Helen Sekaquaptewa
Tuwawisnöm
Born1898
Oraibi, Arizona, United States of America
Died1990
Kykotsmovi Village, Arizona, United States of America
Notable workMe and Mine: The Life Story of Helen Sekaquaptewa
ChildrenEmory Sekaquaptewa, Marlene Sekaquaptewa

Helen Sekaquaptewa (1898-1990), was a Hopi Mormon homemaker, matriarch and storyteller, best known for her as-told-to memoir, Me and Mine: The Life Story of Helen Sekaquaptewa, which was compiled by her friend Louise Udall based on Sekaquaptewa's recollections.[1][2][3]

Life

Helen Sekaquaptewa was born in the Hopi village of Oraibi into a Hopi faction, the "Hostiles", who fought against colonial assimilation. After the faction was ousted from Oraibi, she was forced to attend a Native American boarding school. When she returned after high-school, Sekaquaptewa rejected her family's traditionalist Hopi values and married her husband, Emory, in order to live biculturally. They married in 1919, with both a traditional Hopi and a Christian marriage ceremony. Settling down in Hotevilla, Emory became a tribal judge while Helen involved herself in social welfare work and community building. In 1951, after being taught by Elders she had come into contact with as a result of her son Abbott's hospitalization the year prior, she converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Following her conversion, she became highly active in the Relief Society.[1][4]

Me and Mine: The Life Story of Helen Sekaquaptewa

Sekaquaptewa first met Louise Udall after moving to Phoenix, Arizona to further her children's education. Sekaquaptewa and Udall became friends through the Relief Society, and Udall would write down the stories Helen told her about her life.[4] Me and Mine describes Sekaquaptewa's life-long struggle with her identity, having to navigate the Hopi traditionalism of the "Hostiles" and the cultural assimilation of American colonialism. However, it also discusses how she found ways to bridge and reconcile these identities within her spiritual beliefs and social practices.[5][2] For example, Sekaquaptewa viewed her Mormon faith as a confirmation of traditional Hopi spiritual beliefs.[4]

In her 2014 dissertation, Autobiographical Indiscipline: Queering American Indian Life Narratives, Alicia Carroll presents Me and Mine as an example of autobiographical indiscipline, a decolonial practice she identifies in some as-told-to autobiographies of Native Americans. Carroll writes: "Me and Mine literalizes Helen as a person whose self fails to conform to colonial American standards of individualism; whose life refuses to be confined to the timeline between her birth and death; and whose written story harbors oral traditions in the printed product."[5]

Legacy

In 2004, Sekaquaptewa was included in the fifth volume of Notable American Women.[6] In 2013, she was inducted into the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame.[1] The chapter, "My Church", in which she describes her interactions with Mormon missionaries and her eventual conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was included in The Columbia Sourcebook of Mormons in the United States.[7] Her daughter, Marlene, was an influential Hopi tribal leader.[8] Her son, Emory, was a Hopi anthropologist known for his contributions to the first Hopi language dictionary.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Helen Sekaquaptewa". AWHF. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
  2. ^ a b Eggan, Fred (1970). "Me and Mine: The Life Story of Helen Sekaquaptewa . Louise Udall". American Anthropologist. 72 (2): 411–412. doi:10.1525/aa.1970.72.2.02a00410. ISSN 0002-7294.
  3. ^ Hirschfelder, Arlene B. (1995). Native Heritage: Personal Accounts by American Indians, 1790 to the Present. VNR AG. ISBN 978-0-02-860412-1.
  4. ^ a b c "Biography of an Indian Latter-day Saint Women: Me and Mine: The Life Story of Helen Sekaquaptewa as told to Louise Udall". Dialogue Journal. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
  5. ^ a b Cox, Alicia Marie (2014). Autobiographical Indiscipline: Queering American Indian Life Narratives (Thesis). UC Riverside.
  6. ^ Notable American women : a biographical dictionary completing the twentieth century. Susan Ware, Stacy Lorraine Braukman, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press. 2004. ISBN 0-674-01488-X. OCLC 56014756.((cite book)): CS1 maint: others (link)
  7. ^ Givens, Terryl L.; Neilson, Reid L., eds. (2014-12-31). The Columbia Sourcebook of Mormons in the United States. doi:10.7312/give14942. ISBN 9780231149426.
  8. ^ Romero, Simon (2020-07-24). "Marlene Sekaquaptewa, Hopi Tribal Leader and Quiltmaker, Dies at 79". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
  9. ^ "Emory Sekaquaptewa: Native American anthropologist". The Independent. 2008-01-05. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
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