Since the colonization of indigenous peoples in North America, the roles of Native women within their societies have been concealed or, at best, misunderstood. By examining gender status, and particularly power, in ten culture areas, this volume, edited by Laura F. Klein and Lillian A. Ackerman, seeks to draw away the curtain of silence surrounding the lives of Native North American women.

Power is understood to be manifested in a multiplicity of ways: through cosmology, economic control, and formal hierarchy. In the Native societies examined, power is continually created and redefined through individual life stages and through the history of the society. The important issue is autonomy-whether, or to what extent, individuals are autonomous in living their lives. Each author demonstrates that women in a particular cultural area of aboriginal North America had (and have) more power than many previous observers have claimed.

In this volume:

"Introduction," Laura F. Klein and Lillian A. Ackerman;

"Gender in Inuit Society," Lee Guemple;

"Mother as Clanswoman: Rank and Gender in Tlingit Society," Laura F. Klein;

'Asymmetric Equals: Women and Men Among the Chipewyan," Henry S. Sharp;

"Complementary but Equal: Gender Status in the Plateau," Lillian A. Ackerman;

"First Among Equals? The Changing Status of Seneca Women," Joy Bilharz;

"Blackfoot Persons," Alice B. Kehoe;

"Evolving Gender Roles in Porno Society," Victoria D. Patterson;

"The Dynamics of Southern Paiute Women's Roles," Martha C. Knack;

"The Gender Status of Navajo Women," Mary Shepardson;

"Continuity and Change in Gender Roles at San Juan Pueblo," Sue-Ellen Jacobs;

"Women's Status Among the Muskogee and Cherokee," Richard A. Sattler;

"Gender and Power in Native North America: Concluding Remarks," Daniel Maltz and JoAllyn Archambault.

Many Native American cultures have long treated women and men as equals. In "A Necessary Balance," Lillian A. Ackerman examines the balance of power and responsibility between men and women within each of the eleven Plateau Indian tribes who live today on the Colville Indian Reservation in north-central Washington State.

Ackerman analyzes tribal cultures over three historical periods lasting more than a century--the traditional past, the farming phase when Indians were forced onto the reservation, and the twentieth century industrial present. Ackerman examines gender equality in terms of power, authority, and autonomy in four social spheres: economic, domestic, political, and religious.

Although early explorers and anthropologists noted isolated instances of gender equality among Plateau Indians, A Necessary Balance is the first book-length examination of a culture that has practiced such equality from its early days of hunting and gathering to the present day. Ackerman's findings also relate to an examination of European and American cultures, calling into question the current assumption that gender equality ceases to be possible with the advent of industrialization.