Spiral Dynamics and matriachical societies

[Sothy]

Other than the Mosuo (mentioned on this site several times), none really come to mind that still exist, but just for fun...

what pathologies do these people have that have been identified? (as the pros of the matriachical society have been IDed already)

THey don't seem to have the jealously and anger problems that we have (albeit individuals may, etc.) regarding sex which is a big step up on most people. They are supposedly pretty healthy (but they smoke!...aha).

Apparently they practise a type of Tibetan Buddhism? (Not really important if it is or not, but the "spiritual" practice thing might be covered.)

They use the Chinese written system based on the picture I saw, so they have access to literature, etc.

Now, are they healthy blue (they have their practice, don't really care about objective truths, but don't condemn you), greens? Reds (don't consider themselves related to people who don't share blood)? Post-green?

[KeJia Sista]

The Cherokee and Onondaga nations were and to some extent, are, matriarchial. Could you to compare Native American matriarchal societies to the Mosuo, and also find the "color"? Where are the posts on the Mosuo?

Ke Jia

[Sothy]

I mean full-on matriarchies...

Most societies were red in the old days, blue starts with nation...pockets in every society (including mosuo, etc.) go higher ...I doubt that a society of "nearly everyone getting to" orange has ever existed. But perhaps the above mentioned could be an exception? (I doubt it though, but I'm willing to be informed...)

oh, I'm entirely non-qualified when it comes to accessing cultures and their colours (obviously), but it is still worth discussing as we would want to take elements from other cultures that can help us develop...

[KeJia Sista]

I mean full-on matriarchies...

Most societies were red in the old days, blue starts with nation...pockets in every society (including mosuo, etc.) go higher ...I doubt that a society of "nearly everyone getting to" orange has ever existed. But perhaps the above mentioned could be an exception? (I doubt it though, but I'm willing to be informed...)

oh, I'm entirely non-qualified when it comes to accessing cultures and their colours (obviously), but it is still worth discussing as we would want to take elements from other cultures that can help us develop...

Traditional Iroquois are still full on matriarchal societies, based on a clan system. Is there a link to the mosuo posts so that I could do a comparison?

The down side of the matriarchy in this country has been capitialism and private land ownership. It wrecks the balance of worth between the sexes.

Ke Jia

[Sothy]

You could always you google. Just type "mosuo" and then compare. Are today's Iroquois actually matriachical? Or just in the past? Today's mosuo are.

Come on, no one has any ideas as to how the pathologies/regressions in development compare between their society and ours? (As private land ownership and capitalism can be good things as well.)

[JadeDragon]

I think it's pretty difficult to determine their pathologies/regressions because a lot of the information that we currently have on matriarchal societies come from a rather rose-tinted and/or overwhelmingly ahistorical perspective (not saying that this is intrinsically bad, but it leaves out much pertinent information). As a result, there are many reports that don't thoroughly explore all the aspects of matriarchal cultures and changes to their structures, whether positive or negative.

I did check a couple of databases for information on the Mosuo, and here's what I got (I apologise for the bloody long posts):

ReVision, Wntr 1999 v21 i3 p31(1)
The Structure of Matriarchal Societies. (China) Heide Gottner-Abendroth.

Abstract: The Mosuo of China represent one of the few matriarchies that have survived from ancient times. Social status is conferred on women during an initiation ceremony at the age of 13, at which time they establish their own homes. Women choose their marriage partners, who do not live with them but instead live with their mothers.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1999 Heldref Publications

Exemplified by the Society of the Mosuo in China

The subject of matriarchy has a long tradition in the German-speaking region of Europe (Switzerland, Austria, Germany), which began in 1861 with the work of J.J. Bachofen.(1) As a philosopher trained in the logic of interpretation (the topic of my Ph.D. dissertation), I realized that a complete definition of matriarchy had not been done, especially from a nonpatriarchal viewpoint. Such a definition is necessary as a scientific tool in order to provide a clear foundation for revisioning the history of humankind. I insist on using the controversial term matriarchy, instead of other words such as gylanic or matristic,(2) because I think that female researchers should use the strongest and most provocative words for their task; it helps to prevent their work from being ignored. (For further discussion on the use of the term matriarchy, see my dialogue with Joan Marler in the winter 1998 issue of ReVision, vol. 20, no. 3.)

In my view, nonpatriarchal societies were the norm for most of human history, and extant matriarchal societies are the most accessible examples. Excellent interdisciplinary research is already available,(3) but we still lack the complete world history (or herstory) of nonpatriarchal societies. The articulation of a universal theory of matriarchy is the aim of my present work.

The following is a brief sketch of the structural definition of a matriarchal society, which is the core of my theory of matriarchy. This overview is not offered as a deductive axiom, although it is presented here in a concentrated, abstract way.(4)

Definition of Matriarchy

A brief, structural definition of matriarchy includes criteria on four levels: economic, social, political, and cultural:

Economic Level: Societies of Reciprocity

Matriarchies are most often agricultural societies in which women have control of the means of production. The technologies of agriculture developed from simple gardening (horticulture) to field agriculture with the plow, which further led to the large irrigation systems of the earliest urban cultures. In matriarchal societies, goods are distributed according to an egalitarian system that is identical with the lines of kinship and the patterns of marriage. From a political point of view, these are societies with perfect mutuality, where principles of equality are consciously maintained. The advantages and disadvantages concerning the acquisition of goods are adjusted by social rules. If wealth begins to accumulate in certain areas of the society, rituals of redistribution take place. For example, a village festival will be organized in which wealthy clans are obliged to distribute their riches to all inhabitants of the village. For this they gain great honor. On the economic level, matriarchies are societies of reciprocity.

Social Level: Societies of Kinship

On the social level, people live together in clans that are formed according to the principle of matrilinearity, in which kinship, clan names, social positions, and political titles are passed on through the female line.

A matriclan consists of at least of three generations of women: the clan-mother, her daughters, and granddaughters and the men who are directly related: the brothers of the mother, her sons, and grandsons. Generally, the matriclan lives in one big clan house, which often holds from ten to more than eighty persons, depending on its size and architectural style. The women live permanently in the clan house of their mothers, since they are not required to move to the homes of their husbands. This is called matrilocality.

Women control the sources of nourishment and have the power of disposition over the goods of the clan, which ensures their strong social position. This distinguishes a matriarchal society from one that is only matrilineal. The distinction between matrilineal and matriarchal societies has never been made in anthropology/ethnology, a fact that has caused a great deal of confusion.

The matriclans are self-supporting groups and are connected to other clans by patterns of marriage. Most common is the system of mutual marriage between two clans within the same village, which leads to communal matrimony. For example, young men from clan-house A marry young women from clan-house B, and vice versa. In this way, everyone becomes related to everyone else by birth or by marriage. Therefore, matriarchies are societies of kinship.

After marriage, the young man temporarily leaves the house of his mother, but does not have to go very far. In the evening he goes to the neighboring house where his wife lives, and he returns at dawn. This form of marriage is called visiting marriage, and is restricted to the night. The matriarchal man has no right to live in the house of his wife. The home of the matriarchal man is the clan-house of his mother, where he has rights and duties. There he is expected to do agricultural and other work and to take part in the decisions of the clan.

In this system, biological fatherhood has no social relevance. A matriarchal man never regards the children of his wife as his children, because they do not share his clan name. Instead, a matriarchal man is closely related to the children of his sister, his nieces and nephews, who have the same clan-name as he. He devotes his care for their upbringing as a form of social fatherhood.

Political Level: Societies of Consensus

The process of making political decisions is organized along the lines of matriarchal kinship. In the clan-house, women and men meet in a council that discusses domestic matters. No member of the household is excluded. After thorough discussion, a decision is reached by mutual agreement. The same is true for the entire village: Delegates from every clan-house meet in the village council when matters concerning the whole village must be discussed. The council may consist of the oldest women of the clans (the matriarchs) or the brothers and sons they have chosen. No decision concerning the whole village can be made without the consensus of every clan-house. The delegates who discuss the matter are not the ones who make the decision, since the delegates function only as bearers of communication. If all clan-houses do not yet agree, the delegates must return home to discuss the matter further. In this way, consensus is reached in the whole village, step by step.

The same is true for the entire region. Matriarchal people living in a larger region make decisions in the same way. Delegates from all villages meet to communicate the decisions made by their communities. Men are elected for the tasks as delegates, because the women do not usually leave their clan's house and land. Ethnologists have often assumed incorrectly that males are the primary decision makers. Instead, all clan-houses in every village are involved in the process of decision making until consensus is reached on the regional level. Therefore, from the political point of view, I call matriarchies societies of consensus.

This pattern of consensus does not allow the accumulation of political power. In exactly this sense, the people are free from domination. They have no class of rulers and no class of suppressed people who must be controlled.

Cultural Level: Sacral Societies

On the cultural level, matriarchal societies have a complex religious system that must not be characterized as a "fertility cult." The fundamental concept expressed in myths, rituals, and spiritual customs is the concrete belief in rebirth. Every person knows that after death she or he will be reborn as a child into the same clan. Women in matriarchal societies are greatly respected for their ability to give birth to the ancestors and to renew the life of the clan. This concept is the basis of the matriarchal view of life, which honors the cycles of growth, death, and the return of life within the cycles of nature. The Earth is venerated as the Great Mother who grants rebirth and nurtures all.

The cosmos is perceived as the Great Goddess of Heaven and all Creation. It is she who gives birth to the stars in the east and allows them to move over the sky (her celestial body) until they return to her in the west through her power of death. A good example of this concept of the cosmos is the Egyptian Nut, the Goddess of Heaven. She gives birth to her son Re, the sun, every morning and devours him every evening, only to give birth to him again at the next sunrise. All celestial bodies rise, set, and return in this same way each day and night.

Human existence follows the same rules and is not separate from the cycles of nature. The matriarchal concept of the human and natural worlds lacks the dualistic, patriarchal way of thinking that separates "nature" from "culture." Furthermore, it lacks the dualistic concept of morality that defines what is "good" and splits off what is "evil." From the matriarchal perspective, life brings forth death, and death brings forth life again in its own time. The opposition of "good" and "evil" makes no sense. In the same way, the female and the male are a cosmic polarity. It would never occur to matriarchal people to regard one sex as inferior to or weaker than the other, as is common in patriarchal societies.

In that nondualistic view of the world, no principal distinction is made between the profane and the sacred. The entire world is divine and therefore sacred to the people. They respect and venerate all of nature as holy and would never exploit or destroy it. Every house is also sacred and has its holy hearth in a place where the living people and the ancestors meet. Each everyday task and common gesture has a symbolic meaning; every action is ritualized. Therefore, on the cultural level, I call matriarchies sacral societies, and cultures of the Goddess.

The Mosuo as a Living Matriarchal Society

Finally, I will hint at an example of my anthropological/ethnological research, which illustrates the definition of matriarchy. In 1993, I organized a research expedition to China, together with a group of students from my academy H AGIA, to visit the society of the Mosuo. We were accompanied by Iris Bubenik-Bauer, an expert on China. Our aim was to test and correct my theoretical findings about the structure of matriarchal societies by observing a living example.

The Mosuo are a non-Chinese ethnic minority living within the boundaries of China. Their homeland lies on the borders of Yuennan and Szetchuan provinces, not far from Tibet. The first research on the Mosuo was conducted by anthropologist Wang Shu Wu in 1954. Later, the feminist scholar Yan Ruxian (1980) also did fieldwork there. The Mosuo are considered by Chinese anthropologists to be matriarchal, because they are still living in accordance with the patterns of matrilinearity and matrilocality.

After five days of difficult travel into the mountains, we reached Lake Lugu and the plain of Yong Ning. Lake Lugu is of breathtaking beauty. It occupies the entire valley and is surrounded by high mountains, one of which is called Gan mu, `Mother Mountain,' the protective Goddess of the Mosuo. Beyond the mountains we could see some of the snow-covered peaks of Tibet. In the language of the Mosuo, Lake Lugu is called Shinami, which means "Mother Lake"; Shinami is a goddess, too. Here, at an altitude of nearly 3000 meters, the Mosuo live by gardening and fishing in their sacred lake.

The houses and farmyards of the Mosuo are built in a very solid manner, constructed of big beams, whole trunks of trees. The ancient forests, however, have disappeared from the landscape because of the devastating clear-cutting mandated by the Chinese government in Beijing. The ongoing destruction of their environment is one of the great political problems of the Mosuo today.

In spite of their hard life as peasant women and fishermen, the Mosuo are a cultivated people. Their traditional festive costume is made of velvet and silk, which turns every young woman into a princess. The traditional colors of these costumes are white (the long skirt made of silk), red (the velvet jacket), and black (the hair dress). Variations of this costume indicate a woman's age and status. The older women are dressed exclusively in dark linen working clothes; they are the matriarchs, the most powerful women in the community. To dress in bright colors, as the young women do, would not be in accordance with their dignity, they told us. The costume of the men is simpler. They wear hats similar to those worn by American cowboys and ride small horses of Mongolian stock. Therefore, the Chinese disdainfully called them mosuo, which means "cowboys." During thousands of years of expansion by the patriarchal Chinese empire, the Mosuo have been treated as brutally as have the North American Indians. Figuratively, the Mosuo--and other marginalized non-Chinese ethnic groups--could be called the Indians of China.

What makes the Mosuo so interesting for many anthropologists is their matriarchal society. The majority of the Mosuo still live according to the patterns of matrilinearity and matrilocality in big clan-houses that are built in a square. All persons within each clan-house have the clan name of the eldest woman, the clan mother. These names are, for example: "Tiger Mother," "Snake Mother," "Cougar Mother," "Tree Mother," and so on. The names, as well as the common ownership of the house and the land, are exclusively inherited through the female line.

The women of the first generation are between sixty and eighty years old. We visited one clan-house, in which the former matriarch, now retired, devotes herself to the worship of the ancestresses, her foremothers in the female line. She has a vivid relationship with them. Each day she greets and speaks to them as if they are still alive. She cares for their daily meals of flour and kernels, and in return, the dead give their blessing to the living members of the clan.

The women of the second generation are between forty and sixty years old. One woman of a group of sisters has been elected by the clan members to be the matriarch. With the help of her sisters, she cares for the economic and social affairs of the clan-house. She is the administrator of all possessions of the clan: the house, fields, domestic animals and food, as well as the horses, which are mostly used by the men of the clan, her brothers and sons. All goods are given into her hands: the crops of the fields, the fruits of the gardens, the fishes and hunted animals--even the goods and the money that have been earned by the men through long-distance trade by means of horse caravans. She is also the distributor of these goods, caring for the welfare of every member of the extended family. She plans the agricultural labor, acts as host for the guests, and is the priestess of the clan house during the important family ceremonies, like the initiation festival of the girls and the funeral ceremonies for the deceased. Her brother, elected to be the representative of the clan, helps her by organizing external affairs, which involves communication with the neighbors and planning the men's work.

The women of the third generation are between thirteen and forty years old. At about thirteen years of age, after the ceremony of initiation, girls are considered to be full members of the clan and are given the key to their own rooms. This young generation of women does the hard work in the fields and gardens. They are also occupied with love, pregnancy, and motherhood. Their traditional custom was to have mutual marriage between two clans, but this form has ceased to exist. Today, each woman chooses her lovers as she wishes. Love affairs are easily begun and easily broken off without problems for the young woman and her children because they are all at home in their (grand)mother's house.

Once a year, the young people of the region go on a pilgrimage to their sacred mountain. There they have a dance festival to honor Gan mu as the great Goddess of Love. On this occasion, the young women choose a new lover among the young men. The men do not initiate the choice themselves. The elected lover has the right to visit his love at night in her private chamber in the house of her clan. But the next morning at dawn he must leave because he has no right to live with her, not even to eat there. The custom is that every person eats where she or he works. The man works in the house of his mother, where he is at home. Thus, every evening the brothers leave the clan house and the lovers enter, and every morning the lovers leave and the brothers come back. This is the classic matriarchal visiting marriage, which still exists among the Mosuo. A Mosuo man has his rights and duties in the house of his mother, not in the house of his love, where he is only a guest.

The children belong exclusively to the mother and her clan. The brothers of the young women take care of the nieces and nephews, who are regarded as their children, too, because they share the same clan name. The uncles of the children fulfill the role of social fatherhood, which is typical for matriarchal societies. Biological fatherhood makes no sense to the Mosuo, socially or spiritually.

Children make up the fourth generation and are regarded as reborn ancestresses or ancestors who have returned into their own clan. The children come from the realm of the ancestors, not from a man of another clan; therefore they are sacred. This belief in direct rebirth is basic in matriarchal religion, and the veneration of ancestors is part of this belief. The ancestors, who are held in good memory, will soon come back as little children. As a child grows up, its clan members will recognize similarities to a deceased relative. At the child's initiation ceremony, her or his name is given to the child. This ceremony, at which the young person becomes a full member of the clan, is especially celebrated for the girls. At that time, the girl is given a woman's costume and the name of the ancestress who, from that moment on, is regarded as fully reborn in her. Therefore, the initiation festival is regarded as the great festival of rebirth for the Mosuo (not the birth of an actual child). When an old woman dies, the initiation costume of a girl of thirteen, together with food and drink, is laid close to her coffin during her funeral ceremony. As the Mosuo say, "she will come back as a young girl."

The ancient religion of the Mosuo, the matriarchal layer, centers around their belief in the divinity of Nature. This is most directly expressed through the veneration of Gan mu, the sacred mountain, which is regarded as the Goddess of Love, and for Shinami, the sacred lake, seen as the Mother Goddess. Nature is regarded as female, as the great Creatrix. The later, patriarchal layers of religion, to which they have been subjected, have not succeeded in suppressing these basic beliefs.

When they were conquered by the Tibetans, the Mosuo were forced to adopt Lamaism, the Tibetan variation of Buddhism. But, according to myth, Gan mu became furious because the Lamas did not respect the mother and her life-giving womb. She went to Lhasa to fight against the new Buddhist deities and was successful. As a consequence, Gan mu was integrated into the Buddhist pantheon. This myth reflects a historical compromise between the indigenous Mosuo and the Tibetan rulers. Under the disguise of syncretistic religion, the Mosuo were allowed to continue the veneration for their Goddess Gan mu until today. Later, their region was conquered by the armies of the emperors of China and became part of the Chinese empire. But even now the Mosuo have not adopted the patriarchal Chinese patterns, and in their remote area, they could not be forced to do this. At the present time, the Mosuo are under great pressure due to the modern development of China. Their ancient culture is threatened by the continued exploitation of their environment. Roads are being built, electricity installed, and the beauty of Lake Lugu and the "matriarchal women of the Mosuo" are being marketed for Chinese tourism.

However, the Mosuo have not given up. At present, they are straggling to be acknowledged as a National Minority by the Chinese government. This status would give them more autonomy to solve these dangerous problems by themselves.

NOTES

(1.) For example, H. L. Morgan (1901). Morgan, who did research on the matriarchal society of the Iroquois in 1851, was praised and considered to be the founder of a new science: anthropology/ethnology. But Bachofen (1926), whose work was parallel to Morgan's, also founded a new science--the study of nonpatriarchal societies--but was ignored and ridiculed (see Heinrichs 1975). If his work had been taken seriously, it might have initiated a serious critique of patriarchal ideology and world view.

(2.) Gylanic is the term coined by Riane Eisler to denote a balance of powers in society between females and males; matristic refers to an egalitarian social structure that is matrilineal and matrifocal.

(3.) See especially the work of archaeomythologist Marija Gimbutas (1989, 1991).

(4.) This cross-cultural research covers India, Eastern Asia, Indonesia, the Pacific Islands, South/Central and North America, and Africa. A detailed discussion of my theory of matriarchal societies is published in the multivolume work, Das Matriarchat (1988, 1991, 1995, and forthcoming).

REFERENCES

Bachofen, J. J. 1926. Mutterrecht und Urreligion. Stuttgart: Alfred Kroner Verlag.

--. 1975. Das Mutterrecht, rev ed. Ed H. J. Heinrichs. Frankfurt.

Gimbutas, M. 1989. The language of the goddess. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

--. 1991. The civilization of the goddess. San Francisco: Harper.

Gottner-Abendroth, H. 1980. Die Gottin und ihr Heros. Munchen: Frauenoffensive. (English trans. The goddess and her heroes. 1995. Stow: Anthony Publishing Co.)

--. 1988. Das Matriarchat I. Geschichte seiner Erforschung. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.

--. 1991. Das Matriarchat II, 1. Stammesgesellschaften in Ostasien, Indonesien, Ozeanien. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.

--. 1998. Matriarchat in Sudchina. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.

--. 1999. Das Matriarchat II, 2. Stammesgesellschaften in Amerika, Indien, Afrika. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.

--. Forthcoming. Das Matriarchat III. Geschichte des Matriarchats. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.

--. Forthcoming. Das Matriarchat IV. Die Entstehung des Patriarchats. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.

--. Forthcoming. Das Matriarchat V. Matriarchale Subkulturen im Patriarchat. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.

Heinrichs, H. J. 1975. Materialien zu Bachofens Mutterrecht. Frankfurt.

Morgan, H. L. 1901. (H.M. Lloyd, ed.) League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee or Iroquoi, rev. ed. 2 vols. New York.

Yan, R. 1980. A living fossil of the family. A study of the family structure of the Naxi (Mosuo) nationality in the Lugu Lake region. Conference paper. Yugoslavia.

[JadeDragon]

Natural History, Nov 2000 v109 i9 p58
LAND OF THE WALKING MARRIAGE. (Mosuo people of China) Lu Yuan; Sam Mitchell.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2000 American Museum of Natural History

For the Mosuo of China, it's a woman's world.

There are so many skillful people, but none can compare with my mother.

There are so many knowledgeable people, but none can equal my mother.

There are so many people skilled at song and dance, but none can compete with my mother.

We first heard this folk song around a blazing fire in southwestern China in the spring of 1995. It was sung enthusiastically by women of Luoshui village--members of the Nari, an ethnic group more commonly known to outsiders as the Mosuo. During the past few years, we have returned several times to visit these people, who celebrate women in more than song. Although the majority of China's ethnic groups follow a strong patrilineal tradition, the Mosuo emphasize matrilineal ties, with matrilineally related kin assisting one another to farm, fish, and raise children. Women also head most households and control most family property.

Marriage as other cultures know it is uncommon among the Mosuo; they prefer a visiting relationship between lovers--an arrangement they sometimes refer to in their language as sisi (walking back and forth). At about the age of twelve, a Mosuo gift is given a coming-of-age ceremony, and after puberty, she is free to receive male visitors. A lover may remain overnight in her room but will return in the morning to his own mother's home and his primary responsibilities. Children born from such a relationship live with their mother, and the male relatives responsible for helping to look after them are her brothers. Many children know who their fathers are, of course, but even if the relationship between father and child is quite close, it involves no social or economic obligation. And lovers can end their relationship at any time; a woman may signal her change of heart by simply no longer opening the door. When speaking Chinese, the Mosuo will call the sisi arrangement zou hun (walking marriage) or azhu hunyin (friend marriage, azhu being the Mosuo word for friend); nevertheless, the relationship is not a formal union.

Chuan-kang Shih, an anthropologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an authority on the Mosuo, points out that many aspects of their family system have parallels elsewhere in the world. For example, although in most societies a husband and wife live together (usually near his relatives or hers), in others they continue to live in separate households, and one spouse must make overnight nuptial visits. Matrilineal kinship systems, in which a man looks after the interests of his sisters' children, are also well known. And although men commonly wield the power, even in matrilineal societies, women may play important political and economic roles. But the absence of a formal marital union may quite possibly be unique to the Mosuo. In this respect, only the precolonial practices of the matrilineal Nayar of southern India come close. As Shih explains, among some Nayar groups, a woman would take lovers (with due regard for social class), who would establish and maintain their relationships to her through a pattern of gift giving. Despite being expected to acknowledge paternity, the lovers incurred no obligations to their offspring. Still, the Nayar had a vestigial form of marriage: shortly before puberty, a girl would be wed to a young man; although this marriage lasted only three days and was often purely ceremonial in nature, the union marked the girl's transition to adult life and legitimized the birth of her children.

In Luoshui we stayed with thirty-year-old A Long, who runs a small guesthouse. His family consisted of his mother, grandmother, younger brother and sister, and sister's two-year-old son. Each evening A Long departed with his small overnight bag; each morning he returned to help his mother and sister. After several days of eating with the family and becoming friendly with them, we asked A Long what he thought about the sisi system. "`Friend marriage' is very good," he replied. "First, we are all our mother's children, making money for her; therefore there is no conflict between the brothers and sisters. Second, the relationship is based on love, and no money or dowry is involved in it. If a couple feels contented, they stay together. If they feel unhappy, they can go their separate ways. As a result, there is little fighting." A Long told us that he used to have several lovers but started to have a stable relationship with one when she had her first child.

"Are you taking care of your children?" we asked.

"I sometimes buy candy for them. My responsibility is to help raise my sister's children. In the future, they will take care of me when I get old."

A Long's twenty-six-year-old sister, Qima, told us that the Mosuo system "is good because my friend and I help our own families during the daytime and only come together at night, and therefore there are few quarrels between us. When we are about fifty years old, we will not have `friend marriage' anymore."

Ge Ze A Che is the leader of Luoshui, which has a population of more than 200 people, the majority of them Mosuo, with a few Han (China's majority ethnic group) and Pumi as well. He spoke proudly of this small settlement: "I have been the leader of the village for five years. There has been little theft, rape, or even argument here. `Friend marriage' is better than the husband-wife system, because in large extended families everyone helps each other, so we are not afraid of anything. It is too hard to do so much work in the field and at home just as a couple, the way the Han do."

The Mosuo live in villages around Lugu Lake, which straddles the border between Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, and in the nearby town of Yongning. They are believed to be descendants of the ancient Qiang, an early people of the Tibetan plateau from whom many neighboring minority groups, including the Tibetans themselves, claim descent. As a result of Han expansion during the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.), some Qiang from an area near the Huang (Yellow) River migrated south and west into Yunnan. The two earliest mentions of the Mosuo appear during the Han dynasty (A.D. 206-222) and the Tang dynasty (618-907), in records concerning what is now southwestern China.

The Mosuo do not surface again in historical accounts until after Mongol soldiers under Kublai Khan subjugated the area in 1253. During the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), a period of minority rule by the Mongols, the province of Yunnan was incorporated into the Chinese empire, and many Mongol soldiers settled in the Mosuo region. In fact, during the 1950s, when the government set out to classify the country's minority nationalities, several Mosuo villages surrounding Lugu Lake identified themselves as Mongol, and some continue to do so today. When we walked around the lake, as the Mosuo do each year in the seventh lunar month--a ritual believed to ensure good fortune during the coming year--we passed through villages that identified themselves variously as Mosuo, Mongol, Naxi, Pumi, and Han. The "Mongol" people we encountered dressed the same as the Mosuo and spoke the same language. Their dances and songs, too, were the same, and they sometimes even referred to themselves as Mosuo.

Tibetan Buddhism first entered the region in the late thirteenth century and has greatly influenced the lives and customs of the Mosuo. Before the area came under the control of the Communist government, at least one male from almost every family joined the monastic community. The local practice of Buddhism even incorporated aspects of the sisi system, although the women did the "commuting. On the eighth day of the fifth lunar month, monks traveling to Tibet for religious study would camp in front of Kaiji village. That night, each monk would be joined by his accustomed lover--a ceremonial practice believed to enable the monks to reach Lhasa safely and to succeed in completing their studies. And the local Mosuo monks, each of whom lived with his own mother's family, could also receive lovers. Such arrangements seem to defy the injunctions of many schools of Tibetan Buddhism, but by allowing the monks to live and work at home, outside the strict confines of monastic life, they helped the Mosuo maintain a stable population and ensure an adequate labor force to sustain local agriculture.

The area around Lugu Lake did not come under the full control of China's central government until 1956, seven years after the founding of the People's Republic. In 1958 and 1959, during the Great Leap Forward, the nearby monasteries, notably the one at Yongning, were badly damaged. Now, however, with a combination of government funds and donations from local people, they are slowly being rebuilt. One element of recent religious revival is the Bon tradition, which is accepted by the Dalai Lama as a school of Tibetan Buddhism but believed by many scholars to be derived from an earlier, animist tradition. During our walk around Lugu Lake, we witnessed a Bon cremation ceremony and visited the Bon temple on the eastern shore of the lake. The Mosuo also retain a shamanic and animist tradition of their own, known as Daba.

In the twentieth century, the West became acquainted with the Mosuo through the work of French ethnographers Edouard Chavannes and Jacques Bacot and through the contributions of Joseph Rock, a Vienna-born American who first journeyed to Yunnan in 1922 while on a botanical expedition. A flamboyant character, Rock traveled through remote Tibetan borderlands accompanied by trains of servants and bodyguards and equipped with such dubious necessities as a collapsible bathtub and a silver English tea set. He made the Naxi town of Lijiang his home for more than twenty years, until the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 spelled an end to foreign-funded research and missionary activity in the area.

Besides conducting botanical surveys and collecting plant and animal specimens, Rock took many photographs and became the West's foremost expert on the region's peoples and their shamanic practices. He identified the Mosuo as a subgroup of the Naxi, who, although their kinship system is patrilineal, speak a language closely related to that of the Mosuo. The Mosuo strongly contest this classification, but it has been retained by the present government, which has been reluctant to assign the Mosuo the status of a distinct minority. The Communists claim that the Mosuo do not fit the criteria for nationality status as defined for the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin. According to Stalin, as he phrased it in a 1929 letter, "A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of the common possession of four principal characteristics, namely: a common language, a common territory, a common economic life, and a common psychological make-up manifested in common specific features of national culture."

In keeping with Marxist interpretations of historical development, Chinese ethnologists have also regarded Mosuo society as a "living fossil," characterized by ancient marriage and family structures. This view draws on theories of social evolution formerly embraced by Western anthropologists, notably the American ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-81). Morgan proposed that societies pass through successive natural stages of "savagery" and "barbarism" before attaining "civilization." He also proposed a sequence of marriage forms, from a hypothetical "group marriage" of brothers and sisters to monogamy. Chinese scholars have argued that a minority such as the Mosuo, with its unusual kinship system, fits into this scheme and thus validates Marxist views. Of course, the application of Morgan's theories to minority cultures in China has also enabled the Han majority to see itself as more advanced in the chain of human societal evolution. This kind of thinking, long discredited in the West, is only now beginning to be reexamined in China.

With the coming of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), the Mosuo were pressured to change their way of life. According to Lama Luo Sang Yi Shi (a Mosuo who holds a county-government title but is primarily a spiritual leader), "during the Cultural Revolution, the governor of Yunnan came to Yongning. He went into Mosuo homes and cursed us, saying that we were like animals, born in a mess without fathers. At that time, all of the Mosuo were forced to marry and to adopt the Han practice of monogamy; otherwise, they would be punished by being deprived of food." During this period Mosuo couples lived with the woman's family, and divorce was not permitted. But even though they held marriage certificates and lived with their wives, the men kept returning to their maternal homes each morning to work.

Luo Sang Yi Shi criticized this attempt to change the Mosuo and explained that "at the end of the Cultural Revolution, the Mosuo soon returned to their former system of `friend marriage.' A small family is not good for work. Also, mothers and their daughters-in-law cannot get along well."

Today the Mosuo maintain their matrilineal system and pursue sisi relationships. Yet how long will this remain the case? The government of Yunnan recently opened Lugu Lake to tourism, and vans full of visitors, both Chinese and foreign, are beginning to arrive. To some degree, this added exposure threatens to envelop the Mosuo in a society that is becoming increasingly homogeneous. Yet the tourists are drawn not only by the beauty of the lake but by the exotic qualities of the Mosuo people. Ironically, their unique qualities may well enable the Mosuo to endure and prosper.

We asked Ge Ze A Che, the Luoshui village leader, if tourism would change the lives of the Mosuo. "It has already changed their lives to some extent," he observed. "Our young people now like to wear Han clothes, speak Chinese, and sing Chinese songs. In the future they will lose our people's traditions and customs."

And what would happen to "friend marriage"? we wondered.

"It will also change--but very, very slowly!"

[JadeDragon]

I found this article particularly interesting, as it portrays a rather different picture of the Mosuo than what I've usually read on them:

Time International, Nov 11, 2002 v160 i18 p68+
Minority Report: The Mosuo, a small matrilineal tribe in central China, are preserving their traditions by exploiting them. (The Next Cultural Revolution/Minorities) Matthew Forney.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2002 Time, Inc.

Byline: Matthew Forney/Lugu Lake

Longing to do more with her life than herd goats, Yang Erche Namu ran away from Zuosuo, a tiny village at the foot of the Tibetan plateau. As the 13-year-old girl fled, her appalled mother hurled rocks at her. For the next week, Namu walked on dirt paths before arriving at Yanyuan, the nearest county. She joined a song-and-dance troupe there, won a scholarship to study music in Shanghai, became a well-known lounge singer, married an American, divorced, and became China's first writer to lay bare her sexual adventures. In 1997, 14 years after abandoning her village, Namu wrote a best-selling book, Leaving the Kingdom of Daughters, which speaks candidly of her eight foreign lovers. She presented her libidinous ways as a natural part of her tempestuous life: after all, Namu belongs to the Mosuo, a matrilineal tribe with a tradition of letting women take many lovers and bear children without marrying.

Sex appeals. And today, the area around Lugu Lake, the Mosuo homeland where Namu grew up, has become a chic tourist destination, thanks almost entirely to the renown that Namu's book has brought it. With her words as a guide, some 50,000 mainland tourists are expected to flock this year to what used to be an unknown backwater. That's up from almost zero five years ago. This sudden influx of visitors has led to the usual excesses of prostitution, crime and karaoke. But it's also led to something vital and unexpected. Far from merely exploiting the Mosuo (pronounced "mwo-swo") as a kind of tribal freak show, the swarm of tourists has engendered a native pride that helps the Mosuo keep their traditions alive. "They think if thousands of Chinese come to see their lifestyle, it must be valuable," says Eileen Walsh, who recently completed a doctorate at Temple University on tourism's impact on the Mosuo.

Minorities occupy an uncomfortable place in Chinese society. The loyalty of Tibetans and Uighurs, for example, is often questioned, with their monasteries and mosques heavily monitored to detect signs of an independence movement. In a country where the overwhelming majority belongs to the Han group, minority culture tends to be subsumed. For instance, the Manchus, who governed during China's last imperial dynasty, are today nearly indistinguishable from the other "old 100 names," as Han Chinese call themselves. So the Mosuo's cultural survival is both surprising and heartening.

The Mosuo's success stems in large part from their knack for preserving their traditions while shrewdly exploiting them. The people of Luoshui, a village on the banks of Lugu Lake, have proved especially adept at this, transforming their entire settlement into a tourist collective. All of Luoshui's families participate in the three main visitor events--rowing dugout canoes, guiding horses and dancing around an evening bonfire--and they share the profits. Village elders have wisely barred motorboats from the lake so that it remains a peaceful, pristine attraction. And they have further safeguarded the waterfront's natural beauty by creating a red-light district a kilometer away, next to the police station. On a darker note, the district once attracted Chinese prostitutes from neighboring Sichuan province who wore Mosuo costumes. These days the working girls come mostly from Mosuo villages.

The Mosuo have a culture so marketable it could have been designed by anthropologists and tour guides. Mosuo shamans cure diseases by chanting volumes of memorized liturgies to drive off ghosts. Women carry on the family name and run households, adding a dollop of feminism to a male-dominated country. Most unique, though, is the Mosuo tradition of "walking marriage." Arranged matches, for centuries the Chinese norm, are unheard of. Instead, women commonly take several lovers during lives of serial monogamy, without suffering scarlet letter opprobrium. The men visit the women's homes at night, often secretly; any resulting children are raised by the woman's family. Even the name of the woman's trysting room is brochure-perfect: the "flower chamber."

Chinese writers often eroticize the Mosuo as denizens of a lakeside love nest. And the locals wink at the visitors' romantic expectations, cannily recognizing the commercial potential. At the popular Mosuo Folk Culture Museum, which sits in a cornfield near the lake, employees perform a mating ritual. A man sings of his love from outside his sweetheart's window. She answers in a beguiling falsetto that "My uncle lies awake; you must wait." But he can't wait, and, to ribald encouragement from the crowd, he scales his way into her second-story window. Although jumping from window to window does sometimes happen, the singing doesn't follow the pattern, and a guide quickly explains that men "never walk chaotically from house to house." There follows a lengthy lecture on how walking marriages underpin stable families. One Chinese man asks if he can have a walking marriage too. "If the woman will have you," comes the coy reply. It's pleasant entertainment, and the tourists leave understanding something of this unique tradition.

All this attention has helped walking marriages hit a new stride beyond even the Mosuo. Another minority in the area, the Pumi, always practiced conventional marriages. But people like Jama, a 26-year-old Pumi who pretends to be Mosuo while rowing customers in her canoe, has forgone a wedding in favor of a walking marriage with her boyfriend. While nursing their 14-month-old son by the lake, she explains that "if I decide my boyfriend isn't worth it, we'll split up, so we don't fight like married couples do." Locals say walking marriage is spreading quickly among the Pumi but, significantly, only in Luoshui, where tourism has piqued interest in Mosuo culture.

With the Mosuo constantly on show, there's no longer a clear curtain between what's staged for the tourists and what's real. Mosuo women, for instance, only began putting blossoms in their headdresses a decade ago when plastic flowers first arrived. Curious tourists asked what they meant and the Mosuo concocted an answer: many flowers means seeking a lover, one flower signals a steady love, no flowers means buzz off. But what started as a charming reply to visitors has become common practice. "Cultures always change, and with tourism it happens faster," says Zhou Huashan, a researcher who has lived beside Lugu Lake for two years and has written a book on the Mosuo. A reborn pride in their culture, though, pervades. Only in the most heavily visited areas do young Mosuo women wear their traditional costumes--even in the rainy season when tourists stay home.

Seeing the money to be made from Mosuo tourism, the government has tried to grab a piece of the action. Officials in Ninglang county, which includes much of the Mosuo's territory, last year built the garish Mosuo Village Hotel on the lake. Most travelers, however, prefer to stay in the real village, where the hotels tend to be family-run, instead of in a government-built facsimile. Frustrated, the county has built a tollbooth outside Luoshui to collect $5 from each person entering what should be a public place. "They might have some other plans to develop this area," says village chief Celi Pingcuo, "but we hang together and help ourselves."

Of course, as the area becomes more popular there's a danger that it will get overrun and be spoiled. A recent event in a remote Mosuo village hinted at what's to come. On the final night of a three-day funeral for a family's matriarch, Mosuo men in sheepskin cloaks danced around a fire to frighten away ghosts. Suddenly, two tourists barged in and, at their own invitation, slipped into skins and joined the sacred ritual. No visitor had ever shown up like that. Still, none of the locals seemed to mind this incursion. And one of the two, a doctor from Shenzhen named Wang Lianghua, was enraptured by what he saw on his trip. "There are a lot of lies about the Mosuo," he says, "and a lot to learn from their culture."

As for Namu, she's back--and poised to cash in on Mosuo mania like everyone else. Though she now lives in Beijing, she recently returned to her childhood village of Zuosuo with a plan to build her own guesthouse there. Sitting in a small local restaurant, eating a bowl of soup filled with chicken feet, she discusses her future with her Chinese business manager. First, he says, he'll arrange to make her the "cultural ambassador" for the popular Red Mountain Pagoda cigarettes. Then, the cigarette company will pave a road to her guesthouse. From Beijing, he adds, she'll be able to steer tens of thousands of visitors a year to the area, and "we'll monopolize all the scenic attractions around the lake."

Namu, now 32, nods but remains noncommittal. "I have mixed feelings," she says later. "We need tourism so that [local] people will stay and not move to the cities," but she knows that all this development could spin out of control and wreck the calm beauty of her homeland. Still, her grandiose plans have at least brought her close to her family again. Her mother--no longer estranged--will run Namu's guesthouse. The prodigal daughter has returned.

[Dialectic]

Sorry for not responding 'til now, Sothy, but I don't have a lot to say on the matter 'til we get a lot more information from them. Jade, thanks for the article, I'll read it soon and comment if I have any significant thoughts on it.

A couple preliminary thoughts for you, Sothy:

1) Some may disagree, but I am generally in agreement with the assertion that matriarchal/ matrifocal societies faded out with the development of the plow, or advancing agricultural technology. When tribes were using a hoe and engaging in small-scale planting (and in which this was the main source of food/ living), either men or women could have been dominant, as both fulfilled physical requirements, and noosphere (or world of mind) hadn't differentiated/ emerged yet (and would not emerge until the industrial revolution). At any rate, even if one disgrees with this, that's not the central thrust of my point: my point, and this is certain to be controversial, is that wherever both matriarchies and patriarchies occur, they were co-determined/ co-created by both males and females due to harsh biospheric conditions, and domination/ oppression did not occur from day one (a lot of people would argue the crap out of this, too, I know), but once it did occur as a society-wide pathology, it stuck around through the industrial revolution and is just now reversing in the informational age.

2) Modern day tribes/ tribal structures ARE NOT equivalent to their ancient forebears. When we discuss tribal societies Spiral Dynamics, for example, we're talking about oldschool ones which were purple/ red and which were only surrounded by purple/red. Tribes these days get surrounded by Blue, Orange, Green, etc.

3) Given point (1), some would assert (and I believe Wilber is one of these) that a matriarchal/ matrifocal tribe which did not become patriarchal (i.e. take up the plow and advance agricultural technology so that physical strength mattered) actually underwent developmental arrest. MANY people would disagree with this for a myriad of reasons, a primary one of which is they would not consider further development a good thing (i.e. an agricultural revolution and everything afterwards is pathology, which I would vehemently disagree with).

4) So a complex and very interesting picture emerges with all these points together (and as I said, I haven't read Jade's article yet). We can, at base, assume they they, back in the day, were a healthy red to blue. Due to their isolation, they went relatively unscathed by larger blue and blue-orange powers. At the same time, they developed no large-scale blue-orange/ orange tech and conceptions on their own. Since their ways have been relatively healthy and harmonious, they have survived until the current day, when they now know they are surrounded by gigantic political/ tech entities, and are well aware of the Chinese, Taiwanese, Hong Kongnese, and probably Tibetans, Nepalese, and Indians. Since they're not at war and just want to keep living peacefully (unless you count this tourism and subsequent ideological shifting coupled with good ol' Christian crusading as war), and since tech/ cognition has developed to the point where physical strength and speed is irrelevant to success in much of the world, they are now, most likely, in a strange mix of blue to green. Until we know a lot more, I'm not sure we can get more specific than that.

[Dialectic]

Briefly, a reason why co-created matriarchy, and esp. patriarchy, is so importnat to consider, is because it bypasses two postmodern problems: 1) victim feminism, and 2) the desire to regress to magical tribal states.

With regard to (1), a section of modern feminists maintain that women have been oppressed pretty much since men and women came into being; in saying this, however, they are also stating implicitly that women were too weak and too stupid to do anything about it, which is untenable and certainly disempowering. To them, the only alternative is to say that women wanted to be dominated and oppressed, which is also unacceptable. By taking the co-creation stance, we say that men and women mutually determined the existence of a matriarchy or (in most cases) a patriarchy, but then that patriarchy went into pathological dominance (which is generally how men go pathological).

With regard to (2), there is often a wish to regress to a point in tribal/ human history (when depends on who you talk to) where the researcher/ philosopher/ feminist maintains that everything went wrong. What they don't adequately consider is that conditions back in those days were harsh and required what we would regard now as primitive and harsh measures. Physiosphere first emerged (unliving physical existence), on which biosphere developed (living organisms), and on which noosphere developed (the world of mind). Before noosphere differentiated from biosphere, before rationalism took form and a body/mind divide was recognized, we had to do whatever we could to survive and thrive under hard and hostile natural conditions until our minds had brought us to the point where we could self-reflect and develop the technology/ infrastructure such that physical impediments no longer really mattered. The co-determination idea, then, says that integration of noos with bios, is a future omega point (not some magical time in the past, where body and mind were not integrated, but rather, indissociated, i.e. differentiation between the two was not recognized), a potential which is emerging, which will allow male and female to stand equally (while recognizing differences), and which will resolve the body/ mind split, which can only be done through contemplative awareness, or moral/ cognitive development. If anyone wants to say that the old tribes and ancient humanity were more morally/ cognitively developed than we, or even equally so, you'll have to present a very, very convincing case for that.

[KeJia Sista]

Thanks for the articles! I see I have previously read about the Mosuo and seen a mainland documentary on them; but I didn't recall the name of the people. At that time tourism was just beginning, and it seemed to have an ill effect; but I'm glad to see in the article that it's turned out to be a positive thing.

Someone asked if the Iroquois matriarchy was "full on". I believe it is as full on as the Mosuo are now that they are surrounded by karaoke and tourists.

We live in a clan society..as they did in ancient China. Chinese clans consisted of those who had the same last name, and women who married into the clan; or those adopted into a clan. For Chinese the clan name came from the father.

Iroquois have a clan system also. We are born into the clan of our mother. My clan is Wolf clan. My grandmother marrying a Chinese did not affect our status as Wolf clan. A Native male who marries a non Native (clanless) woman; will have clanless children unless he has an aunt who ceremonially adopts them.

In historical times and among traditional Iroquois today; the home and garden belong to the women of the family. There would also be a communual farm where the women of the clan farmed together. Men might assist with if there is something strenous (huge tree fell into the area).

The family consisted of mother and father, maternal grandmother and grandfather; aunts and their husbands, sisters and unmarried brothers. Your father is of a different clan than your mother; but doesnt play what is usually considered a "father" role. "Uncles" play that role in the family, guiding and helping to rear his sisters children. I see the Mosuo have the same system.

Spousal abuse is rare if not unknown since it would have to take place under the eyes of the womans family. Even more, a man who hurt a woman or child would draw the wrath of their whole clan.

Society was divided into Red and White.. wartime and peace time. Peacetime, before the Whites came, was the norm. There were Peace Chiefs and Clan Mothers who guided the local villages in peace time; and War Chiefs and Pretty Women who governed during times of war.

The Chiefs were almost always men; but the only men eligible to run for office were men nominated by the Clan Mothers.

The inherent problems with this system, is that it is undermined by capitalism whereas patriarchy thrived with capitialism. Patirarchy sees women as property; whereas the matriarchy does not see men as property.

With the advent of casino gambling on reservations; a huge rift between the traditionals who oppose gambling and the non-traditionals has led to many turning away from the traditional system. In upstate New York there is a terrible fight where a chief has sold out; and is actively going after the Clan Mothers and other traditionals. He has driven some from the reservation; he has closed down the Long House where traditionals worship; he is filling the rolls with non-Natives and removing Natives from the rolls. The women have been fightng back for several years but it is a hard battle.

Among the Cherokee; once capitalism was introduced, in the form of paying warriors for deer skins; it sabotaged the previous system that was based around trade and barter; and the corn harvest which was under the control of the women. Corn was worth little, skins were worth a lot and in the male/female division of labor; men did the hunting. So "wealth" became something that men had access to, women had little means of gaining equal cash. As the skins became more necessary for cash to buy guns for increasing wars; cash was necessary to buy the cloth to make White peoples clothing. The killing of deer became out of balance.

Native women married White traders; and Native men who when to school and became assimilated married White wives. As IR marriages took place it disrupted the system further with the children of Native men being clanless and often following the White ways of their mothers; (who were outside of clan society - not citizens of the Cherokee Nation) and the mixed children of the Native women, who did have clans; but whose husbands would insist on private property fenced off rather than the communual farm; and bequeathing any property to sons and children rather than to the clan.

Hmm I've been rambling on and on, anyone still awake? :lol:
Ke Jia

[The Ram]

I saw some documentaries on the History Channel about the plights
of native americans...its pretty sad what happened to them..Is there
anyway of re-building the tribes/clans today?

[Sothy]

Ummm, too much time has passed since I started this...I just needed some other perspectives to confirm the below-mentioned opp.

I agree that the Mosuo (and by "above mentioned" in an earlier post I meant them, not KS examples as I don't know how accurate they are in a comtemporary or historical setting) were at the tribal level in terms of SD (ie. red).

[KeJia Sista]

I think this belongs here.
The Untold Story of the Iroquois Influence on Early Feminists
Sally Roesch Wagner
Sky Carrier Press, 1996


"I had been haunted by a question to the past, a mystery of feminist history: How did the radical suffragists come to their vision, a vision not of a Band-Aid reform but of a reconstituted world completely transformed?" p. 1

"In the United States, until women's rights advocates began the painstaking task of changing state laws, a husband had the legal right to batter his wife (to interfere would "upset the domestic tranquillity of the home," one state supreme court held). But suffragists lived as neighbors to men of other nations whose religious, legal, social, and economic concept of women made such behavior unthinkable. Haudenosaunee spiritual practices were spelled out in an oral tradition called the Code of Handsome Lake, which told this cautionary tale (as reported by a white woman who was a contemporary of Stanton and Gage) of what would befall batterers in the afterlife:
[A man] who was in the habit of beating his wife, was led to the red-hot statue of a female, and requested to treat it as he had done his wife. He commenced beating it, and the sparks flew out and were continual burning him. thus would it be done to all who beat their wives." page 3

". . . . shortly after Matilda Joslyn Gage was arrested in 1893 at her home in New York for the "crime" of trying to vote in a school board election, she was adopted into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk nation and given the name Karonienhawi (Sky Carrier). In the Mohawk nation, women alone had the authority to nominate the chief, after counseling with all the people of the clan. What it must have meant to Gage to know of such real-life political power?" page 5

"A Tuscarora chief, Elias Johnson, writing about the absence of rape among Iroquois men in his popular 1881 book, Legends, Traditions and Laws, of the Iroquois, or Six Nations. . . , commented wryly that European men had held the same respect for women "until they became civilized. A Cayuga chief, Dr. Peter Wilson, addressing the New York Historical Society in 1866, encouraged white men to use the occasion of Southern reconstruction to establish universal suffrage, "even of the women, as in his nation." " page 8

"In her important work, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine In American Indian Traditions, Paula Gunn Allen writes:
Beliefs, attitudes, and laws such as these [the Iroquois Confederation] became part of the vision of American feminists and of other human liberation movements around the world. Yet feminists too often believe that no one has ever experienced the kind of society that empowered women and made that empowerment the basis of its rules and civilization. The price the feminist community must pay because it is not aware of the recent presence of gynarchical societies on this continent is necessary confusion, division, and much lost time." page 12

"It was not simply the absence of rights that was the problem, they came to believe. It was the fact that, as Stanton said:
Society is based on this four-fold bondage of woman- Church, State, Capital, and Society - making liberty and equality for her antagonistic to every organized institution." page 17

From pages 22-38: Among rights which women held among the Native American tribes:
1) Children belonged to the mother's tribe, not the father's tribe.
2) If a marriage proves to be an unhappy one, each is at liberty to marry again. What each person brought into the marriage, each take out of the marriage. Women get custody of children.
3) When a man brought the products of the hunt home and gave it to his wife, it was hers to dispose of as she saw fit. Her decisions were absolute, even to the sale of skins.
4) A woman retains control of her possessions at all time, even after marriage. They are hers to sell, give away, or bequeath as she sees fit.
5) Women ruled the house, stores were held in common.
6) Rape and wife-battering were almost unknown.
7) Women had the right to vote.
8 Treaties had to be ratified by 3/4 of all voters and 3/4 of all mothers.
9) Women had the power to impeach a chief (they "removed his horns," the deer's antlers he wore which signified his position.)
10) Women spoke in council meetings.
11) Women could forbid braves from going to war.


Again, the situation was very different for Indian women, as Alice Fletcher explained:
. . . the wife never becomes entirely under the control of her husband. Her kindred have a prior right, and can use that right to separate her from him or to protect her from him, should he maltreat her. The brother who would not rally to the help of his sister would become a by-word among his clan. Not only will he protect her at the risk of his life from insult and injury, but he will seek help for her when she is sick and suffering. . . " page 30

"Fletcher was concerned about what would happen to the Indian women when they became citizens and lost their rights, and were treated with the same legal disrespect as white women, she told the International Council of Women in 1888:
Not only does the woman under our [US] laws lose her independent hold on her property and herself, but there are offenses and injuries which can befall a woman which would be avenged and punished by the relatives under tribal law, but which have no penalty or recognition under our laws. If the Indian brother should, as of old, defend his sister, he would himself become liable to the law and suffer for his championship.

She was referring, of course, to sexual and physical violence against women. Indian men's intolerance of rape was commented upon by many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Indian and non-Indian reporters alike, many of whom contended that rape didn't exist among Indian nations pervious to white contact." page 31

"Minnie Myrtle wrote in 1855 about the Seneca:
The legislative powers of the nation are vested in a Council of eighteen, chosen by the universal suffrages of the nation; but no treaty is to be binding, until it is ratified by three-fourths of all the voters, and three-fourths of all the mothers of the nation! So there was peace instead of war, as there would often be if the voice could be heard! And though the Senecas, in revising their laws and customs, have in a measure acceded to the civilized barbarism of treating the opinions of women with contempt, where their interest is equal, they still cannot sign a treaty without the consent of two-thirds of the mothers!" pages 33- 34

"The India women with whom [ethnologist Alice] Fletcher had contact were well aware of their superior rights:
As I have tried to explain our statutes to Indian women, I have met with but one response. They have said: "As an Indian woman I was free. I owned my home, my person, the work of my own hands, and my children could never forget me. I was better as an Indian woman than under white law." pages 37-38

A nineteenth-century contemporary of Stanton and Gage, Arthur Parker, a Seneca, supported women's rights in part by writing newspaper stories which can be found in the Harriet Maxwell Converse collection, State Museum, Albany, NY.

Ke Jia