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Excerpts from the Patriarchies slide presentation:

"If a man carry off a maiden by force, let him pay 50 shillings to the owner, and afterwards buy his will of the owner [male guardian]."--82nd law of
king Aethelbert of England.

Simply by paying a fine and bridal fee, a rapist could legally force a woman into marriage. This happened when families had cause to fear that no man would marry a daughter who had suffered a rape.

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"And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman that is a bondmaid... she shall be scourged, they shall not be put to death, because she was not free." --Leviticus 19:20

But the man was not scourged; he simply paid a ram to the temple.

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In 1293 the papal bull Periculoso ("Dangerous") decreed that all nuns "shall henceforth remain perpetually enclosed." For no reason, such as their charitable work in hospitals and communities, were they to "have the power of going out of those monasteries."

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"It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable conditions in which our women have to live."
--- Muhammed Ali Jinnah, first prime minister of Pakistan, in 1944

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Runaways were so common in early modern China that the homiletic Gong-Guo-Go offered an astronomical 300 merits for "leading back to her home a woman or girl who has escaped."

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Bound feet was an affliction that women of European tradition also suffered, like upper class
women in Lima, Peru, circa 1750:

"From their infancy they are accustomed to wear straight shoes, that their feet may not grow beyond the size which they esteem beautiful; some of them do not exceed five inches and a half, or six inches in length... the shoes are made in such a manner that they never loosen of themselves... [and are] very little calculated for service." (But they had diamond buckles.)
--Juan Jorge and Antonio de Ulloa, A Voyage to South America

This January marks the 35th year of the Suppressed Histories Archives, an independent research project that educates people about global women's history. This encompasses a broad range of subjects, including not only women of power, mother-right traditions, shamanic arts, and Goddess veneration, but also indigenous studies and the dynamics of patriarchy, conquest, slavery and empire.

The collection now contains well over 14,000 slides, as well as photocopied texts, images, maps and books. Nearly a hundred slide presentations have grown out of the Archives. A third of the titles look at issues of women's power, oppression, and heritages from an international perspective, and the rest go chronologically, by country or region. (You can access the catalog here.)

For three decades and counting, the Suppressed Histories Series has brought internationalist women's studies to all kinds of audiences, from feminist bookstores and community centers to universities, public schools, libraries, museums, prisons, galleries, festivals, and conferences.

Max Dashu on the foundation of the Suppressed Histories Archives:
In January 1970 I entered on the path of an independent scholar, with the aims of recovering the obliterated history of women and understanding how patriarchy and other systems of domination came into being. Several things soon became clear. Neolithic iconography overwhelmingly emphasized women, in a qualitatively different way than modern media. Women in indigenous societies usually held greater power than in feudal and colonial systems, and all matrilineages that survive today are indigenous societies.

I found that domination of women correlated with domination by class, ethnicity, and other socio-political hierarchies. In other words, the upper classes have historically been more invested in patrilineage, multiple wives, and constraining women's bodies and behavior than commoners and indigenous peoples. That is why the Romans called the ruling classes patricians; why veiling began with the Indo-European elite, and footbinding with Chinese aristocrats, long before they spread to other classes.

My research also showed that public female spheres of power tended to concentrate in the area of spiritual leadership and, conversely, that banning the priestess was a keystone to deepening the cultural colonization of women through religion. A more profound level of domination was possible than could be achieved through violence and coercion, if women could be induced to believe that their oppression was divinely ordained and to subscribe to an idolatry of the masculine. Witch persecutions have been another method of attack against female power, solidarity, protest and resistance. In much the same way, colonizers hoping to break the spirit of the country they were invading persecuted the medicine people and prophets. I found that women shamans, diviners, and medicine women have often been at the forefront of liberation movements. See "Priestesses and Political Power."

Global Women's History, Freelance
I am a grassroots historian and educator. I began with slideshows in women's bookstores (which still happen) and branched out to community centers, women's festivals, schools, libraries, prisons, galleries and conferences. Since 1980, I've given slide talks at universities around the U.S., including the Women's Centers at Northwestern, University of California-Berkeley, Princeton, and M.I.T. I've done a couple shows in Canada, a series in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and presented at a symposium at Rila, Bulgaria. In 2005 I gave the keynote address for a conference convened by the New Jersey Coalition for Battered Women and presented at the Shamanism Conference (San Rafael CA), a multicultural sorority at Stanford, the Daughters of Diana Gathering (Wisconsin Dells) and the Second Congress of Matriarchal Studies (San Marcos TX), among many others.

New Visual Presentations
Several new slideshows have come into being in the past two years, on very important subjects. The newest is Icons of the Matrix, about sacred signs that recur globally in ancient cultures: "female figurines," ancestral megaliths, vulva stones, and ceremonial pots in the form of women and breasts. This art opens a window into pre-patriarchal spiritual values and the deep cultural continuities that can be seen around the world, from the oldest archaeological record up to more recent indigenous societies.

Mother-Right and Gender Justice is an international look at egalitarian matrilineal/matrilocal societies. Information on these matrix cultures is scattered and buried (it took three decades to put together this slideshow) yet they offer living examples of how people can live with harmony and mutual respect. Women's decisions carry real weight in these societies. Their existence proves that patriarchal domination is not "natural" and inevitable, and also shows that the peoples that standard histories skip over, in places like Sumatra and Yunnan and Niger and Colombia, have developed the most advanced social systems, which respect the personal freedom of all members while fostering the common good.

Another new group of presentations began with an international, trans-historical overview of Patriarchies. I had been teaching about this all along, but it is difficult to find images to illustrate the pervasive injustices that happen behind closed doors, and which society papers over with denial. I really felt the need for an overview that looked at the common structures and behaviors, because most people don't grasp the enormity and scope of patriarchy, historically or in the present. Finally I said, "This is too important: just work with what you've got," and threw all the slides I had been saving on the light table. Even with all the gaps, there were hundreds of them. I pulled more slides from the regional shows and made duplicates to fill in missing geographic areas and subjects like "honor-killings" and the all-male judiciary. The presentation that emerged is visceral and haunting, but essential knowledge for anyone who cares about changing injustice.

From the fission of this collection came two more presentations on how patriarchy affects women. Male-Dominated Religion will take some time to develop fully. Taming the Female Body includes illustrate the massive surgical interventions pressed on "Western" women: unnecessary hysterectomies, Caesarians, silicon implants, and plastic surgeries (from faces to vulvas to liposuction, stomach-stapling and intestinal bypass, the latter series motivated by the hateful treatment of fat women.)

Another another show in development, Global Women's Movements, looks at the explosion of liberatory actions, alliances, and ideas around the world in the past three decades.

The most-requested slideshows to date include:
Women's Power; Female Rebels and Mavericks; Woman Shaman;
Goddess Cosmologies; Witches and Pagans; The Canaanite and Hebrew Goddess; Ancient China; Mother-Right and Gender Justice; and Racism, History and Lies.

On the Net
Response to the Suppressed Histories web site, now in its fifth year, has been tremendous. In Feb. 2005 it got 63,795 hits, and the server stats show them coming from all over the world. It is a real charge to see that people in Thailand and Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe and Honduras and Malaysia are logging on. Email queries come in from researchers in Mexico and professors in Scotland, from feminists, pagans, anti-racist activists, and other allies. A website in Trinidad has sent on many visitors by posting a link to my article on "Racism, History and Lies."

The new edition of the Suppressed Histories website is online and will be expanding every month. So far only the tip of the iceberg is up, but more content will be uploaded soon, including tastes of selected slide presentations and book excerpts. Interviews, book reviews, and bibliographies will be added in the future. The new articles and book excerpts include:

Icons of the Matrix

Herbs, Knots, and Contraception

Expanded versions of chapters on Roman patria potestas, the Women's Mysteries of Bona Dea, and the first mass hunt recorded in history are linked on the Articles page.

And some excerpts from the Women's Power show are linked at the end of the introductory article here. More will be added in the coming months.

New Publications
"Knocking Down Straw Dolls" was published in the January 2005 issue of Feminist Theology (Sheffield Academic Press, Britain).

Goddessing Regenerated features an interview that Willow LaMonte did with me in 2000 (well, these things take time).

"Icons of the Matrix" will appear in the forthcoming anthology Female Mysteries of the Substratum, edited by Joan Marler and Miriam Robbins Dexter, based on presentations at the 2004 conference in Rila, Bulgaria.

History, Politics and Religion
This year [2005] feels like a turning point because of the American elections, which affected everyone on the planet, not just citizens of the empire. Even with the voter suppression and machine count fraud, it's clear that a sizable number of women voters passed on feminism, civil rights, labor, health, and the environment, because of security fears, nationalism, and traditional religious doctrine. (White women especially went this way, and married women.) I think that the press over-hyped the "morality" exit polls (how many people answered yes to that because they believe it is immoral to wage a Shock and Awe war on civilian populations?). Exit polls didn't count when they said that Kerry had won, but the much smaller number who cited "morality" have been greeted by a cascade of stories angled toward traditional religion. Corporate media is a serious problem, but clearly old-time religion is going to have a bigger impact than it has for a century. The separation of church and state is under serious threat and is already in the process of being breached.

For this reason, it is important for us to address the historical roots of fundamentalism, what I call the prehistory of the religious right. Probing the political underpinnings of religion in "Western Civilization" has been a large part of my work for three decades: the history of state Christianity with its gender and race ideologies, its demonization of cultural Others, whether they are women/witches, pagans, Jews, Muslims, Africans, Romany or American Indians. The cultural script of the Crusades still haunts the world, and is threatening an even greater global conflict. (For more on this, see article.) The Racism, History and Lies presentation discusses these dynamics, but the times demand special attention to Christian relations with Muslims and Jews, including the Crusades, pogroms and the blood libel (accusations of ritual murder levelled against Jews), as well as the modern era of colonialism and genocide. It is imperative for people to be educated about what underlies the modern scripts for religious war.

The Secret History of the Witches
My forthcoming book deals with these issues, drawing links between Christian state repression of women, pagans, Jews, and indigenous peoples. Both witches and Jews were accused of poisoning and baby-killing and blamed for all social ills. The accusation of devil-worship that was first leveled at European pagans and witches was later used to attack American Indian and other indigenous religions, including those of enslaved Africans. Witch hunters persecuted European women, attacking their speech, freedom of movement, and professions, subjecting them to torture-trials in which they were literally and figuratively raped. The diabolist ideology that governed all "confessions" extracted in this way degraded women's status, sexualized torture, and also drove a demonized image of Africans deep into European consciousness. These obsessions led Euro-Americans to wreak havoc on African Americans. Meanwhile, modern culture remains deeply stained by the behavioral legacies of woman-hating. These poisoned wells must be cleansed so that cultural healing and social transformation can happen.

I am completing the first volume of The Secret History, on ancient European religion, its goddesses, oracles and priestesses; the status of women in the Basque, Celtic, Germanic, Italic, Baltic and Slavic cultures; the origins of Christianity and how the alliance of the institutional Church and feudal states impacted women, pagans, and Jews. The book is an attempt to reconstruct the riches of pagan folk tradition in the early middle ages. Historians' prejudices against pagan Europe have been longstanding, yet recent attempts to rectify that bias are all too often inaccurate. My aim is to bring together the key sources, many of them not available in English, or known only to academic specialists. You can read the book outline here.

What's next?
It has been difficult to bridge the gaps (and sometimes chasms) between grassroots and scholarly, spiritual and political. Some of these divisions are starting to break down. But most of academia still looks down its nose at the idea that egalitarian societies ever existed, or that goddess veneration does have socio-political implications (however complex). Even many Women's Studies scholars are wary of these heretical and stigmatized areas of study. Neolithic history has not been a subject covered in those syllabi, with exceptions. But I think this can change, as women inside and outside academia overturn the old doctrinal barriers. Ancient history is very relevant! especially given where the world is headed politically and ecologically.

My top priority now is to publish The Secret History of the Witches. I hope to have the first volume out by the end of the year, but funds are needed to make that happen. Second editions are planned for the out-of-print essays Streams of Wisdom and Knocking Down Straw Dolls. An expanded version of Icons of the Matrix is also on the drawing board.

Wherever I can, I will continue teaching women's history and spiritual traditions in a global context, exposing people to images they aren't likely to have seen before, and stimulating discussion about where women stand now and how we got there. It is crucial for us to undo the cultural spells about who women are, that have seduced so many into settling for false, subordinated identities peddled by the consumerist spectacle. Denial is a luxury none of us can afford. The times demand courage, truth-telling and vision, as we reaffirm the animist vision of all beings as sparks of the Divine.


How You Can Support the Suppressed Histories Archives

Your contributions are needed to get this work work out there. Earnings from presentations do not pay for basic expenses like website fees, slide trays, or duplication for new shows, much less computer support. (For lack of which, a big chunk of work, and some of the mailing list, was lost in November 2004.) Please believe that even small donations help. But larger donations are very much needed. This is your opportunity to vote for the preservation of this body of knowledge, and its signature fusion of spiritual and political, feminism and anti-racism, by making donations. All contibutions are received with thanks.

If you aren't able to contribute money, you can help in other ways. One is to facilitate bookings for the Suppressed Histories Series, so it will be seen by people in more places. Interested contacts are needed in institutions who might sponsor showings: teachers, women's clubs, youth groups, temples, churches, or wherever. (I will do free shows for at-risk youth, prisoners, and survivors of battering or trafficking, but must be paid for the others.) Or you can hold a fundraising event.

Most Pressing Needs for the Suppressed Histories Archives:
Computer support (Mac).
Slide trays, film, developing, mounts, [all defunct now!] toner, archival supplies
Funding to finish and publish The Secret History of the Witches
Funding to catalog the slide collection in a searchable database
Slide duplication budget for shows aimed at youth and other new presentations

Special thanks for much-appreciated support over the past year goes out to Sarah E.J. Cohen of Change Makers for Women; Jodi MacMillan, Andrew and Laura of Belladonna; Cha Smith of Kahea (Hawaiian Environmental Alliance); and Joan Marler of the Institute of Archaeomythology. Also, thanks to Bear Kaufmann. Most of all, thanks to Nava Mizrahhi, the rock and mainstay of the Archives.