Primitive Women

Bribri Women & the Plow - Feminism & the Land

Photo by Jenni Miska on Unsplash

When jobs are scarce, men should have more rights to a job than women.

Those who agree with that statement range widely, from 3.6% (in Iceland) to 99.6% (in Egypt). But why do gender equality views drastically differ from culture to culture? Is it religion, economic stability, or access to education? Although all these factors can play a role, it turns out it’s something politicians can’t (and don’t) touch—the plow.

But before we get into that, I gotta explain why menstruation kindled within me a reverence for matriarchal societies.

Whether or not you believe menstrual cycles are connected to the moon's phases, they’re undeniably magical.

I didn’t talk about my mom’s menstrual cycle until last year. I discovered that throughout her adult life, doctors said she likely wouldn’t have a baby. Her cycle was always irregular and unpredictable until she returned to her birthplace, Argentina. It was the first time in her adult life that she knew when her period would come. She could finally make reliable plans weeks in advance, but several months later, the unexpected happened—she was pregnant with me.

I'm here because of menstruation’s mystique and a woman’s bond to the soil. That’s the same reason we’re all here.

If you read “Butterflies,” you know it took a BriBri woman to make my mother proud of her period. Before that, she was taught to believe it was something dirty, something to be ashamed of.

"In various forms, cacao is used in all ceremonies, and only the woman can prepare and use the sacred drink. You know, when a girl gets her first menstruation, it is honoured and celebrated by the community. She is washed with cacao and learns to take pride in her moon cycles. From a giggling child to a woman capable of giving life. That's how ‘primitive’ peoples celebrate a young woman.”

— From “Butterflies.”

In the West, we don’t do anything to celebrate one of the most critical days in a woman’s life and, therefore, all our lives. Instead, we celebrate “me.”

Modern-day-western-and-mostly-white-woman feminism is inseparable from individualism. It’s all about me. Yes, our world needed a #metoo movement to give men a reality check and women the power to speak up in numbers. But an us vs. them dichotomy doesn’t help to build stronger communities.

Many indigenous women from Latin America don’t identify with these individualist models of ‘feminism.’ Instead, they focus on what one can do for the greater community and, perhaps as the scope naturally broadens, what one can do for the world. That’s the type of feminism prevalent in the Bribri Matriarchy.

The Bribri organize themselves into clans, which are essentially extended families. Their matrilineal system means the mother's clan determines a child's clan. This setup emphasizes women's crucial right to inherit the land and make the sacred cacao drink for rituals.

Yet, it’s not about women exercising their power over men. As the Bribri woman explains to my mother in “Butterflies,” a community is like a bird. The woman is one wing, and the man is the other. To make the community, both wings have to be equal.

Men's roles are shaped by their clan, like being an "awa" (shaman) or "oko" (mortician). Only specific clans can become awapa, and since clan lineage comes from the mother's side, an awa can't teach his own sons but can instruct his female relatives' sons. The education kicks off around age 8 and lasts 10-15 years. Once the man is ready, the ceremony and rites of passage to become an awa must be carried out in front of a woman.

After the ceremony, the awa can serve as spiritual leaders, healers, and repositories of ancient wisdom. During healing sessions, the shaman sings to the spirit trinity—representing the plant, the disease, and the person—establishing a connection and convincing the illness to leave with the help of the plant spirit.

This connection between the people and the land persists today, as those in BriBri reserves continue to utilize natural resources for construction, food, medicine, and dyes.

But do we need to be like the Bribi or have a matriarchy to reconnect our societies to nature?

It seems obvious that those who give life should be in charge of life. Yet, patriarchies have been most prevalent since Indo-European pastoralists fucked matriarchies up by worshiping male gods and venerating warfare.

Some anthropologists suggest that traditional gender roles, specifically women's involvement in pregnancy and childcare, led to their marginalization. Men, with more freedom, could actively participate in cultural practices, technologies, and institutions. Another perspective posits that women's reproductive power may have been perceived as a threat, leading to the development of patriarchy as a system to control and subordinate women.

I’m sure both theories have a grain of truth, but neither gets to the point—our political systems are outgrowths of how we interact with the land.

Boserup argued traditional agricultural practices influenced the historical gender division of labour and the evolution of gender norms. In order to test Boserup's hypothesis, Alberto Alesina, Paola Giuliano, and Nathan Nunn combined pre-industrial ethnographic data, which documented whether societies traditionally engaged in plough agriculture, with contemporary metrics assessing individuals' perspectives on gender roles. They also considered measures of female involvement in activities beyond the household. Controlling for variations across countries, ethnic groups, migration, presence of domesticated animals, religion, and levels of jurisdictional hierarchies, they found a significant positive correlation between historical plough use and present-day unequal gender roles. In other words, Boserup's hypothesis holds up.

But why does the plow put power in the man’s hands?

In contrast to the hoe [insert cheap joke] or digging stick, the plough demands considerable upper body strength, grip strength, and intermittent bursts of power. Due to these specific demands, plough agriculture confers a farming advantage to men over women. This, in turn, contributed to a power dynamic that transcended the agricultural realm and manifested itself in political spheres. And where there’s politics, there’s religion.

Braudel also argued that, historically, religious beliefs were endogenous to the practice of plough agriculture. He describes how the adoption of the plough in Mesopotamia around the fourth millennium BCE was accompanied not only by a movement of women out of agriculture and a shift from matriarchy to patriarchy but also by a change in religious beliefs. There was a shift away from ‘‘the reign of the all-powerful mother goddesses and immemorial fertility cults presided over by priestesses’’ and toward ‘‘male gods and priests.”

If we want to fuck the patriarchy, we need to change the way we interact with the land. We need to undo the Judeo-Christian belief that men are meant to rule over all living things. We need to learn from the indigenous peoples who understood all life is connected and that there’s a fine balance.

It’s no coincidence that many ancient indigenous traditions have no single harvesting stage exclusive to members of one gender, recognize gender fluidity, and have more egalitarian societal structures.

Diversity is how ecosystems and human societies survive, and by creating an equal playing field, we ensure greater diversity. Patriarchal structures have caused a homogeneous hegemony, not just by marginalizing women but also by belittling indigenous and traditional knowledge.

Patriarchal values emphasize power, dominance, and success. If feminist movements adopt these same values, where will that lead us? Instead, we need to focus on community. One way we can do that is through celebration. And a ceremony celebrating a lil blood with a whole lot of cacao seems like a great place to start.

Check out the connected story from Forever Foreign.

Butterflies

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