Re: chimpanzeehood and human nature
The gist of my statement was, that all societies which were controlled by the owners of private property created a culture where women were part of the property-relations to make heritage of property possible. Do you dispute that nomadic and agricultural societies fall into this category- not mentioning here the obvious feudal/slave/bourgois structures. We are still fighting the massive remnents of these cultures that denied the freedom and equality of women, and we still have a long way to go... even if your (unfortunately) miniscule community appearantly has a different history. I don't think anyone is qualified to speak for the "magyars" or the "brits" or the "zulu nation", as all of these represent a multitude of attitudes, religions, customs, politics etc. I am not speaking "for" anybody, but sum up some obvious patterns that persist in most societies. Eva (Hary Janos is ok... just an afterthought for the notion that teaching music would somehow make a revolution in thinking: it happened through the Kodaly system in a few countries; didn't make much difference except creating a few generations who could sing more songs, learned enjoyed music, produced more than the average number of good musicians. No revolution.) Eva, my apologies for not catching this post which was before my past one asking for a reply. My server only gave this post to me today for some reason. The Great Civilizations in North America were nearly all matrilineal including the Long House Houdinosaunee who gave Ben Franklin the systems that are the foundations of the U.S. Constitution. (They didn't accept the matrilineal element but did include a great deal of the "Great Law of Peace" in the Constitution).The exception to this may be the Pueblo peoples. I have called a Hopi friend of mine on that and hope he can tell me more about their very complicated formulas, however, I am not enthusiastic about my ability to comprehend. My own people the Cherokee were until 1828 Matrilineal at which point they realized that they would not survive without at least trying assimilation. So they met, drafted a written constitution and formed a mirror government to the U.S. Government including changing women's equality and property rights. (Needless to say this made the women go into a 150 year depression, only remedied with a return to traditional values and spiritual practices.) It didn't make any difference the "crackers" still stole the plantations, the cotton and fruit plantations and the herds of thoroughbred horses, sold them for pennies and marched the Cherokee to Oklahoma on a death march. Orphaning my great-grandfather in the process. The greatest City of North America was at Kahokia and was matrilineal as were all of the Mound Builder cultures.The great cultures of the Southeast and the Navajo in the Southwest were as well.The Great Speaker at Tenochtitlan was originally matrilineal although the reform of Tlacelel calls that into doubt at the time of Cortez. Some of the more nomadic cultures were not. Unfortunately those cultures are the ones that the movies and anthropologists wrote about. They were the more romantic of the bunch as opposed to people like the first psycho-linguist Sequoia (Cherokee) or Ely Parker. "Donehogawa" (Seneca) who was the gatekeeper of the Iroquois Confederacy a Lieutenant of Grant in the Civil War and the head of the Department of Indian Affairs. He was also a very wealthy engineer. The ways of Washington and the games with the "Indian Wars" out west were so discouraging that he resigned and continued both his business and his traditional ways.So you can take it from me. We were and are matrilineal inspite of and long before Rousseau and John Locke. As for the Inca. There are many new books being written by the people themselves and I would refer to those before taking the invaders words for much.But they are not my people and I won't speak for them.I would do the same for the Magyars even though I have sung Hary Janos and studied with Otto Herz and Bela Rozsa. Now that all being said, I re-state the original question: how do you justify your opinion about all women everywhere as property with the fact that in most Native American communities the women owned the property and could put the husband out of the marriage by simply putting his shoes in the door? Ray Evans Harrell Eva Durant wrote: I think this must be the exception, in tribes where the idea of surplus/private property of the means of production such as land and the separation of of work did not occur. I don't remember any such matriarchal structures mentioned in the inca and other city-dwelling or nomadic ancient americans. Westerners yearn so much for an idyll of back to nature, that they tend to re-create some of the "ancient" customs that were disrupted by their very
Re: chimpanzeehood and human nature
Ray is right about the relationship of matrilinearity and male dominance. Women always know who their children are - men can never be sure. In fact, recent research shows that women secret a selective spermicide in the uterus that favours conception by the *non*-regular partner - presumably to enhance genetic diversity and therefore species survivability. The patrilineal preoccupation with controlling female behaviour must stem from the need to pass on property exclusively to "rightful" heirs, whereas in matrilineal societies there is no such need. In matrilineal African cultures, for example, children "belong" to the mother, not the father, although the mother's brother assumes responsiblity for protection. In such societies there far fewer rules regarding emale sexual behaviour and property, and incidentally, fewer stigmatized sexual practices such as prostitution, since there are fewer reasons for women to be cast out of the family circle. I do think there's a relationship between stable agricultural capacity and matrilinearity and between pastoralism/ nomadism and patrilinearity. I wonder if Chinese culture which is now so patriarchal was that way before the Mongol invasions. There is plenty of evidence that ancient Hindu culture was originally very different. And even Christianity was egalitarian until Constatine took it up with a vengeance. I strongly recommend Riane Eisler's "The Chalice and the Blade" for the literature that leads to these conclusions. At 04:53 PM 27/08/98 -0700, Ray E. Harrell wrote: Eva, my apologies for not catching this post which was before my past one asking for a reply. My server only gave this post to me today for some reason. The Great Civilizations in North America were nearly all matrilineal including the Long House Houdinosaunee who gave Ben Franklin the systems that are the foundations of the U.S. Constitution. (They didn't accept the matrilineal element but did include a great deal of the "Great Law of Peace" in the Constitution).The exception to this may be the Pueblo peoples. I have called a Hopi friend of mine on that and hope he can tell me more about their very complicated formulas, however, I am not enthusiastic about my ability to comprehend. My own people the Cherokee were until 1828 Matrilineal at which point they realized that they would not survive without at least trying assimilation. So they met, drafted a written constitution and formed a mirror government to the U.S. Government including changing women's equality and property rights. (Needless to say this made the women go into a 150 year depression, only remedied with a return to traditional values and spiritual practices.) It didn't make any difference the "crackers" still stole the plantations, the cotton and fruit plantations and the herds of thoroughbred horses, sold them for pennies and marched the Cherokee to Oklahoma on a death march. Orphaning my great-grandfather in the process. The greatest City of North America was at Kahokia and was matrilineal as were all of the Mound Builder cultures.The great cultures of the Southeast and the Navajo in the Southwest were as well.The Great Speaker at Tenochtitlan was originally matrilineal although the reform of Tlacelel calls that into doubt at the time of Cortez. Some of the more nomadic cultures were not. Unfortunately those cultures are the ones that the movies and anthropologists wrote about. They were the more romantic of the bunch as opposed to people like the first psycho-linguist Sequoia (Cherokee) or Ely Parker. "Donehogawa" (Seneca) who was the gatekeeper of the Iroquois Confederacy a Lieutenant of Grant in the Civil War and the head of the Department of Indian Affairs. He was also a very wealthy engineer. The ways of Washington and the games with the "Indian Wars" out west were so discouraging that he resigned and continued both his business and his traditional ways.So you can take it from me. We were and are matrilineal inspite of and long before Rousseau and John Locke. As for the Inca. There are many new books being written by the people themselves and I would refer to those before taking the invaders words for much.But they are not my people and I won't speak for them.I would do the same for the Magyars even though I have sung Hary Janos and studied with Otto Herz and Bela Rozsa. Now that all being said, I re-state the original question: how do you justify your opinion about all women everywhere as property with the fact that in most Native American communities the women owned the property and could put the husband out of the marriage by simply putting his shoes in the door? Ray Evans Harrell Eva Durant wrote: I think this must be the exception, in tribes where the idea of surplus/private property of the means of production such as land and the separation of of work did not occur. I don't remember any such matriarchal structures mentioned in the inca and other
