by Max Dashu A circle dance painted in ochre, near Escalante, Utah. Not making any gender claims for this one, but it had to be included! You can see vandals have gouged, and possibly shot, at the ancient art. Such attacks are unfortunately all too common in the U.S., stemming from a long-standing hostility to [...]

by Max Dashu All the school and media emphasis on European history barely grazes huge areas, such as women in rock art. Spain has some stunning examples of women dancing in groups, such as this rock shelter mural at the site Moriscas III. They dance with their arms raised in a forest setting. Helechel region [...]

by Max Dashu A circle of women with ceremonial staffs (possibly the same as their digging sticks) at Genaadeberg, Orange Free State, east-central South Africa. I really wish this was a photo; the drawing only hints at the original. The central panel could be a scene of women heading out to gather food, but dancers [...]

by Max Dashu The Sahara has many very ancient rock murals of women dancing or walking in ritual procession. This one is from the Tassili-n-Ajjer region of southern Algeria, dating from about 6000-4000 bce. (That’s no  error; these are really old.) The women are “painted up” in yellow ochre, in patterns seen in many other [...]

So busy, i haven’t posted for months, but here’s a recent photo essay from the Suppressed Histories Archives Facebook page.  To avoid confusion: descriptions and commentary appear under each image. Enjoy… —Max Dashu Women’s circle dance in bronze age rock art from Zerovschan, Tajikistan, with numinous quadrant in center. They appear to be wearing skirts, [...]

Max Dashu I encountered the book I’m about to discuss here while searching for more information on the Winnemem Wintu medicine women. I had learned of religious and land rights struggles that this north California people was going through (more on this below) and a web search turned up an excellent discussion in Peter Nabokov’s [...]

Recently I’ve been looking at a lot of rock art, trying to uncover ancient history in Africa, Australia, and North America. One of the richest finds so far has been in southern New Mexico, which has a tremendous amount of petroglyphs and rock paintings. This has also opened up the Mogollon cultures (named after a [...]

THANKS to all the donors who have helped to fund production of Woman Shaman: the Ancients. Here they are, except for the 17 anonymous donors — along with some images planned for inclusion in my forthcoming movie. Here’s the preliminary trailer for Woman Shaman… Laura Janesdaughter Jeanne Raines Lydia Ruyle Nonnie of Spirit Matters Atava [...]

Not a book review, since I haven’t read the whole book, but here is some interesting information about women’s ritual and Divine Mothers in lower Congo from: Phyllis Martin, Catholic Women of Congo-Brazzaville: Mothers and Sisters in Troubled Times. Indiana University Press, 2009. Martin has turned up some important testimony about women’s traditional medicine and [...]

The Goddess on a Lion Throne is abundantly attested in the archaeology of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Canaan/Israel. First we’ll look at some Phoenician scarabs showing lion thrones, often winged. Then, actual stone thrones from ancient Lebanon, Canaanite ivories with the winged sphinxes, and an alabaster effigy of ‘Ashtart enthroned with winged lionesses. This leads [...]

Continuing my photo essay and review of Kristina Michelle Wimber’s article “Four Greco-Roman Temples of Fertility Goddesses: An Analysis of Architectural Tradition,” 2007. Atargatis Wimber compares the temples of Atargatis at Hierapolis and Dura Europos, Syria, with another on the Aegean island Delos, a Jordanian goddess temple at Khirbet et-Tannur, and the Derketo temple at [...]

Photo Essay and Review of Kristina Michelle Wimber’s article “Four Greco-Roman Temples of Fertility Goddesses: An Analysis of Architectural Tradition,” 2007 Thesis BYU. (See notes for full info and other sources cited) Max Dashu “They give the shout, ‘O Ishtar, be merciful!’ and in the melée praise the Mistress.” –Assyrian poem It is often difficult [...]

The richness and complexity of women’s history: the artist-philosophers who created magnificent scriptures of signs in neolithic ceramics, the python-oracles of southeast African rain shrines, the female clan heads of the Mosuo in Yunnan. Legends tell of women who invented agriculture, who founded peoples, cities, or religions. Rebel priestesses like Muhumusa in Uganda or Veleda [...]

Max Dashú It’s difficult to define “shaman,” because it is culturally variable in so many ways, but we need a basic general description. I see “shaman” as belonging to a continuum of many names and roles: medicine woman, oracle, prophetess, diviner, dreamer; priestess, raindancer, communicant with ancestors, deities, Nature spirits; trance-dancer, shapeshifter, spirit-rider, cosmonaut. Countless [...]

More excerpts from Brinton’s 1989 Nagualism (see previous posts), with my comments in italics… Fr Nicolas de Leon on the deep reverence for Fire: “If any of their old superstitions has remained more deeply rooted than another in the hearts of these Indians, both men and women, it is this about fire and its worship, [...]

Continuing with excerpts from Brinton’s 1989 Nagualism (see previous post) with my comments in italics As is nearly always the case, the shamans are described in negative and demonized terms. Even so, the outlines of the description below correspond to shamanic healing methods. The learned historian, Orozco y Berra, speaks of the powers attributed at [...]

I’m going to share some information from an old book which is a rich source on Mexican and Central American shamans and their cosmologies: Daniel G. Brinton, Nagualism. A Study Of Native American Folk-Lore And History. Philadelphia: Maccalla & Company, 1894. The language, while Victorian and somewhat romanticized in places, is less racist and sexist [...]

I can’t stand it. For some time I’ve been thinking that something needs to be said about the the toxic femininity scripts   creeping into “Goddess” imagery, mass-media contamination, and all in the name of women’s empowerment. These posed, stilted, playmate-like “goddesses”, sticking their breasts out and pouting like lipstick models are all over the net. [...]

I’ve always been captivated by Bernadette Soubirous, the visionary of Lourdes, and recently came across a book Bernadette Speaks (2000) by a French cleric who was involved in Vatican proceedings for her beatification. It’s dry as dust considering the inspirational power of her story, and annoying for the way he excuses the vicious treatment Bernadette [...]

Excerpted from article © 2011 Max Dashú    Download pdf of full article ‘We rise to heaven and brush away the comets,’ said a shamaness in her song. The strong pattern of female shamans in eastern Asia has been erased from the history that most people know. Yet women predominated in shamanism of ancient China, Japan, [...]

The Kunama have withstood repeated invasions and raids from more powerful, more patriarchal neighbors. Outsiders often call them by the depreciating name Barià, meaning slaves. For three centuries the Kunama were forced to pay tribute to the Funj empire of Sudan, who also took many of them captive and enslaved them. This traumatic history colors [...]

More from Gianni Dore, “Chi non ha una parente Andinna?”. Donne e possessione come archivio storico ed esperienza dell’alterità tra i Kunama d’Eritrea.” Online: http://www.ethnorema.it/pdf/numero 3/04. GIANNI DORE.pdf [Excerpts in quotes; some of my commentary is in italics.] The title of this article comes from the exclamation, “Who does not have an Andinna relative?” It [...]

I’m going to present and comment on excerpts from an Italian article: “Chi non ha una parente Andinna?” by Gianni Dore, http://www.ethnorema.it/pdf/numero 3/04. GIANNI DORE.pdf This direct Kunama testimony about the Andinnas was recorded and transcribed decades ago by colonial and church officials. Dore presents it in the Kunama with Italian translation. The orginal titles [...]

At the Spiritual Politics Conference in Germany in May 2010, one of the highlights was a film about the Andinna, an all-female community of trance healers and seers among the Kunama. This matrilineal, matrilocal people lives in  the borderlands of Ertitrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Below is information from my scribbled notes from the film (necessarily [...]

One of the obstacles in researching women is the old language of masculine default, that enshrouds women in a supposedly universal  “man” or “men.” The phallacy of this becomes apparent anytime it’s necessary to differentiate between male and female: “One important  difference between man and other primates is that he menstruates instead of going into [...]

The ancestors of the Quechua, eight siblings, emerged from the Pacaritambo cave and wandered the land of Perú. One of their chiefs was Mama Huaco, “a woman exceedingly strong and skillful.” She took two golden staffs and hurled them toward the north to divine where the ayllu-s (clans) should settle. One fell in Colcabamba, but [...]

This is a review of Ben Whitmore’s Trials of the Moon: Reopening the Case for Historical Witchcraft. A Critique of Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Auckland: Aotearoa / New Zealand, 2010 http://www.goodgame.org.nz/trialsofthemoonexcerpt.pdf I am glad someone took on the task of providing a detailed critique of Hutton’s book. [...]

Amazing: i found yet another medicine woman who led a revolt against colonial rule, Mekatilili of the Giriama in coastal Kenya. She “was noted as a charismatic speaker who commanded respect.” She convoked the Giriama to take oaths and offer sacrifices to restore their sovereignty. Mekatilili wa Menza was born in the 1840s,  the only [...]

I’m finally making it into the blogosphere, still on that learning curve and tweaking the site. After using the Suppressed Histories Facebook page for over a year, I thought it was past time to move to a more open netwide searchable format which allows more flexibility in post length and graphics display (cuz the images [...]

This blog is named after a word for prophetic women in some of my ancestral traditions (Celtic and Dutch). Veleda is best known as a revolutionary Bructerian priestess who prophesied and presided over a tribal European insurrection against Roman rule in the years 69-70 CE. (See below) Although Roman writers such as Tacitus reported Veleda [...]