Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 17 Morny Joy Editor Women, Religion, and the Gift An Abundance of Riches Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures Volume 17 Series Editors Editor-in-Chief Purushottama Bilimoria, The University of Melbourne, Australia University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA Co-Editor Andrew Irvine, Maryville College, Maryville, TN, USA Associate Editors Jay Garfi eld, The University of Melbourne, Australia Editorial Assistants Sherah Bloor, Amy Rayner, Peter Yih Jing Wong The University of Melbourne, Australia Editorial Board Balbinder Bhogal, Hofstra University, Hempstead, USA Christopher Chapple, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA Vrinda Dalmiya, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, USA Gavin Flood, Oxford University, Oxford, UK Jessica Frazier, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK Kathleen Higgins, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA Patrick Hutchings, Deakin University, The University of Melbourne, Australia Morny Joy, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada Carool Kersten, King’s College, London, UK Richard King, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK Arvind-Pal Mandair, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA Rekha Nath, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA Parimal Patil, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA Laurie Patton, Duke University, Durham, USA Stephen Phillips, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA Joseph Prabhu, California State University, Los Angeles, USA Annupama Rao, Columbia University, New York, USA The Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures focuses on the broader aspects of philosophy and traditional intellectual patterns of religion and cultures. The series encompasses global traditions, and critical treatments that draw from cognate disciplines, inclusive of feminist, postmodern, and postcolonial approaches. By global traditions we mean religions and cultures that go from Asia to the Middle East to Africa and the Americas, including indigenous traditions in places such as Oceania. Of course this does not leave out good and suitable work in Western traditions where the analytical or conceptual treatment engages Continental (European) or Cross-cultural traditions in addition to the Judeo-Christian tradition. The book series invites innovative scholarship that takes up newer challenges and makes original contributions to the fi eld of knowledge in areas that have hitherto not received such dedicated treatment. For example, rather than rehearsing the same old Ontological Argument in the conventional way, the series would be interested in innovative ways of conceiving the erstwhile concerns while also bringing new sets of questions and responses, methodologically also from more imaginative and critical sources of thinking. Work going on in the forefront of the frontiers of science and religion beaconing a well-nuanced philosophical response that may even extend its boundaries beyond the confi nes of this debate in the West – e.g. from the perspective of the ‘Third World’ and the impact of this interface (or clash) on other cultures, their economy, sociality, and ecological challenges facing them – will be highly valued by readers of this series. All books to be published in this Series will be fully peer-reviewed before fi nal acceptance. More information about this series at h ttp://www.springer.com/series/8880 Morny Joy Editor Women, Religion, and the Gift An Abundance of Riches Editor Morny Joy Department of Classics and Religion University of Calgary Calgary , AB , Canada ISSN 2211-1107 ISSN 2211-1115 (electronic) Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures ISBN 978-3-319-43188-8 ISBN 978-3-319-43189-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43189-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016953839 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 T his work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. T he use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. T he publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland This book is dedicated to the memory of two remarkable women: Dr. Beatrice Medicine (1924–2006) and Dr. Joan Ryan (1932–2005). The indefatigable work of these two scholars in support of the women of the First Nations in North America inspired the writing of this book. Beatrice Medicine , Hinsha Waste Agli Win (“Returns-Victorious-with-a-Red-Horse- Woman”), retired as a respected elder amongst her people, the Sihásapa (Blackfeet Sioux), a division of the Lakota people, in Standing Rock Reservation, Wakpala, South Dakota. The title of a volume of her collected writings, Learning to Be an Anthropologist and Remaining “Native” (University of Illinois Press, 2001), is an especially apt description of Bea’s life and work. She spent her career in multiple roles as an educator, expert witness, and consultant, constantly combating the existing stereotypes of Native Americans and witnessing to their lives and struggles, especially those of women. The CV, included at the conclusion of the above volume, attests to her extraordinarily active career. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1983. Prior to receiving this degree, and afterwards, she taught in a number of universities in the United States and Canada. Among her positions were those of Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, California State University, Northridge (1982–1985); Professor, Department of Anthropology; and Director, Native Centre, University of Calgary (1985– 1989). Among her many honours was the Malinowski Award, presented to her by the American Society for Applied Anthropology in 1996. A special honour was being the Sacred Pipe Woman at the Sun Dance at Sitting Bull’s Camp in 1977. Joan Ryan’s life was dedicated to urging Canada to acknowledge the rights of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples. She became the fi rst female head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Calgary (1978–1983). She was also responsible for helping to found the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) and its journal, Anthropologica (formerly Culture). After taking early retirement in 1987, Joan became affi liated with the Arctic Institute of North America (AINA) at the University of Calgary. It was then that Joan wrote her splendid tribute, Doing Things the Right Way: Dene Traditional Justice in Lac La Martre, N.W.T. (Arctic Institute and the University of Calgary Press, 1995). In recognition of her life of dedicated service, Joan was awarded the Prix Weaver-Tremblay Prize for exceptional contributions to Canadian Applied Anthropology, as well as the Chief David Crowchild Memorial Award of the City of Calgary. Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................... ix 1 Contributing to Continuity: Women and Sacrifice in Ancient Israel ...................................................................................... 1 Carol L. Meyers 2 Abidah El Khalieqy’s Struggles of Islamic Feminism Through Literary Writings .................................................................... 21 Diah Ariani Arimbi 3 An Epic Cry for Autonomy: Philosophical and Ethical Thinking in a Daoist Woman’s Ecstatic Excursions ............................ 35 Jinfen Yan 4 Economies of Sainthood: Disrupting the Discourse of Female Hagiography .......................................................................... 57 Kathleen McPhillips 5 Indigenous Spirituality: Perspectives from the First Indigenous Women’s Summit of the Americas ..................................... 69 Sylvia Marcos 6 Embodied Divinity and the Gift: The Case of Okinawan Kaminchu .......................................................................... 87 Noriko Kawahashi 7 Women’s Power to Give: Their Central Role in Northern Plains First Nations ................................................................................. 103 JoAllyn Archambault and Alice Beck Kehoe 8 A Buddhist Gift Enigma: Exchange in Vessantara’s Bodhisattvic Perfection of Giving .......................................................... 115 Suwanna Satha-Anand vii viii Contents 9 Food Gifts (Female Gift Givers): A Taste of Jewishness ...................... 129 Norma Baumel Joseph 10 Conditional Gifts for the Saints: “Gift” and “Commodity” as Gender Metaphors in Shi’a Ritual Practices in Iran ...................... 139 Azam Torab 11 Black American Women and the Gift of Embodied Spirituality ........ 159 Stephanie Y. Mitchem 12 Women and the Gift in Medieval South India ...................................... 173 Leslie C. Orr 13 The Gifts of Wisdom: Images of the Feminine in Buddhism and Christianity................................................................ 195 Morny Joy About the Authors ........................................................................................... 219 Index ................................................................................................................. 223 Introd uction This volume on women, religion, and the gift is a study of the many ways women have made remarkable contributions to religious traditions in various eras and regions of the world. Unfortunately, these gifts have often suffered from neglect. All too often, they were unacknowledged, or attributed to men, and their remarkable contributions remained without approval, let alone praise. It is nevertheless fascinat- ing that, in the last 35 years, there have been a number of books written about women and the gift, mainly by male scholars who provide analyses of the place or the role of women or the “feminine”, specifi cally in connection to gift-g iving. In an earlier edited volume, entitled W omen and the Gift: Beyond the Given and the All- Giving (Joy 2013a), I surveyed the work of such male theorists, among them are Derrida (1979, 1992) and Bataille (1985, 1987). In this book I also invited contem- porary women scholars to assess these male views. My request was motivated by the fact that, in many of these works, women were either associated with a mode of generosity , i.e. the “all-giving,” or they featured as “the given,” i.e. given away, in a male economy where they were treated as c ommodities. This last category of “the given” is described in the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss. He observes that women constitute the supreme gift in that they are given away by male relatives in marriage to other males (Joy 2013a: 193–218). While Lévi-Strauss also describes this exchange as complying with the incest prohibition (1989: 124), he also justifi es his description of the supreme gift, pronouncing that such an exchange of women cements social relationships, thereby establishing the basis of all exchange. 1 The other category, the “all-giving,” identifi es women as extravagantly g enerous in their giving of themselves in the care of others – sometimes amounting to an extreme gesture of self-s acrifi ce . Within a religious orientation, such commitment has been further exploited and linked to a woman’s required compliance with rules of appro- priate conduct that are declared as divinely ordered. Consequently, though the topic of women is addressed in both the above categories of “the given” and the “all- giving,” the thoughts and words of actual women are virtually absent. Women have very rarely been consulted on these matters and decisions. It is unfortunate, then, that the above allotment of tasks and roles does not grant women any independent ix