ABSTRACT
The Tewa word ‘gia’ in its most frequent and simple usage is synonymous with “mother.” It refers to a person who gives, loves, provides, protects, and assures balance and harmony. This chapter focuses on some American Indian women’s perceptions of what “woman” is, in relation to the notion of “mother” as embodied in the status of the Tewa concept, gia. Various forms of feminist scholarship have given increased attention to the use of narrative, especially life history and oral history, as a means of giving greater voice to women, thereby deconstructing Eurocentric and androcentric constructions of woman/womanhood. The chapter focuses on an oral life history research with three generations of women who are members of one family from Santa Concha, a New Mexico Tewa-speaking Pueblo, as well as from eighteen years of interaction and observation with this extended family. The concept of gia becomes, as Gertie says, the "ultimate feminine".
