"I have noticed that as soon as you have soldiers the story is called history. Before their arrival it is called myth, folktale, legend, fairy tale, oral poetry, ethnography."
- Paula Gunn Allen
Paula Gunn Allen, born on Oct 24th, 1939, spent much of her life repeating the above quote. She worked for over 50 years to ensure that Native religions, ideology, and ways of life were properly preserved and respected, and did so during a volatile time in the history of Native populations.
Paula, whose racial makeup was as multi-faceted as her ideas, was primarily of Laguna, Scottish, Sioux, Lebanese ancestry. This, along with her lesbianism, informed her scholarship and politics. She wrote several novels and works of non-fiction, her most recognized being The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions.
She passed away on May 29th, 2008.
