RCG-I Seasonal Salon Spring Equinox 2010
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Spring Equinox 2010 Salon Home Page Approaches to the Study of Goddess Myths and Images Part IV How Walking, Giving Birth, and Befriending Others Made Us Human |
Approaches to the Study of Goddess Myths and ImagesPatricia MonaghanPart IV of IV Goddess Studies is not a new field. For more than a hundred and fifty years, pioneering women have examined the role that religious imagery has on people, both men and women. They have taken variant approaches, from imagining a different world to critiquing the limited religious visions offered by monotheistic religions. This 4-part series describes the lives of these pioneers, as well as the approaches to goddess studies to which they gave rise. The series is excerpted from "The Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines" (Praeger 2010). Marija Gimbutas: Interpreting ancient language Born in Vilnius, Lithuania, on January 23, 1921, Marija Alseikait lived through the turmoil of World War II, managing to gain an education and to marry a young architect, Jurgis Gimbutas, before the couple fled to Germany after Soviet occupation of their homeland. There, in 1946, Gimbutas earned a Ph.D. in archaeology at Tübingen University and not long after, accepted an appointment to Harvard’s Peabody Museum. During this time, she began to unravel the archaeology of her homeland, developing the “Kurgan hypothesis” that argues that the distinctive burial mounds (“Kurgans”) found in eastern Europe were the artifacts of an invading proto-Indo-European (PIE) culture. To arrive at this hypothesis, Gimbutas used the tools of several disciplines, including linguistics, archaeology and comparative religions. This interdisciplinary approach was a hallmark of her work throughout her life. Gimbutas did not start her career searching for an ancient goddess; the facts led her to that conclusion. Those facts were gathered through many years of archaeological research, especially that from 1963-1989 when, as a faculty member at UCLA, Gimbutas directed digs at Neolithic sites in southeastern Europe. The resulting finds encouraged her to refine her ideas about pre-Indo-European culture, which she called “Old Europe.” She wrote the definitive work on prehistoric eastern European culture in Bronze Age Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe; the book’s careful discussion of artifacts established her as one of the field’s most important theorists. However, her later work drew more notoriety than acclaim. She began examining the religion of the people she had been studying for more than two decades. Working without any ideological predisposition, Gimbutas noted the preponderance of feminine imagery in what seemed to be religious objects. From this evidence, she began to theorize that prior to the Kurgan invasion, the Old Europeans had based their religion on a multifaceted goddess. The development of her theory can be seen in the title of her book, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, originally published as The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe. Evidence of the primacy of goddesses seemed strong enough to demand the title inversion. From there, she went on to write a larger, more comprehensive book, The Language of the Goddess, which argued that far from being isolated to eastern Europe, the religion of Old Europe stretched into Mediterranean areas where classicists had long presumed the predominance of patriarchy. Gimbutas’s groundbreaking theory was supported by an inventive methodology, for rather than limiting herself to languages that can be read today, she argued that the language of symbols in ancient art could be “read” to understand the intentions of the inscribers. As archaeology had long assumed that it was impossible to learn about an ancient culture without written records, this was a radical way of thinking about the past, one that Gimbutas named “archeomythology.” But critics were more outraged by Gimbutas’s claims to have uncovered evidence for a widespread prehistoric religion centered on a goddesses than by her unconventional methods. In some cases, critics reacted to ideas Gimbutas had not put forward, such as the idea that ancient society inverted patriarchy, with women taking power in the way men in patriarchies do. The theory of an “ancient matriarchy” had been put forward in the 19th century by Bachofen, who envisioned such a stage of civilization as inferior to patriarchy. But although Gimbutas used that word in some early work, she later saw the potential for misunderstanding and began to speak of “matristic” (mother-centered) or “matrifocal” (mother-focused) rather than “matriarchal” (ruled by women) cultures. Nonetheless, critics continue to claim that there is no evidence for the “matriarchy” they assume Gimbutas spoke of, although even the most critical agree there is evidence for matristic societies. Gimbutas was undeterred by this intellectual commotion. She continued to gather evidence of religion based on a goddess with many aspects, including birth, death and sexuality. In the final book she published before her death from cancer, The Civilization of the Goddess, Gimbutas argued that across Europe in pre-Indo-European times, a peaceful matrifocal culture had existed whose remnants could be detected in ancient art and architecture. Although Gimbutas began her career in an academic setting, at the end of her life she embraced, and was embraced by, the women’s spirituality community. Although she did not publicly practice any religion, she inspired many leaders of alternative religions, an influence that continues today. Paula Gunn Allen: Indigenous Women’s Voices Until approximately 150 years ago in Europe and America, women were forbidden to pursue the education that would enable them to make significant contributions to the study of religion, much less to study the unorthodox subject of goddess worship. Even more punitive were educational restrictions on women of color, who were actively discouraged from attaining higher education even when it was technically available to them. Women who slipped through the net and attained an education sometimes seemed unwilling to question the ideologies of the powerful. Thus information about indigenous goddesses, written from the standpoint of those who honored that goddess, is still extremely rare. An exception can be found in the work of Paula Gunn Allen. Allen, born October 23, 1939, was of Laguna and Sioux heritage, as well as Scottish and Lebanese. Born in New Mexico, she returned there after college to earn a Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico in American Studies in 1976. Then she began researching Native American religions and teaching that subject at her alma mater and at the University of California, both at Berkeley and Los Angeles. A widely published poet and novelist, she also gathered works by other emerging and prominent Native American poets and writers in anthologies that remain important texts today. At the same time that she was creating a body of literary work, Allen was also studying the religions of Native America. The result was a book of comparative Native religions, entitled The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions, in which Allen argued that Native American religions were often misunderstood by invading Europeans, who projected patriarchal and hierarchical social systems on those they encountered on this continent. In place of such misinterpretations, Allen proposed understanding Native religions as including a powerful goddess, often associated with the earth’s abundance. For such statements, Allen was defamed by some other Native scholars, but the book is now required reading in many Native American studies courses, as are Allen’s essays arguing that Native religions are falsely characterized as “myths” and “folklore.” Allen’s work has had wide-ranging impact on the contemporary goddess movement, not only because she voiced the realities of Native American women whose ideas had been excluded from conversation about spirituality, but because her work encouraged women to return to their ethnic roots and research the goddesses found therein. Allen’s death of cancer at the relatively young age of 69 did not end her influence on women interested in how the goddess appeared in the Americas. Bibliography Ackerman, Robert. The myth and ritual school: J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists. NY: Garland, 1991. Allen, Paula Gunn. The sacred hoop : recovering the feminine in American Indian traditions. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986.
Barnard, Mary. Sappho. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958.
Chapman, Janine. The quest for Dion Fortune. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1993. Cohen, Getzel M. and Martha Joukowsky. Breaking ground: pioneering women archaeologists. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2004. Dubois, Ellen Carol, ed. The Elizabeth Cady Stanton-Susan B. Anthony Reader:Correspondence, Writings, Speeches. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994. Fortune, Dion. The sea priestess. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1981.
Gimbutas, Marija. The goddesses and gods of Old Europe, 6500-3500 BC, myths and cult images. Berkeley CA : University of California, 1982.
Gregory, Isabella Augusta Persse, Lady. Visions and beliefs in the west of Ireland. NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1920.
Harrison, Jane Ellen. Ancient art and ritual. NY: Henry Holt, 1913.
Jensen, Ferne. C.G. Jung, Emma Jung and Toni Wolff: A Collection of Remembrances. Analytical Psychology Club, 1983. Kaberry, Phyllis Mary. Aboriginal woman, sacred and profane. Philadelphia: Blakiston, 1939. Kern, Kathi. Mrs. Stanton's Bible. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. Marcus, Julie. First in their field : women and Australian anthropology. Carlton,Vic. : Melbourne University Press, 1993. Murray, Margaret Alice. The witch-cult in Western Europe. Oxford, Clarendon Press 1962.
Peacock, Sandra. Jane Ellen Harrison: The Mask and the Self. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1988. Simpson, Jacqueline. “Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her and Why?” Folklore 105, 1994, pp. 89–96. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. Eighty Years & More: Reminiscences 1815-1897. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993.
Stevenson, Mary Lou Kohfeldt. Lady Gregory : the woman behind the Irish renaissance. NY: Atheneum, 1985. Wolff, Toni. “Structural forms of the feminine psyche.” Zurich: C.G. Jung Institute, 1956. |
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