Re: Native Child Spacing?

[Guest guest]

> According to my research, there are a number of South American tribes

> where there's no real " marriage " of any kind. Every adult can

> potentially mate with any other of the opposite gender. Women

> purposely have sex with 4 or 5 different men in close succession

> because these groups believe that a number of ejaculations are

> necessary to " build " the embryo's body. As far as property being

> passed down, again, according to my research, there are a number of

> groups where property is passed matrilineally. Again, just according

> to my research.

Can you be more open about sharing this research with us? The above

doesn't tell me anything about the status of the women in those South

American tribes. That they have some sort of group sex doesn't mean

the women can't be given to other men. Where do the children go in a

dispute? Do they stay with the mother or can they be taken? Also, I

have an inherent skepticism that men anywhere don't have an interest

in the lineage of the offspring. What I'm saying is, it's my belief

that these systems, while existing, are quite exceptional.

Even because a society is matrilineal, doesn't seem to mean that

property is passed down to women, it is frequently passed down through

the men in the lineage.

I'm making every attempt to edify myself, but I'm not coming up with

anything showing women anywhere *commonly* ended up with the kids and

the property and weren't married or otherwise given off to cement

property/political alliances.

In the societies you've researched wherein matrilineage/matrilocality

occur, who handles the distribution of goods--that's the key. Who

handles property disputes? Do the tribal men fight other men over

property by proxy? I guess that's what modern soldiers do now, but for

other men.

B.

[Guest guest]

On 8/29/06, briseis_of.troy <briseis_of.troy@...> wrote:

> Even if he had say...5 wives he still would be getting it

> rarely. They have sex, she gets pregnant..ohhp! No sex for

> another 3-5 years with that one...ok move onto the next one..

> oh no shes pregnant again too. He would like need 50 of them

> LOL!!!!

>

> Bris

..

Some research into the subject shows its not quite what we might think

historically, was usually incredibly difficult and required lots of

resources. And though a man could potentially have sex with all of his

wives, often polyandry occurred for political rather than sexual or

procreative reasons.

King is a prime example. Like his father he took on

multiple wives for political purposes (although he was specifically

warned by God not to do so). Yet when you read the Song of , it

is clear he had one true love, and when understood in a

historical/grammatical manner and not just an allegorical one, the

Song of Songs is some of the greatest love poetry ever written. The

women is not identified in the Songs of Songs but I think you can make

a good case for who she was in the book of Kings when goes

into a rage when someone else tries to take Abishag as a mate, who

according to Tradition, was in the top 1% of all time :-)

Having said that, Dr. Price clearly says polyandry was used as a form

of spacing by the tribes he observed.

--

" Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -- kept us in

a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of grave

national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home,

or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we

did not blindly rally behind it. "

General MacArthur,

WWII Supreme Allied Commander of the Southwest Pacific, Supreme United

Nations Commander; Whan, ed., " A Soldier Speaks: Public Papers and

Speeches of General of the Army MacArthur, " 1965; Nation,

August 17, 1957)

[Guest guest]

On 8/31/06, downwardog7 <illneverbecool@...> wrote:

> What I got from a recent reading of _The History and Conquest of

> Mexico_ was that as distasteful as our society finds slavery these

> days, it seems to me it was a norm across the world throughout history.

Isn't this a poor example of " primitive " societies, since the society

they conquered was relatively advanced and highly stratified?

In an anthropology class I took, the professor divided societies into

three types: egalitarian, ranked, and stratified. The egalitarian

societies do not have positions of prestige or rather have as many

available as there are people capable of filling them; the ranked

share resources equally like egalitarian but have limited positions of

prestige; the stratified societies have limited positions of prestige

and unequal division of resources.

According to the theory put forth in the class, the subjugation of

women increases between egalitarian and stratified societies. Within

egalitarian societies, women have less power with increasing latitude

from the equator. This is attributable to a lesser role in the

procuring of food, due to a heavier reliance on larger animal products

that tend to be hunted by males.

I'm sure there are complications to this theory, but in any case the

event you bring up was one stratified society conquering another.

Wasn't it?

Chris

--

The Truth About Cholesterol

Find Out What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You:

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com

[Guest guest]

> Isn't this a poor example of " primitive " societies, since the society

> they conquered was relatively advanced and highly stratified?

I'm missing your point--where was it said the native societies were

confined to primitives?

Anyway, because the Aztecs were highly advanced and stratified doesn't

mean the rest of the tribes throughout the country were. And in fact

they were not, that's why they were subject to the Aztecs. Further,

it wasn't the Aztecs who were gifting scores of women servants/chattel

to the conquistadors, they were gifting the high-status

women--including a daughter of Moctezuma--to breed with the Spaniards

in order to secure political alliances. This was a form of prestige.

These aristocratic women were left in the safekeeping of other

aristocratic families to keep them safe from the dangers of the

campaigns, they were not on the road with the soldiers cooking and

providing other womanly arts.

> In an anthropology class I took, the professor divided societies into

> three types: egalitarian, ranked, and stratified. The egalitarian

> societies do not have positions of prestige or rather have as many

> available as there are people capable of filling them; the ranked

> share resources equally like egalitarian but have limited positions of

> prestige; the stratified societies have limited positions of prestige

> and unequal division of resources.

>

> According to the theory put forth in the class, the subjugation of

> women increases between egalitarian and stratified societies. Within

> egalitarian societies, women have less power with increasing latitude

> from the equator. This is attributable to a lesser role in the

> procuring of food, due to a heavier reliance on larger animal products

> that tend to be hunted by males.

>

> I'm sure there are complications to this theory, but in any case the

> event you bring up was one stratified society conquering another.

> Wasn't it?

Well, the tribes in SE United States were also trading women to DeSoto

on his expedition. Perhaps it was more of a demand on his part, but

they were readily provided. How advanced were those tribes? My point

was that--in my opinion--women had little power as far as controlling,

oh, any number of things socially, and I was corrected that no, true

matriarchies were common among native societies. I'm reading all over

the place and not finding evidence for that.

I admit that the term " chattel " was an exaggeration, but I was

making an offhanded comment originally--an opinion--when the subject

was still on how women satisfied themselves sexually within a native

practice of abstinance for child-spacing--that was what we were

talking about, right?

B.

[Guest guest]

> Can you be more open about sharing this research with us? The above

> doesn't tell me anything about the status of the women in those

South

You could google the sexual practices of South American indians and

find some things pretty quickly. If you don't want to do that tiny

amount of work, then you'll have to wait until I have a day off and

no projects at hand, and have time to do the googling and posting of

links.

Most of these groups are so primitive that there simply isn't enough

property to give much of a rip about. I will agree that most groups

that have significant property do pass it to men, but according to my

research, there was a group in Mongolia about 6,000 years ago that

looked to have good metal weapons and fairly well-made clothes, and

which apparently buried their women with weapons and clothes and

jewelry, and the men with nothing. That doesn't prove much about

their daily life, though.

What I'm saying is, it's my belief

> that these systems, while existing, are quite exceptional.

>

> Even because a society is matrilineal, doesn't seem to mean that

> property is passed down to women, it is frequently passed down

through

> the men in the lineage.

>

> I'm making every attempt to edify myself, but I'm not coming up with

> anything showing women anywhere *commonly* ended up with the kids

and

> the property and weren't married or otherwise given off to cement

> property/political alliances.

>

> In the societies you've researched wherein

matrilineage/matrilocality

> occur, who handles the distribution of goods--that's the key. Who

> handles property disputes? Do the tribal men fight other men over

> property by proxy? I guess that's what modern soldiers do now, but

Let's cut to the chase. The Yanomamo of South America are extremely

violent and do not treat women well, but they have a good diet and

straight teeth, grow their own food, etc. I don't think you can make

assumptions one way or another about the treatment of women and the

quality of the diet, if that's what you're trying to do. The Mosuo

in China are female-dominated, and at least until recently, ate their

traditional diet. I don't think you can correlate mistreatment of

women with much of anything except mistreatment of women. If you can

tell me what you're trying to correlate it with, we can do the

research.

mike

[Guest guest]

> Let's cut to the chase. The Yanomamo of South America are extremely

> violent and do not treat women well, but they have a good diet and

> straight teeth, grow their own food, etc. I don't think you can make

> assumptions one way or another about the treatment of women and the

> quality of the diet, if that's what you're trying to do. The Mosuo

> in China are female-dominated, and at least until recently, ate their

> traditional diet. I don't think you can correlate mistreatment of

> women with much of anything except mistreatment of women. If you can

> tell me what you're trying to correlate it with, we can do the

> research.

>

mike,

I think there's some sort of misunderstanding. This is the second

time you've made reference to native diet and aggression/violence

between men and women. The first time I asked what you were talking

about, so I don't think it's fair to say I'm trying to make any

correlation of " mistreatment " of women and diet. This is the first

I've heard of my alleged agenda, sorry.

Neither did I ever say that women were being mistreated--those words

are all judgements and sorry, I neither thought nor wrote them--nor do

I have an opinion on it; it's a foreign way of life to me. I have no

idea where a correlation with diet was raised. Hopefully I'm not

saying anything now to make things worse, but I'm bewildered with the

turns in this conversation.

good night,

B.

[Guest guest]

Maybe, though, I misunderstood the nature of your original post. I

thought you were trying to say that the most important thing to focus

on to " make the world a better place " would be the status of women. I

was asking for your research re: that hypothesis. Maybe I totally

misunderstood you.

> Neither did I ever say that women were being mistreated--those words

> are all judgements and sorry, I neither thought nor wrote them--nor do

> I have an opinion on it; it's a foreign way of life to me. I have no

> idea where a correlation with diet was raised. Hopefully I'm not

> saying anything now to make things worse, but I'm bewildered with the

> turns in this conversation.

> good night,

> B.

>

[Guest guest]

>

> Maybe, though, I misunderstood the nature of your original post. I

> thought you were trying to say that the most important thing to focus

> on to " make the world a better place " would be the status of women. I

> was asking for your research re: that hypothesis. Maybe I totally

> misunderstood you.

mike,

I think that's what happened then. I assure you I was never trying to

say what you thought I was trying to say above. This is me: the

B. on NN--not the B. in your head.

goodnight,

B.

[Guest guest]

> mike,

> I think that's what happened then. I assure you I was never trying to

> say what you thought I was trying to say above. This is me: the

> B. on NN--not the B. in your head.

> goodnight,

> B.

Fair enough. I had two female professors in a women's studies class

in college who agreed that there were a number of female-dominated and

female-led societies still in existence. Both had done field research

on the topic in different places. They seemed, so far as I could

tell, to idealize a truly equal society. So far as I could tell,

neither felt that female-dominated was the best " way to go " , so to

speak. They had studied all three types, female-dominated, male-

dominated, and equal.