the Creation Story) of the quarrel between First Man and First Woman, a quarrel that brought great tragedy to the people; and the Kinaalda, the female puberty rite. It is the author’s argument that these facets of the Navajo culture, in addition to Western explanations for women’s staying with abusive partners, are powerful contributors to the Navajo woman’s understanding of abuse in her life and if we are to develop successful techniques for intervention, we must consider these elements as well as those of the dominant culture.

Changes in Childbirth Knowledge

Previous to 1940 fewer than to percent of women living in the western Navajo reservation gave birth in a hospital, but by 1970 the percentage of hospital births was nearly 1oo percent (Kunitz 1976, 16). Leighton and Kluckholn stated in 1948, Today an increasing number of Navajo women go to the Indian Service hospitals for delivery, but they still form a trifling portion of the total (Leighton and Kluckholn 1948, 15). The greatest shift toward hospital birth occurred in the late 195os. The implications of this shift are worth examining to increase understanding of Indigenous knowledge about childbirth and how it contributes to positive birth outcomes.

Care lacking among Navajo women with breast cancer in the US

Care lacking among Navajo women with breast cancer in the US

IUD-Related Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Among Navajo Area Indian Health Service Providers

CONTEXT: The IUD once accounted for about half of contraceptive use among Navajo women but is now little used in this population, which has a high rate of unintended pregnancy. Identifying barriers to use–including those stemming from providers’IUD-related knowledge, attitudes and practices–could help expand use of the method. METHODS: In 2000, 107 Navajo Area Indian Health Service providers who offer contraceptive services completed a mailed survey. Responses of women's health providers and other types of providers were compared, using the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel method. RESULTS: Overall, 69-78% of providers had good factual knowledge about the IUD and felt adequately prepared to insert a device or counsel women about it; considerably larger proportions of women's health providers than of others felt able to counsel about and insert IUDs. Sixty-five percent of providers (88% of women's health providers and 50% of others) currently inserted IUDs, and only 8% (none of them women's health providers) never recommended the method. The main reasons providers cited for not recommending the IUD were concerns about its safety and about side effects (mentioned by 69% and 44%, respectively); these concerns did not differ by provider type. CONCLUSIONS: Provider education and training should focus on insertion techniques and on the safety of available IUDs. Training should be targeted not only to women's health providers, but to family practice physicians, nurse practitioners and other providers who offer family planning counseling and services.

IUD‐Related Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Among Navajo Area Indian Health Service Providers

CONTEXT: The IUD once accounted for about half of contraceptive use among Navajo women but is now little used in this population, which has a high rate of unintended pregnancy. Identifying barriers to use–including those stemming from providers’IUD‐related knowledge, attitudes and practices–could help expand use of the method. METHODS: In 2000, 107 Navajo Area Indian Health Service providers who offer contraceptive services completed a mailed survey. Responses of women's health providers and other types of providers were compared, using the Cochran‐Mantel‐Haenszel method. RESULTS: Overall, 69‐78% of providers had good factual knowledge about the IUD and felt adequately prepared to insert a device or counsel women about it; considerably larger proportions of women's health providers than of others felt able to counsel about and insert IUDs. Sixty‐five percent of providers (88% of women's health providers and 50% of others) currently inserted IUDs, and only 8% (none of them women's health providers) never recommended the method. The main reasons providers cited for not recommending the IUD were concerns about its safety and about side effects (mentioned by 69% and 44%, respectively); these concerns did not differ by provider type. CONCLUSIONS: Provider education and training should focus on insertion techniques and on the safety of available IUDs. Training should be targeted not only to women's health providers, but to family practice physicians, nurse practitioners and other providers who offer family planning counseling and services.

Diabetes and depot medroxyprogesterone contraception in Navajo women.

Depot medroxyprogesterone acetate contraception is widely used in Navajo women, a high-risk population for diabetes mellitus. However, depot medroxyprogesterone may lead to weight gain and independently decrease insulin sensitivity. We studied the association between depot medroxyprogesterone and development of diabetes in Navajo women. We studied Navajo women aged 18 to 50 years who had seen a health care provider at a Navajo Area Indian Health Service clinic at least once in 1998. Diabetic cases (n = 284) and nondiabetic controls (n = 570) were matched by age. Medical records were reviewed to determine contraception use before the diagnosis date of diabetes. Users of depot medroxyprogesterone were more likely to develop diabetes than patients who had used combination estrogen-progestin oral contraception only (odds ratio [OR], 3.8; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.8-7.9). The excess risk persisted after adjustment for body mass index (OR, 3.6; 95% CI, 1.6-7.9). Longer use was associated with greater risk of diabetes. Users of depot medroxyprogesterone were also more likely to develop diabetes than patients who had never used hormonal contraception, although excess risk was smaller (OR, 2.4; 95% CI, 1.4-3.6). Depot medroxyprogesterone contraception was associated with a greater risk of diabetes compared with combination oral contraceptive use only. Risk was associated with length of use and persisted after adjustment for body mass index. Additional research is needed for confirmation, but this risk should be considered in contraceptive choice for women at high risk for diabetes.

Progression of alcohol problems in a Navajo sample.

This study tested the cross-cultural applicability of Jellinek's progression in a sample of Navajo men and women. Jellinek (1952) described a predictable progression of alcoholism that continues to be used widely in treatment, but it is unclear whether this pattern is consistent across cultures and genders. The sample consisted of 99 Navajo (67 men and 32 women) who were undergoing detoxification in a secure facility. Participants were asked about the quantity and frequency of their drinking as well as other drinking experiences. Their level of cultural identification was also assessed. Of the 46 events established by Jellinek, the order of progression for the Navajo sample was modestly correlated (r(s) = .41, p = .005, 17% shared variance) with that for Jellinek's white men. The correlation of Jellinek's sample with the Navajo men was slightly larger (r(s) = .48, p = .001, 23% shared variance) than that of the whole sample; however, the comparison with Navajo women resulted in a near zero correlation (r(s) = .06, p = .705, 4% shared variance). In the context of studies from other cultures, these data suggest convergence decreases as the studied sample deviates culturally from Jellinek's sample of U.S. white men. These data question the cross-cultural applicability of this popular model of progression of alcoholism.

Representing Changing Woman: A Review Essay on Navajo Women

Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Jennifer Nez Denetdale; Representing Changing Woman: A Review Essay on Navajo Women. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 1 January 2001; 25 (3): 1–26. doi: https://doi.org/10.17953/aicr.25.3.k07mp524152k0011 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest Search

Depo-Provera associated with weight gain in Navajo women

Depo-medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) is an increasingly popular contraceptive choice among Navajo women. Weight gain is cited as a common side effect and major reason for discontinuation of DMPA. No controlled trials have evaluated the association between weight gain and DMPA in Navajo women. We aimed to clarify whether DMPA is associated with weight gain in Navajo women and to quantify the magnitude of weight gain. A cohort of 172 Navajo women who had used DMPA continuously for one or 2 years comprised the study group. A cohort of 134 Navajo women who used a non-progestin method or no method over 1 or 2 years comprised the comparison group. Initial weight, one-year weight and 2-year weights were recorded for all patients. Study subjects gained a mean of 6 pounds over one year and 11 pounds over 2 years relative to the comparison group (p < 0.001) after controlling for possible confounding variables including age, parity and initial weight. Use of DMPA is associated with significant weight gain in Navajo women. This weight gain is greater than that reported in previous uncontrolled studies in non-Navajo populations. This information should be utilized in counseling Navajo women about the side effects of DMPA.

Talking about hysterectomy: the experiences of women from four cultural groups.

As part of the Ethnicity, Needs, and Decisions of Women (ENDOW) project, in-depth qualitative interviews and focus groups were conducted at four sites, Alabama, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Texas. In South Carolina and Alabama, African American and white women were interviewed. In Texas, African American, Caucasian, and Hispanic women were interviewed, and in New Mexico, focus groups with Caucasian, Hispanic, and Navajo women were conducted. The Texas site also conducted focus groups with lesbian women. Data were collected on women's experiences with and attitude toward menopause, hysterectomy, and hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Information also was gathered on women's concerns and what experiences they have had or expect to have with healthcare providers and what they perceive their friends', families', and sexual partners' attitudes are toward hysterectomy. Numerous commonalties of experience existed across racial and ethnic groups. Overall, the women who participated believed that doctors do not take the time to explain issues related to menopause, hysterectomy, and HRT. Most of the women who have had a hysterectomy were satisfied with the outcome of surgery, as painful symptoms were relieved. There are also several interesting differences among the groups. Decision-making patterns differed among the ethnic groups, as did experience with healthcare providers. Many women in the focus groups expressed mistrust of or negative opinions of healthcare providers. African Americans expressed mistrust of their motives for recommending surgery, as did several of the Caucasian, non-Hispanic women. Most of the Hispanic participants respected and trusted their providers. All groups said they would seek additional medical opinions if they could afford to do so.

Women's stories: ethnic variations in women's attitudes and experiences of menopause, hysterectomy, and hormone replacement therapy.

To increase understanding of women's midlife changes, 23 focus groups were held to investigate the possible ethnic variations in attitude toward and experience with menopause, hysterectomy, and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in non-Hispanic white, Hispanic, and Navajo women in New Mexico. The medical definition of menopause, no menstrual bleeding for 12 months, did not coincide with the women's definition of menopause as the hormonal fluctuations they experienced before, during, and after any change in their menstrual cycle. More women reported having to fight to have a hysterectomy than having one unnecessarily. Women complained about the lack of information and preparation prior to having a hysterectomy and expressed dissatisfaction with doctor-patient communication, but they were satisfied with their hysterectomy because they felt better after the surgery. Although women in the study reported that menopause and hysterectomy are seldom discussed openly, they all participated freely in the storytelling focus groups. The most traditional women, primarily rural Navajo and newly immigrated Latina, related few or no menopausal symptoms with natural menopause or after hysterectomy. Many of these women had not even heard of HRT. Many women who had been prescribed HRT expressed dissatisfaction with the side effects and dosage. Unsupervised tinkering with the dosage was the rule rather than the exception. The study revealed that women are much more alike than they are different. Traditional women in all ethnic groups had more in common with each other than they did with the least traditional women in their own ethnic group.

Changing Woman: Postcolonial Reflections On Acts 16.6-40

Most contemporary interpreters of Acts 16.6-40 describe Paul's journey in Mace donia as a 'missionary journey to Europe'. This essay challenges that designation, arguing that it is a colonialist geographic identification with no actual textual basis, and one that has helped foster the ideology of modern colonialist missionary movements. Nevertheless, the essay goes on to note that there is solid textual evi dence for arguing Acts 16.6-40 does indeed mark a change in Paul's missionary activity, one that is now more explicitly in conflict with Roman colonial power. After identifying the evidence for this, the essay takes a cue from Musa Dube Shomanah's 1997 Vanderbilt dissertation and argues that Lydia and the pythonic slave girl function as 'border women' whose presence evokes a colonialist 'land- possession type-scene' similar to those related with Rahab (Josh. 2), the Syro Phoenician woman (Mk 7), and the Samaritan woman (Jn 4). The struggle for the ideological possession of the land and women reminds the author of the border woman from his own childhood on the Navajo Indian Reserva tion in Arizona, and two novels that deal with Navajo and pueblo Native American border women (Laughing Boy, by Oliver La Farge, and Ceremony, by Leslie Mar mon Silko). While the Navajo border woman in the first novel reflects a similar ideology as Acts 16.6-40, despite the author's intention; the latter novel offers an insightful postcolonial appropriation of mythic border women which can revitalize the biblical metaphor and deconstruct its colonialist ideology.