Where are your women? The speaker is Attakullakulla the Cherokee Chief renowned for his shrewd and effective diplomacy. He has come to negotiate a treaty with the whites. Among his delegation are women ‘as famous in war, as powerful in the council’. Implicit in the Chief’s question, ‘Where are your women?” the Cherokee hear “Where is your balance? Where is your intent?” They see the balance is absent and are wary of the white man’s motives. They intuit the mentality of destruction. I turn to my own time. I look at the Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission…to the hierarchies of my church, my university, my city, my children’s school. “Where are your women?” I ask” – Marilou Awiakt, a Cherokee/Appalachian woman

(Anderson, 2000, p.65)

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