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

Native Americans’ 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’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.