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The Indians used to be the only inhabitants of the Americas, but times change. Having perceived us as belonging to history, they are free to emote over us, to re-create us in their history-based understanding, and dismiss our present lives as archaic and irrelevant to the times.

Paula Gunn Allen

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Paula Gunn Allen
Age: 69 †
Born: 1939
Born: January 1
Died: 2008
Died: May 29
Author
Literary Critic
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Albuquerque
New Mexico
Paula Marie Francis
Free
Indians
Times
Perceived
Lives
Belonging
History
Irrelevant
Change
Based
Emote
Used
Present
Archaic
Create
Dismiss
Understanding
Inhabitants

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For the American Indian, the ability of all creatures to share in the process of ongoing creation makes all things sacred.
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It's a little-known linguistic curiosity that the name Jehovah or Jaweh is the same name as Eve Havva, the counterpart name in Farsi, the language spoken by the Persians, means either Jaweh or Eve.
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... America has amnesia. ... Certainly, there is a passion for memory loss in American thought. ... Americans may be the world champion forgetters.
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We are the women of daylight of clocks and steel foundries, of drugstores and streetlights, of superhighways that slice our days in two. Our dreams are pale memories of themselves, and nagging doubt is the false measure of our days.
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I am not especially defined by my sex life, nor complete without it.
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An odd thing occurs in the minds of Americans when Indian civilization in mentioned: little or nothing.
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Idealization of a group is a natural consequence of separation from the group in other words, it is a by-product of alienation.
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Human beings need to belong to a tradition and equally need to know about the world in which they find themselves.
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In the native world, major gods come in trios, duos, and groups. It is the habit of non-natives to discover the supreme being, the one and only head god, a habit lent to them by monotheism.
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My mother told me stories all the time... And in all of those stories she told me who I was, who I was supposed to be, whom I came from, and who would follow me... That's what she said and what she showed me in the things she did and the way she lives.
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