A few days ago I posted a brief
history of my current work-in-progress, where I mentioned I set
it in a magical Bronze Age. When I created (am creating?) my society,
I was (have been?) thinking about a long-lost article I read once
that claimed an anthropologist named Marija Gimbutas found evidence
that the culture of neolithic eastern Europe was matriarchal – and
that her work was out of favour. It seemed to me that didn’t
matter, since “the world doesn’t work like that” can sometimes
be succesfully refuted by saying “this is speculative fiction;
that’s one of the things I deliberately changed.” So I went
looking for more material, and am glad I did. Here’s some of what I
found.
First, it turns out
maybe anthropologists shouldn’t have been so quick to reject
Gimbutas. Author Charlene
Spretnak wrote a journal
article about the attack on Gimbutas’ work, which
systematically mischaracterized what she had done. Turns out she
actually said the culture was egalitarian, neither patriarchal nor
matriarchal; it was matrilineal,
meaning descent was through the female line – so my main character
names herself “Belora, daughter of Inadora, daughter of Corada.”
Moreover the culture was peaceful and stable for a couple of
millenia, until it was invaded by a patriarchal warlike civilization
with more social strata, particularly chieftains buried with
substantial treasure. This seemed to me like an interesting bit of
worldbuilding for my novel.
I found several
fascinating things in my readings. Excavations at Catalhöyük showed little difference between male and female burial sites, and no
signs of substantial economic stratification until near the end of
the town’s history. Houses and communities were well-built. There
were no signs of weapons and organized warfare, and no fortifications
except possibly ditches to bar passage of animals. They viewed Nature
as a supreme female godhead – possibly one goddess, possibly
several – and figurines were primarily female (both animal and
human). Their society (and that of their invaders) was structured
around religion instead of economics.
I
made
my way through one
of her
books,
The Language of the Goddess:
Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization,
published in 1989 by Harper & Row. This is a rich dense book,
which I’ll possibly go back to mine for more
details.
One key aspect was that the Great Goddess was immanent:
always present, not transcendent and remote; she
wasn’t just
a mother figure. During the Paleolithic (old stone age, quite a bit
further back than my story), there apparently wasn’t a father god
figure. Celebration of life was central to art and ideology,
celebrating the current world, not the next. Gimbutas characterized
their symbology according to four themes I may need to go back and
reread to really understand. A key element is that their death
iconography was about regeneration more than death.
This
aspect of my worldbuilding is still ongoing, but it’s never going
to appear in an infodump. Instead it’s the sort of thing where from
time to time I’ll drop a tidbit that fits the context – like how
people name themselves via their female ancestors. I don’t need to
explain it or make a big deal about it, just use it. Similarly I
don’t have to explain the egalitarianism, just show it in action
(such as a more-or-less democratic council with both male and female
elders, instead of a king with male advisors).
I’ve
already had quite a bit of fun playing with this material, and look
forward to doing more.
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