Indian Women as Cultural Mediators

Abstract

Wherever Europeans and native people encountered each other in the New World, cultural ideas and perceptions were at work, and processes of cultural change began to take place. Hernando de Soto and his men encountered the Lady of Cofitachequi near the present site of Augusta, Georgia. She arrived for their meeting in a litter draped in white cloth and borne on the shoulders of and she gave de Soto her own string of pearls as a sign of goodwill.1 Did she intend to welcome him? To appease him with gifts? To encourage him to move on? We have no words from the lady herself about her motives and intentions. There is an important Indian woman in virtually every major encounter between Europeans and Indians in the New World. As mistresses or wives, they counseled, translated, and guided white men who were entering new territory. While men made treaties and carried on negotiations and waged war, Indian women lived with white men, translated their words, and bore their children. Theirs was the more sustained and enduring contact with new cultural ways, and they gave their men an entree into the cultures and communities of their own people. In this way, Indian women were the first important mediators of meaning between the cultures of two worlds.

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