ONE IS THE SUN

Nineteenth-century European earth-goddess worshippers cross the Atlantic to gain ancient knowledge from an American Indian cult--in this rather implausible tribute to goddess-based feminism, by the author of The Beauty Queen (1978). It is 1857 when Tadpole, a 13-year-old Bannack girl, is enslaved by a half-breed trader and sold to Earth Thunder, an elderly medicine woman whose knowledge springs from a Mayan priestess' temple in Yucatan. A healer, half-revered, half-feared by the North American Indian populations, Earth Thunder seeks to rekindle reverence for the Goddess through healing, empowering and teaching ancient survival tactics to those who ask for guidance. Taking Tadpole on as an apprentice, Earth Thunder renames her River Singing and grants her her freedom. Together the women travel to the sacred Deer Lodge in Montana, gathering other followers along the way. Meanwhile, the Bavarian von Eichenberg family of Munich, worshippers of the Viking earth goddess Freia, chafe under the ruling Wittelsbachs' suppression of their religion. They resolve to travel with 13-year-old daughter Helle to seek out American ""people of the Wheels"" who ""worship the Goddess as well as the God"" and can teach them the ancient knowledge they have forgotten. The von Eichenbergs find and ally themselves with Earth Thunder's growing tribe in time to defend them from a host of evil-doers, including a racist preacher, a sadistic mercenary, and an assortment of greedy gold-miners. With the union of European and American goddess-cults successfully accomplished, Helle sails home with River Singing to reintroduce Earth Thunder's wisdom to the old world. A solemn yam in which tight corsets are reviled nearly as passionately as bullet wounds. Not for everyone.