SOURCE: Ferrell, Tracy J. Prince. “Transformation, Myth, and Ritual in Paula Gunn Allen's Grandmothers of the Light.” NDQ: North Dakota Quarterly 63, no. 1 (winter 1996): 77-88.

In the following essay, Ferrell contends that Grandmothers of the Light provides insight into a “personal and empowering transformation” and examines the complexities involved with identity formation and cultures in conflict.

[Spider Grandmother] thought to the power once and knew a rippling, a wrinkling within. … She thought in her power to each of her bundles and continued singing. She sang and sang. She sang the power that was in her heart, the movement that is the multiverse and its dancing. The power that is everywhere and has no name or body, but that is just the power, the mystery. She sang, and the bundles began to move. They began to sing, to echo her song, to join it. They sang their heart's song, that...