HAGIA International Academy<\/a>\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
S H O R T \u00a0 D E \u00a0F I N I T I O N\u00a0<\/p>\n
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“Matriarchies are not just a reversal of patriarchy, with women ruling over men \u2013\u00a0as the usual misinterpretation would have it.<\/p>\n
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Matriarchies are mother-centered societies, they are based on maternal values: care-taking, nurturing, motherliness, which holds for everybody: for mothers and those who are not mothers, for women and men alike.<\/p>\n
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Matriarchal societies are consciously built upon these maternal values and motherly work, and this is why they are much more realistic than patriarchies. They are, on principle, need-oriented. Their precepts aim to meet everyone\u2019s needs with the greatest benefit. So, in matriarchies, mothering \u2013 which originates as a biological fact \u2013 is transformed into a cultural model.<\/p>\n
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This model is much more appropriate to the human condition than the way patriarchies conceptualise motherhood and use it to make women, and especially mothers, into slaves.”<\/strong>
\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Agueda:<\/p>\n
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Boy\u00e9Bijag\u00f3: \u00a0Society is very peaceful and no one remembers any crime of violence or blood done earlier.<\/p>\n
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Bordonaro:<\/p>\n
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Scantamburlo:<\/p>\n
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Lundy:<\/p>\n
T H E \u00a0D E E P \u00a0 S T R U C T U R E <\/p>\n
\u00a0of \u201cmatriarchal society\u201d (a structural definition):<\/p>\n
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“With matriarchal cultures, equality means more than just a levelling of\u00a0differences.\u00a0Natural differences between the genders and the generations are respected\u00a0and honoured, but they never serve to create hierarchies, as is common in patriarchy.<\/p>\n
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The different genders and generations have their own dignity, and through complementary\u00a0areas of activity, they function in concert one other. More precisely, matriarchies are societies\u00a0with complementary equality, where great care is taken to provide a balance. This applies to
\nthe balance between genders, among generations and between humans and nsature.<\/p>\n
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Maternal values as ethical principles pervade all areas of a matriarchal society. \u00a0It creates an attitude of care-taking, nurturing, and peacemaking.<\/p>\n
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This can be observed on all levels of society on the economic level,\u00a0\u00a0the social level, the politival level and the areas of their worldview and faiths<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t![\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild](\"http:\/\/mmstudies.com\/matriarchies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/08\/Sk\u00e4rmavbild-2017-08-31-kl.-22.32.30.png\" "\\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild")
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DEFINITION OF A “MATRIARCHAL SOCIETY”<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nAt the economic level<\/strong>, matriarchies are most often agricultural societies, but not exclusively so. Goods are distributed according to a system that is identical with the lines of kinship and the patterns of marriage. This system prevents goods from being accumulated by one special person or one special group. Thus, the principles of equality are consciously kept up, and the society is egalitarian and non-accumulating.<\/em><\/p>\n______________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n
The economy on the Bijagos islands is still selfsusta and built upon cultivating rise and some other vegatables, fishing anfd gathering; especially oisters in the mangove, as well as breeding of cows, pigs and goats as well as the giftgiviong economcal principle in wich .<\/p>\n
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The Bijag\u00f3s is an archipelago of 88 tropical islands \u2013 the largest archipelago in Africa \u2013 off the coast of Guinea Bissau. Around only twenty\u00a0of them are inhabited and the whole region has been a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 1996. The people\u00a0of the islands are quite distinct from\u00a0the mainland population, mainly thanks to the distance and time it takes to reach by boat. As a consequence, many of the islands\u00a0have developed in isolation and traditions have remained intact.<\/p>\n
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Most of the inhabitants of the Bijag\u00f3s islands subsist with incomes from farming and fishing. The boats are often simple wooden structures and, without access to new technologies, the fishermen navigate by the sun (or stars).<\/p>\n
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Orango is the largest of the Bijag\u00f3s\u00a0islands and contains a huge diversity of ecosystems, including savannah grassland and swamps. This tree, literally dripping with weaver bird nests, is on the shores of leech-infested swamp water. The birds create elaborate, pouch-like nests from leaf fibres, twigs and grass and happily live alongside much larger birds like egrets as well as the crocodiles and hippos in the waters below.<\/p>\n
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From a political point of view<\/strong>, matriarchies are societies with perfect mutuality. Every advantage or disadvantage concerning the acquisition of goods is mediated by social rules. For example, at the village festivals, wealthy clans are obliged to invite all inhabitants. They organize the banquet, at which they distribute their wealth to gain honor. Therefore, on the economic level they produce a balanced economy, and so I call matriarchies societies of economic reciprocity.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
A population living in the region makes decisions in the same way: delegates from all villages meet to discuss the decisions of their communities. Again, the delegates function only as bearers of communication. In such cases, it is usually men who are elected by their villages. In contrast to the frequent ethnological mistakes made about these men, they are not the “chiefs” and do not, in fact, decide.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Every village, and in every village every clan-house, is involved in the process of making the decision, until consensus is reached on the regional level.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Therefore, from the political point of view, I call matriarchies egalitarian societies of consensus.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
These political patterns do not allow the accumulation of political power. In exactly this sense, they are free from domination: They have no class of rulers and no class of suppressed people; that is, the enforcement bodies that are necessary to establish domination are unknown to them.<\/em><\/p>\n______________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n
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According to the Italian anthroplogist Luigi Scarambo, as well as the Spanish anthropologists Anna Boy\u00e9 and Gomez<\/p>\n
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At the<\/strong> social level<\/strong>, matriarchies are based on a union of the extended clan. The people live together in big clans, which are formed according to the principle of matrilineality; that is, kinship is acknowledged exclusively in the female line. The clan’s name, and all social positions and political titles, are passed on through the mother’s line. Such a matri-clan consists at least of three generations of women: the clan-mother, her daughters, her granddaughters, and the directly related men: the brothers of the mother, and her sons and grandsons. Generally, the matri-clan lives in one big clan-house, which holds anywhere from 10 to more than 100 persons, depending on size and architectural style. The women live there permanently, because daughters and granddaughters never leave the clan-house of their mother when they marry. This is called matrilocality.<\/em><\/p>\nWhat is most important is the fact that women have the power of disposition over the goods of the clan, especially the power to control the sources of nourishment: fields and food. This characteristic feature, besides matrilinearity and matrilocality, grants women such a strong position that these societies are “matriarchal.” (Anthropologists do not make a distinction between merely matrilineal, and clearly matriarchal societies. This continues to produce great confusion.)<\/strong>
\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nThe clans are connected to each other by the patterns of marriage, especially the system of mutual marriage between two clans. Mutual marriage between two clans is not marriage between individuals, but rather a communal marriage. The married people do not leave the houses of their mothers, but practice visiting marriage. Due to additional patterns of marriage between all clans, everyone in a matriarchal village or a matriarchal town is eventually related to everyone else by birth or by marriage.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Therefore, I call matriarchies non-hierarchical, horizontal societies of matrilineal kinship.<\/strong>
\n \u00a0<\/strong>
\n Even the process of making a political decision is organized along the lines of matriarchal kinship.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
In the clan-house, women and men meet in a council where domestic matters are discussed. No member of the household is excluded. After thorough discussion, each decision is taken by consensus. The same is true for the entire village: if matters concerning the whole village have to be discussed, delegates from every clan-house meet in the village council. These delegates can be the oldest women of the clans (the matriarchs), or the brothers and sons they have chosen to represent the clan. No decision concerning the whole village may be taken without the consensus of all clan-houses. This means that the delegates who are discussing the matter are not the ones who make the decision. It is not in this council that the policy of the village is made, because the delegates function only as bearers of communication. If the council notices that some clan-houses are of a different opinion, the delegates return to the clan-houses to discuss matters further. In this way, consensus is reached in the whole village, step by step.<\/em><\/p>\n____________________________________________________<\/p>\n
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On the<\/strong> cultural level<\/strong>, matriarchal societies do not have the concept of religious transcendence in terms of an unseen, untouchable, and incomprehensible all-powerful God, in contrast to whom the world is devalued as dead matter. In matriarchy, divinity is immanent, for the whole world is regarded as divine. This is evident in the concept of the universe as a goddess who created everything, and of Mother Earth, who brings forth everything living. And everything is endowed with divinity \u2013 the smallest pebble and the biggest star, each woman and man, each blade of grass and each mountain.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
In such a culture, everything is spiritual. In their festivals, following the rhythms of the seasons, everything is celebrated: nature in its manifold expressions, the different clans with their different abilities and tasks, the different genders and the different generations, following the principle of “wealth in diversity.” There is no separation between sacred and secular; so everyday tasks such as planting and harvesting, cooking and weaving are, at the same time, meaningful rituals.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
On the spiritual level, I define matriarchies as sacred societies and cultures of the Goddess.<\/strong><\/p>\n___________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n
“Matriarchy Presents us a well Balanced, Egalitarian and Peaceful Society without Wars and the Rule of Dominance”<\/strong><\/p>\nTo this could be said that all reports agree about the Bijagos being well balanced societies regarding their environment being classifies as<\/p>\n
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Neither there seem to have been wars among the different Bijagos inhabitants themeselves or with he people living on the mainland.<\/p>\n
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At the other hand they seem to have been more prone to and capable of defending themselves against \u00a0colonial rule by the Germans and Portugeese than many others, as the successfully resisted their takeover up until some decades in the beginning of the 19th century<\/p>\n
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But when it comes to the questions about these societies being egalitarian and nonhierarchical with neither sex dominating the other the opinion varies the more. But to the well informed MMS-trainee that\u00b4s nothing to get confused about as that\u00b4s the normal proceedure \u00a0among the established male stream scholars; All societies are assessed as hierarchical and \u00a0dominated by men whatsoever. \u00a0And there is nothing they ever agreed so much about, as the fact that there never ever has been a matriarchy (although not even knowing \u00a0what is meant thereby – as they never cared to work out a scientifically aprovable definition thereof)<\/p>\n
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By a quick glance at a traditional Bijago village, as you for example might have in some of the videos at youtube, (linkede to further down) and its inhabitants you immidierately get the impression of its being a typical traditional African village \u00a0with no exterior signs of a \u00a0hierarchical class society with great differences between rich and poor or a male dominated one with inferior and subdued women, as for example in many arabic countries, where they have to veil themselves or hide brehind closed doors. Quite the contrary everyone, both men and women as well as the children \u00a0seem to be jaunty and undaunted,\u00a0signalling a proud self esteem and joyful attitude, treating the tourists with benignant but definitively not any kind of subduing dignity.<\/p>\n
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Another thing that\u00b4s notable \u00a0among the established scholars is the unlogical \u00a0carriage prevailing close under surface of certitude, that strongly contravene their fix idea about the non-existence of matriarchy, \u00a0is their at the other hand evident fear of the matriarchs striking back in revenge; most explicit \u00a0in Cynthia Ellers describing the so called “matriarchalists” as the one hand as \u00a0 and at the other as a greeat threat to our culture and civilisation. Many women seem to thrive in the role of Florence Nightinggale, protecting men from matriarchalist witches such as you are supposed to find among the the primitive barbarians in Africa for example, to whom it is our duty to passing on decent values.<\/p>\n
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So my first hypothesis is that the Bijago socities are as matriarxhal as many other african socities of similar kind, and that the fiorst A has distorted facts and that L tengroth eithewr has done the same or misenterpret a loy of situations dur to being totally okunnig om deras spritual life and rituals..<\/p>\n
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Signs of that is her talk about Coiffures and festkl\u00e4der. prat om utsseende utseendefixerring vackra m\u00e4n kvinnor inte vackra etc etyc.<\/p>\n
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Growing up genderneutral doresn\u00b4t seem compatible with their idea oif keeping men as slaves.<\/p>\n
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A third hypothesis would be that he people that T met in the 70\u00b4s hgad been greatly dgenererad och sp\u00e5rat ur totalt, which doesnt\u00b4t seem very credible though as .<\/p>\n
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As I finf it important because of … I have vbeern in copntact with T and ALG biut they dont want to ansewer.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t![\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild](\"http:\/\/mmstudies.com\/matriarchies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/08\/Sk\u00e4rmavbild-2017-08-30-kl.-20.29.54.png\" "\\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild")
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Marianne Lindberg De Geer<\/p>\n
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Jag blir mer och mer nyfiken p\u00e5 vad det var f\u00f6r \u00f6 och folkgrupp som Leyla Assaf Tengroth st\u00f6tte p\u00e5 d\u00e4r i Bijagos. F\u00f6r \u00e4nnu har jag inte funnit minsta lilla tecken p\u00e5 ngt annat \u00e4n vanliga matriarkat i hela omr\u00e5det och de lever fortfarande efter samma v\u00e4l inrutade gamla livsm\u00f6nster som alltid och \u00e4r beskrivna in i minsta detalj i Heide G\u00f6ttner Abendroth vetenskapligt framtagna definition av “matriarkat”. I dem finns inget f\u00f6rtryck av m\u00e4nnen och de knuffas aldrig ut att leva ensamma i utkanten av bygemenskapen utan de bor ju tillsammans med sin egen modersklan d\u00e4r de utg\u00f6r sociala f\u00e4der till sina systrars barn. P\u00e5 fackspr\u00e5k har det d\u00e4r tidigare kallats “avunkulat” och antagits fungera p\u00e5 samma s\u00e4tt som patriarkat, fast med all makt hos morbr\u00f6derna ist\u00e4llet f\u00f6r f\u00e4derna.<\/p>\n
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Den som har l\u00e4st Briffaults gigantiska kartl\u00e4ggning \u00f6ver jordens alla matrilineala folkgrupper i b\u00f6rjan av f\u00f6rra seklet vet ju dessutom att f\u00f6rbindelser utanf\u00f6r “\u00e4ktenskapet” varit legio och det ifr\u00e5n b\u00e5da parters h\u00e5ll sas. Inte bara kvinnorna har d\u00e4rmed skaffat sig \u00e4lskare vid sidan om utan det har skett p\u00e5 \u00f6msesidig basis. De biologiska f\u00e4derna har hunnit gifta om sig m\u00e5nga g\u00e5nger om innan de hinner f\u00f6rsvinna fr\u00e5n detta livets goda och barnen stannar d\u00e4rvid alltid i mammans familj= matrilinearitet.<\/p>\n
Matriarchies (Matriarcados). Anna Boy\u00e9. Resumen documental Bijag\u00f3s. Guinea Bissau.
\nyoutube.com<\/p>\n
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Marianne Lindberg De Geer \/ Tengroths “forskning”: “Kvinnorna i byn sitter i m\u00f6te n\u00e4r vi n\u00e4rmar oss bytorget. De ignorerar oss. De sitter i ring, det p\u00e5g\u00e5r n\u00e5got slags m\u00f6te, de \u00e4r kl\u00e4dda i kjol, br\u00f6sten h\u00e4nger nakna. Det finns inget kokett med dem, inga smycken, inga fantasifulla h\u00e5rupps\u00e4ttningar som hos m\u00e4nnen. Kvinnornas frisyrer \u00e4r korta och naturliga. Flera av dem har pipa i munnen och en f\u00f6r oss typiskt manlig h\u00e5llning. Genom det naturliga urvalet \u00e4r m\u00e4nnen mycket vackra, medan kvinnornas utseenden inte \u00e4r det, med v\u00e5ra m\u00e5tt m\u00e4tt.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nJa ni ser ju sj\u00e4lva den stora skillnaden!<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t![\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild](\"http:\/\/mmstudies.com\/matriarchies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/08\/Sk\u00e4rmavbild-2017-08-31-kl.-22.30.37.png\" "\\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild")
\n\t\t\t\t![\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild](\"http:\/\/mmstudies.com\/matriarchies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/08\/Sk\u00e4rmavbild-2017-08-31-kl.-22.30.44.png\" "\\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild")
\n\t\t\t\t![\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild](\"http:\/\/mmstudies.com\/matriarchies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/08\/Sk\u00e4rmavbild-2017-08-31-kl.-22.34.56.png\" "\\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild")
\n\t\t\t\t![\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild](\"http:\/\/mmstudies.com\/matriarchies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/08\/Sk\u00e4rmavbild-2017-08-30-kl.-00.16.48.png\" "\\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild")
\n\t\t\t\t![\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild](\"http:\/\/mmstudies.com\/matriarchies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/08\/Sk\u00e4rmavbild-2017-08-31-kl.-22.33.40.png\" "\\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild")
\n\t\t\t\t![\"iles_bijagos_15l\"](\"http:\/\/mmstudies.com\/matriarchies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/08\/iles_bijagos_15l.jpg\" "\\"iles_bijagos_15l\\"")
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Becoming Bijago\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
It was at a soccer tournament in the port town of Bubaque. The team from Etimbato Village was accompanied by a group of young women.
\nTo cheer on their team, several of these women tapped handheld drums. The drums produced low tones – like a fisherman’s plastic gasoline container bouncing around a rocky shoreline. The other women chanted in high happy voices. The chants were repetitive, and each chant ended with a long and soothing, musical note.
\nThe upper thighs and healthy African buttocks of each woman were concealed by two rings made of hundreds of hanging sticks. The bottom ring had been dyed black. The upper ring was purple or brown or white, and black. I felt the tiny sticks of one woman’s skirt; they seemed strong and sturdy, like tiny bamboo. These perfect skirts made their wearers much more special, in my eyes, than people wearing factory-made clothes.
\nMany of Etimbato’s women also wore anklets. Eight or nine stones were tied loosely around their left ankles. When the women stomped, bare-foot, around the drummers, the stones clacked together to make a tambourine sound.<\/p>\n
A few days later, I went at night to visit the school where the young men and women who’d come for the soccer tournament were staying. Every evening, there was a party.
\nThree girls stood playing simple rhythms on low-pitched drums. Sometimes, the rhythms became complex, brief jams. “A-tap tap a-tap-tap-tap.”
\nTwenty girls moved in a circle around the drummers, in this night without electricity illuminated by the full moon. They slouched their shoulders and bent forward as they stepped. Sometimes, they stepped backwards, pushing their butts into the laps of the girls behind them. Other times, they turned their butts outward from the circle and faced inward and stomped around.<\/p>\n
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The way they kept circling in one direction, it gave me vertigo; it felt like they were performing black magic. They often kept a fire going in the center of the circle. It felt like they were the hostile natives celebrating my capture.<\/p>\n
As they slouched and strutted around the circle, the girls wore smiles of confidence, as if this were the absolute correct thing they were born to do, proud of their heritage.<\/p>\n
![\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild](\"http:\/\/mmstudies.com\/matriarchies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/08\/Sk\u00e4rmavbild-2017-08-31-kl.-19.53.54.png\" "\\"Sk\u00e4rmavbild")
<\/p>\n![\"guinea-bissau-carnival-procession-edit\"](\"http:\/\/mmstudies.com\/matriarchies\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/09\/guinea-bissau-carnival-procession-edit.jpg\" "\\"guinea-bissau-carnival-procession-edit\\"")
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