Walking with Sky Woman

Abstract

This essay seeks to explore various visual representations of Sky Woman across cultures and time, and what they may reveal about ways of being in the world. As stories, and creation stories in particular, inform who and how we are, they hold tremendous import on various social phenomena. Through the comparison of stories of Sky Woman with the Christian Book of Genesis, this essay will examine both the overt and covert teachings inlayed within these creation stories, and the legacies such teachings leave behind. While the Book of Genesis lays out a world of hierarchies, competition, alienation from nature, and the deprivileging of women, stories of Sky Woman hold teachings of responsibility, respect, balance, and the empowerment of women. Through such stark comparison, it becomes clear how creation stories inform ways of being in the world, as well as the implications such perspectives have. For example, through stories of Sky Woman, Indigenous womanhood is held as sacred and empowered. Teachings of cooperation and balance intrinsic to Sky Woman’s story emphasize cooperation between and balance amongst genders within Indigenous communities. Further, Sky Woman is often depicted as the original Mother and therefore positions motherhood as a source of strength, creation, and life-giving. As such, Indigenous motherhood resists patriarchal forms of mothering that rest on understandings of sacrifice and submission.[1] Further, in understanding the land as Sky Woman herself, land necessarily becomes feminine, alive, and capable of storytelling. As such, land becomes relation, an integral source of self, and an important site of healing, all of which necessitate its caretaking. Contemporarily, Sky Woman’s teachings are used as a tool of resurgence, female empowerment, and decolonization, with an emphasis on the future of Indigenous peoples. As is revealed in the paintings this essay explores, Sky Woman embodies the past, present, and future to inform a way of being in the world that is guided by cooperation, respect, balance, and importantly, the feminine.   [1] Lina Sunseri, “Sky Woman Lives on: Contemporary Examples of Mothering the Nation,” Canadian Woman Studies 26, no. 3 (2008): 21-25.