Visual Talks by Max Dashu
THE AMERICAS
Suppressed Histories: Diosas de Mexico
Suppressed Histories: Mississippia
NORTHEAST AMERICA
The lineal descent of the People of the Five Nations shall run in the female line. Women shall be considered Progenitors of the Nation. They shall own the land and the soil. Men and women shall follow the status of their mothers. —Great Law of the Iroquois Confederation
The Haudenosaunee, Six Nations of the Iroquois, and the constititutional rights and powers of the matrons. Ataensic and the Three Sisters. The Wyandot. Quillwork, embroidery, ceramics and farming. Algonquin nations: Naskapi, Micmac, Lenape, Anishinabe, and Cree. Survival schools and sovereignty.
the GREAT PLAINS
"We want an independent sovereign Oglala Sioux nation. We don't want no part of the government, Tribal or BIA... We want our old 1868 Treaty back." --Gladys Bissonette, Wounded Knee, 1973
North America from Saskatchewan to Chihuahua. Female leaders, clan mothers, warriors, elders of the Lakota, Blackfeet, Blood, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa and Pawnee. The matrilineal Wichita, Mandan, Hidatsa. Thatched houses, earth lodges and tipis. Women's arts: baskets, quillwork, beads, painting, and appliqué; building tipis. Medicine women from Montana to Texas. Fighting legacies of conquest: Wounded Knee, the American Indian movement, Seven Fires Camp, and the movement for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
THE AZTECS
"Our mother is as twelve eagles, goddess of drum-beating... She comes adorned in the ancient manner with the eagle crest,
in the ancient manner with the eagle crest." --Icuic (praise-song) of QuilaztliNorthern origins and Mesoamerican influences. Quilaztli, early sexual politics, and the Cihuacoatl. Ixlilxochitl, the priestesses, and other historical women. Aztec cosmology, with emphasis on the goddesses, including Coatlicue, Teteoinan, Xilonen and other Corn Mothers, Chalchiutlicue, and more. Tlazalteotl, birth mysteries, and the Cihuateteos. Sculptures, murals, codices and other masterpieces from Tenochtitlán, one of the world's greatest cities.
MEXICO AFTER LA CONQUISTA
Silly men, you who accuse | women without excuse | Not seeing you're the cause | of what you blame them for... What impulse could be stranger | than, outside all reason | to cloud the mirror yourself | then resent that it's not clear? —Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, circa 1690
The Spanish invasion, the fate of Malinal, and the birth of mestizo culture. Sor Juana de la Cruz, doña Josefa, Dolores Jimenez y Muro, la China Poblana. Mixtec cacicas. Women warriors for Tierra y Libertad. Huichol, Tehuanas, and other pueblos originarios in modern Mexico. Frida Kahlo, La Tigresa and female rebels, artistic, political and cultural, and the movement to stop rampant femicide.
CARIBBEAN / VENEZUELA / GUIANAS
Everything sprang from Kuma, and everything the Yaruro do was arranged so by her;
the other gods and culture heroes act according to her laws. --Venezuelan tradition
Arawak and Carib peoples. Ceramic art of Venezuela and stone zemis of the Tainos. Loiza, Anacaona and female chiefs in the conquest period. Genocide, slavery, and uprisings. Breakaway communities of free Africans: the Maroons of Jamaica, the Saramaka of Surinam. African religions of the santeros and vodunsis. Inquisitors pursuit mohanes and curanderos (medicine people). Modern indigenous peoples.
COLOMBIA
"I personally have had 1,104 sanctuaries, houses, and idols burned to date, and another 400 have been burned on my orders." —Bishop Antonio de Alcegao to the king of Spain, 1607, on persecuting indigenous religion as "devil-worship."
Ancient ceramics of Puerto Hormiga. The ceramic women of the great mound at Betancí. Gold of the Sinu river, the Tairona highlands, the Quimbaya and the Muisca. Monumental sculpture of San Agustín and murals of the Tierradentro culture. The Inquisition against indigenous and African religions. Policarpa Salvarrieta and other valiant women. Modern matrilineages and other indigenous cultures fighting for their land and cultural survival.
ECUADOR
Female figurines from Valdivia in the 5th millennium. Masterpiece of ceramic art in the Chorrera, La Tolita and Jamacoaque cultures. Stone stelas of birthing mothers at Manabí and Cerro Jaboncillo. Inca rule, then the Spanish conquest. Black Ecuadorians, rainforest peoples, women's pottery and painting in a much-overlooked center of artistic achievement. Andean and Amazon basin people, and the fight for sovereignty and survival.
PERU
She was a witch ... but helped the poor.
— Guaman Poma on the Coya, Mama Ocllo
Ceramics and weavings of ancient Paracas and Nazca. Chimu, Chavin, Paracas, Nazca; Mochicas, Quechuas and Aymaras. Priestesses, drummers, weavers and farmers of the central Andes. Architecture, pyramids, astronomy, and cosmology. Pachamama. Mama Huaca and the Coyas. Spanish conquest, Inquisition, slavery. Women in colonial and modern Peru.
BRAZIL
Here were seen Indian women with bows and arrows who fought as vigorously, or more so, than the men... They acted as leaders, took the foremost place in the battle... --Carbajal, invading Brazil in 1542
Ancient ceramics of the Amazon river peoples. Marajó, Santarem, Tapajós. Women's work, arts, and ceremonial. The European invasion and plantation slavery. Tupi and Africans join forces in the Cabanagem revolt. The Quilombos (free African states). Calundureiras (Afro-Brazilian priestesses), the Inquisition, and the victory of African religions. Women in colonial Brazil. Indigenous nations' fight for survival and land rights. Women's rights in modern Brazil.
CHILE, ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY
Arauco has a sorrow / Which I cannot silence / The injustices of centuries / That everyone sees inflicted / No one has remedied them / Though they could be remedied / Rise up, Huenchullán! -- Violeta Parra
The rich archaeology of northwest Argentina -- Condorhuasi, la Aguada, Candelaria -- and of Diaguita in Chile. The Mapuche and their machi (women shamans). Colonial Buenos Aires. Traditions of men taking over female rituals in Tierra del Fuego. Genocide in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The "disappeared" and las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. The vision of Violeta Parra, Mercedes Sosa and Isabel Allende.
Coming soon:
Suppressed Histories: the Maya
Suppressed Histories: Pueblo Nations
Suppressed Histories: the Arctic
Suppressed Histories: the Great Lakes
Women of the African Diaspora
All titles are live visual presentations (average 90 minutes)
with a break midway and more time for questions and discussion.
Tech requirements: digital projector with VGA cable, screen, and mic.
By Subject: International-Spectrum visual talks
