After three years laboring in the tech trenches, my new video on medicine women around the world is finally here. It reveals a rich (and long disregarded) cultural record of medicine women, oracles, healers, trance-dancers, shapeshifters, drummers, and dreamers, with commentary and music. I dug through libraries, journals, the internet and my own archives to [...]

Nishan Shaman This traditional Manchu longpoem was eventually written down, with some Confucian editorializing. It gives a view from within Manchu culture of the female shaman* Teteke who was considered the most powerful of all shamans, so potent that she could bring a boy back from the dead. This story is a classic example of [...]

by Max Dashu Ilmatar In the 15th Rune of the Kalevala (Finnish folk tradition) a valiant witch-mother brings her son back to life. She is not named, but other clues in the tradition identify her as Ilmatar.  She notices baleful omens –the hairbrush of her absent son Lemminkäinen’s is exuding blood . Knowing something is [...]

© 2013 Max Dashu Isis the Healer, the Mistress of Magic, in whose mouth is the Breath of Life, whose words destroy disease and awake the dead. [1] Shamans are known for their power to heal. They may lay on hands, extract negative energies from a diseased person’s body or infuse it with life essences, [...]

I haven’t posted in a while because of being hard at work on the dvd, Woman Shaman: the Ancients. But i wanted folks to know that i have suspended the Comments function because of the massive deluge of spam. Once the dvd is out, i’ll attend to setting up registration and blocking spam words, but [...]

Another mystery solved. Thanks to the British Library’s online database of Old English manuscripts, i’ve finally discovered what biblical passage was illustrated by one of the most intriguing Pagan-themed medieval drawings. It appears in the Harley Psalter, thought to have been created at Canterbury circa 1020-40, as a copy of the 9th century Utrecht Psalter. [...]

Short blogs, especially image posts, every day on the Suppressed Histories page on Facebook. View the pictures via Photos, short articles via Notes. You’re invited to visit ~and of course to Like and Share… Max Dashu

The Kebra Nagast (“Glory of Kings”) is the most important Ethiopian scripture. It describes the descent of Amharic kings from queen Makeda of Ethiopia and king Solomon of Judaea. (Sheba or Saba’ encompasses  Yemen in southeast Arabia but also Ethiopia, where the Amharic people speak a closely related Semitic language.) (See map) The story, compiled [...]

Notre Dame de la Vie is a Celtic Goddess in a sculptural style that strongly resembles two other goddesses who appear to date to the same antiquity. Their faces have similar features; so do their hoods or headdresses. One of these sculptures is from Guernsey island in the English Channel and the other is from [...]

Saving the babies: fountain goddesses and respite baptism Another amazing aspect of the ancient sanctuary of Notre Dame de la Vie was as a compassionate place of refuge from harmful religious dogma. It became a sanctuaire de répit, or “respite sanctuary.” Respite from what? –from the church doctrine of eternal damnation of those who died [...]

An ancient stone goddess watched over a sacred spring at Saint-Martin de Belleville, on the French side of the Alps. Her veneration in Savoy goes back before the beginning of the written record. An influx of Celtic culture swept into this high valley of Doron de Belleville around the 400 bce, and it is full [...]

While putting together a new visual talk on Ancient Central Europe (a very disregarded corner of history) one of the themes that emerged was lunar crescents. Clay sculptures known as Mondhörner, “moon-horns” have been found in Switzerland, dating to about 1500-900 bce, from what i’ve been able to determine so far. Some are pure crescents, [...]

I had no plans to attend Z Budapest’s ritual on Sunday night. I thought about going to Rabbit’s ceremony, but what I really wanted, after a week of hard work, was to kick back in the hotel room and watch Downton Abbey. (A somewhat guilty pleasure, my class loyalties and politics being what they are.) [...]

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 [...]