The Delivery of Power: Reading American Indian Childbirth Narratives

I have often been told that a pregnant Squaw will turn aside & deliver herself, & take up the Infant and wash it in a Brook, & walk off. They do not lye by the Month; but make little more about Pregnancy and Lying in than Cows. -Ezra Stiles I still often hear of the stereotyped Indian mother who has her child alone, out in somerfield, and then comes back home and continues her work as if nothing happened. If there were Indians who did this, they were sure not my grandmothers. As soon as my grandmothers of the past knew that they were pregnant, they slowed down their work and began a disciplined period during which they were forbidden to do many things. -Beverly Hungry Wolf Childbirth narratives appear frequently in the literature by and about American Indian women. Many ethnographers have written about Indian women and childbirth. Similarly, many American Indian women have written about childbirth experiences in their autobiographies. These two modes of discourse have different foundations for representations of childbirth practices, yet both hold value for scholars concerned with the lives of American Indian women