Anthropologists believe that, about 18,000 years ago, the ancestors of Native
Americans crossed the Bering Land Bridge which linked North America to Asia during the Ice Ages. Their
communities were based on egalitarian, lateral, rather than hierarchical relations. Every member had an equal
share in the collected resources; women were respected for providing sustenance as gatherers and men as
hunters. The only measure of distinction was old age because elders had a deeper knowledge about the welfare
of the group, in addition to a broader experience about life and survival. For Native Americans, the land is not
only a means of sustenance, but also the witness of their history and the definer of their identity, as it embraces
the bones of their ancestors. For them, bodily illness reflects spiritual unbalance and loss of harmony with the
universe. Those who suffer from what shamans call “soul loss” seek “soul restoration” and communal
reconnection by means of ceremonies that bind the sick to the wellspring of tribal energy. This holistic
approach to healing combines the treatment of the body, the mind, and the soul. Many Native American
communities are gynocratic and matrilineal; in other words, they bestow authority to women, and some of
them trace ancestry through the maternal line. This is a major aspect of the storytelling tradition, in which
women tell the stories and hold a focal position in the organization of their communities. A powerful female
archetype constitutes “the backbone” of oral traditions, like Spider Woman for the Navajo, Sky Woman for
the Iroquois and Corn Daughter for the Hopi. With colonization, however, the roles of women were reduced
to childbearing, rearing, and domestic chores, because the invaders “could not tolerate peoples who allowed
women to occupy prominent positions and decision-making capacity at every level of society” (Gunn Allen
3). With the redistribution of gender roles, the colonizers shook the foundation of communal structure.