Part of the Disinformation Series
A White Paper by Agape Coven
Introduction: The Great Silencing
For over five centuries, the Indigenous peoples of North America have endured a systematic campaign of disinformation, cultural destruction, and spiritual genocide that ranks among humanity’s most devastating assaults on sacred wisdom. This white paper examines how European colonizers didn’t merely seek land and resources—they orchestrated a deliberate campaign to destroy Indigenous knowledge systems, particularly those centered on the Sacred Feminine, and replace them with patriarchal structures that would ensure continued dominance.
As Paula Gunn Allen powerfully states in The Sacred Hoop, “The root of oppression is the loss of memory.” What we witness in the colonization of Indigenous peoples is not just physical conquest, but the systematic erasure of memory itself—the dismantling of creation stories, healing practices, and matrilineal wisdom that had sustained communities for millennia.
The Architecture of Cultural Genocide
Dr. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, in An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, reveals how the concept of “manifest destiny” served as both justification and methodology for what can only be described as societal genocide. This wasn’t random violence—it was a coordinated effort to eliminate Indigenous ways of being and replace them with European patriarchal systems.
The concept of both the matriarchy and patriarchy are European ways of thinking about societal power; these concepts didn’t exist on Turtle Island (North America) until colonization and therefore are hard to apply to traditional Indigenous societies. Indigenous communities operated on principles of complementarity and balance, where women held multifaceted roles as leaders, decision-makers, healers, and keepers of essential knowledge.
The colonizers understood something profound: to truly conquer a people, you must destroy their spiritual foundation. Indigenous societies across North America were largely organized around principles that honored the Sacred Feminine—creation emerged from the cosmic womb, the Earth was Mother, and women often held central roles in spiritual and political leadership. This posed a direct threat to European patriarchal Christianity, which required the subordination of the feminine to maintain its power structure.
The Deliberate Destruction of Matrilineal Systems
The assault on Indigenous feminine wisdom was methodical and devastating. Traditional societies that honored women as life-givers, wisdom-keepers, and spiritual leaders were systematically dismantled. Band governments were created as strictly male domain, with women unable to become chiefs or band councillors. This represented a complete inversion of many traditional Indigenous governance systems.
Among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), clan mothers held the power to select and remove chiefs. The Hopi operated within matrilineal and matriarchal systems where both women and men have traditionally participated in politics and community management, although colonization has brought patriarchal influences that have seen changes in the traditional structures and formerly higher status of women.
The Indian Act in Canada and similar legislation in the United States specifically targeted women’s status. Indigenous women who married non-Indigenous men lost their status entirely, while Indigenous men who married non-Indigenous women could maintain their status and pass it to their children. This wasn’t administrative oversight—it was deliberate policy designed to fragment matrilineal inheritance patterns and reduce Indigenous population numbers through legal mechanisms.
The Boarding School System: Weaponizing Children Against Their Own Culture
Perhaps nowhere was the disinformation campaign more insidious than in the boarding school system, designed around the philosophy of “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” These institutions, documented extensively in works like Returning Home: Creative Works from the Intermountain Indian School by Dr. Farina King, represented state-sponsored cultural genocide.
Children were forcibly removed from their families, forbidden to speak their languages, practice their religions, or maintain connection to their cultural identities. They were systematically indoctrinated with European patriarchal values, Christian supremacist ideology, and taught to view their own cultures as “savage” and “primitive.” The psychological trauma was compounded by widespread physical and sexual abuse, creating intergenerational wounds that communities continue to heal today.
These schools served as indoctrination centers where Indigenous children were taught to internalize colonial narratives about their own inferiority. They returned to their communities carrying these toxic messages, creating internal conflicts that further destabilized traditional knowledge transmission.
Sacred Stories Rewritten: The Spiritual Dimension of Disinformation
The disinformation campaign extended deep into the spiritual realm. Indigenous creation stories, which often centered on feminine creative principles and maintained sophisticated understandings of cosmic interconnection, were systematically suppressed and replaced with Christian narratives that positioned Indigenous peoples as spiritually inferior.
What’s particularly striking is how many Indigenous creation stories share profound parallels with Kabbalistic traditions—both recognize the fundamental role of the Sacred Feminine in creation, both understand reality as emerging from divine emanation, and both maintain sophisticated understandings of the interconnected nature of all existence.
In Kabbalistic tradition, the Shekhinah represents the feminine aspect of the divine, the indwelling presence of God in the world. Similarly, many Indigenous traditions recognize Earth as Mother, the source of all life and the manifestation of divine feminine creative power. Both traditions understand creation as emerging from sacred relationship rather than patriarchal domination.
The Haudenosaunee creation story tells of Sky Woman falling through a hole in the celestial realm, landing on Turtle’s back, and creating the world through sacred reciprocity with other beings. This mirrors Kabbalistic understanding of divine emanation—the way the infinite manifests through increasingly material realms while maintaining essential interconnection.
Both traditions maintain that healing and spiritual wisdom come through restoring proper relationship with the Sacred Feminine. In Kabbalah, this means reuniting the masculine and feminine aspects of divinity. In Indigenous traditions, it means honoring the reciprocal relationship with Earth as Mother and recognizing women’s roles as carriers of life and wisdom.
The suppression of these spiritual traditions wasn’t coincidental—it was essential to maintaining colonial power structures that required the domination of both women and the natural world.
The Ongoing Legacy: How Disinformation Continues Today
The disinformation campaign against Indigenous peoples didn’t end with the “closing of the frontier.” It continues through multiple mechanisms that maintain colonial narratives and prevent recognition of ongoing genocide.
Educational systems continue to teach sanitized versions of history that minimize colonial violence and present colonization as inevitable progress rather than conscious choice. Media representations perpetuate stereotypes that either romanticize Indigenous peoples as “noble savages” frozen in the past or present them as “vanishing” peoples whose cultures are no longer relevant.
The appropriation of Indigenous spiritual practices by New Age movements represents another form of disinformation—taking sacred knowledge out of its cultural context while ignoring the ongoing struggles of Indigenous communities for basic human rights like clean water, protected sacred sites, and sovereignty over their own lands.
Resistance and Resurgence: Reclaiming Sacred Feminine Wisdom
Despite centuries of systematic oppression, Indigenous communities have maintained and are revitalizing their spiritual traditions, including the honoring of Sacred Feminine wisdom. Works like We Are Dancing for You: Native feminisms and the revitalization of women’s coming-of-age ceremonies by Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy document how Indigenous women are reclaiming their traditional roles and ceremonies.
Dr. Sarah Hernandez’s We Are the Stars: Colonizing and Decolonizing the Oketi Sakowin Tradition demonstrates how Indigenous scholars are using their own methodologies to challenge colonial narratives and restore traditional knowledge systems.
These resurgence movements recognize that healing from historical trauma requires not just addressing individual symptoms, but dismantling the entire system of disinformation that has justified ongoing colonization. They understand that reclaiming Indigenous knowledge systems—particularly those honoring the Sacred Feminine—is essential not just for Indigenous communities, but for humanity’s survival in the face of ecological collapse driven by patriarchal capitalism.
The Spiritual Imperative: Why This Matters Now
We live in a time when the patriarchal systems imposed through colonization are driving humanity toward ecological and spiritual collapse. The same mindset that justified the genocide of Indigenous peoples—the belief that humans can dominate and exploit the natural world without consequence—now threatens all life on Earth.
Indigenous peoples maintain knowledge systems developed over thousands of years of sustainable relationship with the natural world. Their understanding of the Sacred Feminine as the creative principle underlying all existence offers essential wisdom for navigating our current crises.
The systematic disinformation campaign against Indigenous peoples wasn’t just historical injustice—it was an assault on knowledge systems that humanity desperately needs for survival. The same patriarchal ideologies that justified Indigenous genocide now justify the ongoing destruction of the Earth’s life-support systems.
Recommendations for Truth and Reconciliation
True reconciliation requires more than acknowledgment of past harms—it requires dismantling the ongoing systems of disinformation and oppression that continue to marginalize Indigenous peoples and their wisdom.
Educational systems must teach accurate history that names colonization as genocide and recognizes the sophistication of Indigenous knowledge systems. Legal systems must recognize Indigenous sovereignty and treaty rights as supreme law. Economic systems must transition away from extractive capitalism toward sustainable models based on Indigenous principles of reciprocity and care for future generations.
Spiritual communities must recognize Indigenous peoples as teachers rather than sources of appropriation, supporting Indigenous-led movements for sovereignty and cultural revitalization rather than taking sacred practices out of context.
Most importantly, we must recognize that the same patriarchal systems that justified Indigenous genocide continue to drive ecological destruction and social inequality. Healing these systems requires not just policy changes, but fundamental shifts in consciousness toward recognizing the Sacred Feminine as the creative principle underlying all existence.
Conclusion: The Sacred Hoop Continues
Paula Gunn Allen reminds us that “The root of oppression is the loss of memory.” But memory can be recovered. Sacred traditions can be revitalized. The Sacred Hoop, broken by centuries of systematic oppression, can be mended.
The disinformation campaign against Indigenous peoples represents one of history’s greatest spiritual crimes—the systematic suppression of knowledge systems that recognized the sacred nature of all existence and maintained humanity in right relationship with the natural world for thousands of years.
But Indigenous peoples have survived. Their traditions have survived. And in their survival lies humanity’s hope for a future based on sacred reciprocity rather than domination, on honoring the Sacred Feminine rather than suppressing it, on truth rather than disinformation.
The time has come to listen, to learn, and to join Indigenous peoples in the work of healing not just historical trauma, but the fundamental spiritual disconnection that drives all forms of oppression. The Sacred Hoop is calling us home.
This white paper is dedicated to all Indigenous peoples who have maintained their sacred traditions despite centuries of systematic oppression, and to all those working to restore the Sacred Feminine wisdom essential for humanity’s survival.
Sources and Additional Reading
- Allen, Paula Gunn. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions
- Dunbar-Ortiz, Dr. Roxanne. An Indigenous People’s History of the United States
- Hernandez, Dr. Sarah. We Are the Stars: Colonizing and Decolonizing the Oketi Sakowin Tradition
- Risling Baldy, Dr. Cutcha. We Are Dancing for You: Native feminisms and the revitalization of women’s coming-of-age ceremonies
- King, Dr. Farina. Returning Home: Creative Works from the Intermountain Indian School
For more wisdom on reclaiming sacred feminine traditions and supporting Indigenous sovereignty, visit AgapeCoven.com and follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/AgapeCovens.
Love High Priestess of Agape Covens