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<\/p>\nEQUALITY IS ACHIEVED:<\/p>\n
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4) by`leveling mechanisms\u00b4such as mockery or avoidance that assert egalitarian values and reject authority.<\/em><\/p>\n WIDOWS MIMIC WITH CLOWNING HUMOUR<\/p>\n Quoting Jeromev Lewis in the video:<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n (1:12:46) “The widows have a very special place in this society, because they are the only ones who can openly critisize others, but when they do it, they don\u00b4t do it by naming these persons, but reenacting the foolishness that that they have done, and they will do it with great clowning humour. What happens is that the women by gathering need a little break and they put their baskets down and sit down, and by then the two old ladies will get up and start imitatitating the one who did someth\u00edng foolish or stupid.<\/p>\n But they wouldn\u00b4t say who it is and just allow people to watch and and soon people start commenting what was stupid and foolish; and it elicits the whole commetry on what\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>appropriate moral is<\/strong>; not from the old ladies, but from the kids and all the other who are watching. And so suddenly people are becoming aware<\/strong> of what moral behaviour is, but without any moral authority<\/strong> telling it. And the old ladies have got these technique that they wouldn\u00b4t stop reenacting until the moment suddenly someone realise; – Oh shit that\u00b4s me! And everyone is laughing at me. And you then start to feel very ashamed of yourself. But the only way you can stop it is by laughing too.<\/p>\n But when you suddenly realise that you are the center of everybodies mirth, you know its difficult to laugh. But you somehow must come to\u00a0 <\/strong>terms<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0with what you have done, because then its over and thats it.<\/p>\n Sometimes its too much, though, and I often have seen men run off into the forest who cannot take it any longer, embarassed for their kids and their moms and dads and their best mates and everyone else to see what a fool you were last night in bed with your wife. So (maggio?) is really a crucial power that women have.<\/p>\n And if men do it it just causes fights, but when women doing ity its very powerful. So the literal power that women wield in the society is based on their solidarity and their skilled\u00a0ability to mimic other people. And mimicry; imitating is really crucial to this power. By contrast men\u00b4s political power is derived from their brawn, from the strength they use to chase down these big dangerous animals and kill them. And the techniques they use for that is imitation; to mimic the large animals so that they will come out and can be hunted more quickly.”<\/p>\n 4) by `leveling mechanisms\u00b4such as mockery or avoidance that assert egalitarian values and reject authority.<\/strong><\/p>\n So the hunter Bena Songo before he was exiled was teased, was insulted, he was made a mockery about by all the people in the camp at various points, and people would leave the camp,they didn\u00b4t want to have anything to do with him, because he was hunting so much. People who boast and make themselves big and important, very quickly find themselves all alone, because other peoples don\u00b4t want to put up with, it, as it is just considered rude and insulting. And people very explicitly reject authority and will for instance in their relations with their outsiders who are very hierarchical quite often tease and make a public mockery of the attempts to authority that these outsiders are trying to impose on them. Thats these sorts of grounds of what happens in egalitarian societies.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to the fundamental requisites for achieving and maintaining an egalitarian society, identified by James Woodburn,\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>and exemplified by\u00a0the RAG- anthropologist Jerome Lewis<\/a><\/strong> in his lecture Egalitarian Gender Relation<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>how they are practised by the hunter and gatherer \u00a0Batek<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>and Mbendjele-people<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>in the African rainforest\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n MY COMMENT:<\/p>\n Although Jerome Lewis seem to avoid the word “matriarchy”, I think it it is fairly obvious that the hunter and gatherer-socities he describes \u00a0fit very well in to the definition of “matriarchy” elaborated by Heide G\u00f6ttner Abendroth and can be read here:<\/p>\n\n