Clan Mother

Clan Mother is a traditional role of elder matriarch women within certain Native American clans, who was typically in charge of appointing tribal chiefs and Faithkeepers.

The Hopi (in what is now the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona), according to Alice Schlegel, had as its "gender ideology ... one of female superiority, and it operated within a social actuality of sexual equality." According to Diana LeBow (based on Schlegel's work), in the Hopi, "gender roles ... are egalitarian .... [and] [n]either sex is inferior." LeBow concluded that Hopi women "participate fully in ... political decision-making." According to Schlegel, "the Hopi no longer live as they are described here" and "the attitude of female superiority is fading". Schlegel said the Hopi "were and still are matrilinial" and "the household ... was matrilocal".

Schlegel explains why there was female superiority as that the Hopi believed in "life as the highest good ... [with] the female principle ... activated in women and in Mother Earth ... as its source" and that the Hopi "were not in a state of continual war with equally matched neighbors" and "had no standing army" so that "the Hopi lacked the spur to masculine superiority" and, within that, as that women were central to institutions of clan and household and predominated "within the economic and social systems (in contrast to male predominance within the political and ceremonial systems)", the Clan Mother, for example, being empowered to overturn land distribution by men if she felt it was unfair, since there was no "countervailing ... strongly centralized, male-centered political structure".

The Iroquois clan mother is responsible for the welfare of the clan. She names all the people of the clan and holds a position in nominating, installing and removing the male chief, the Hoyaneh ("Caretaker of the Peace"). They are considered the life givers. Each clan mother has a Faithkeeper who is responsible for ceremonial preparations, weddings, funerals, and other rituals. The clan mother's position is hereditary; her title rests within the clan and is usually passed on to her female relatives, looking first at her eldest sisters, other sisters, then her eldest daughter and other daughters. The Kanien'kéha word for clan mother, Oiá:ner, translates to English as "righteous" or "she is good".

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