SUNDAY, FEB 11, 2018: NOTE TO FILE
The Kogi Women's Story
From the unpublished manuscripts of Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: UNTOLD, FROM THE WIRES, UNBELIEVED, UNTHINKABLE
Abstract: The Kogi appear to be dominated by mostly male Mámas. But appearances and written accounts can be deceiving.
TUCSON (A-P) — Dr. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff's reputation as a credible anthropologist faded when he persistently endeavored to have his evolving understanding of Kogi society published in peer-reviewed journals. He tried writing up his findings in various articles submitted to all reputable journals, but the pattern of rejection continued. No peers believed his 'claims' because they failed to be consilient with any other accepted narrative of any contemporary society or of any known to history. His description of how Kogi society worked was dismissed as fabrication to serve some personal socio-political sexual agenda, another Margaret Mead like endeavor to make a name for himself. One critic remarked that Dr. Reichel-Dolmotoff had once been a good scientist; he replied that he still was. He chose not to publish in the popular media.
In early 2017 I ordered a copy of Enculturation in Latin America - an anthology, UCLA 1976, as an old textbook from a used bookstore that contained the last paper Dr. Reichel-Dolmotoff was able to publish. I typed the chapter and added it to my evolving website. It's presence was noted by a descendant of Dr. Reichel-Dolmatoff who was in possession of his notes and manuscripts. After confirming that I was not an academic, she allowed me to read his unpublished papers archived in her attic. I was not allowed to make copies, nor even take verbatim notes. Dr. Reichel-Dolmotoff had expressly asked that his papers not be published other than in well-vetted peer-reviewed journals when and if his colleagues acquired an ability to consider his work properly. This, in the view of his descendant, did not preclude his work from being known. I was asked to outline his findings in my own words and if and when the anthropological community, at least some significant number thereof, clamored for his work to be published, then his work could be. If claims I attributed to him were ignored or dismissed as fabrications, then there would still be too few who would rather know than believe.
When Dr. Reichel-Dolmotoff had learned much, perhaps as much as he could from his male máma informants, several female mámas offered to further enlighten him. As he had been correctly informed, the first máma to teach others to be mámas was Búnkuasé, "the shining one," a person of the highest moral principles and transcendent intelligence. In her still living memory she was the patron and spiritual guardian of the priesthood. She was not, however, a mythical being. She was the personification of the Mother-Goddess. Her essence, her thoughts, insights, and teachings were fully kept alive only among the female mámas who were by nature closer to Aluna. Nothing was kept from the men, but men had limits to understanding the mind of Aluna. Búnkuasé had lived and learned during the descent of the Tairona phase 2's failed experiment in living rightly. She had learned much and helped the remnant population to rebuild a complex society, but one that would not repeat the ancient pattern of conquest, acquisition, exploitation, overshoot and descent. The people, still in shock, were in a teachable moment, including even the men, and Búnkuasé had seized the opportunity to foundationally change the social order.
To avoid empire-building and elite acquisitiveness she focused on the need to change atavistic male behaviors favoring dominance and conquest—their fatal attraction to power. Society would return to the de facto matriarchy it had been prior to agriculture empowered empire-building. Women would not appear to rule, and no man or woman would believe in matriarchy as the overarching influence of women, the consensus among them, would be based on the natural superiority of women having nothing to do with belief-based doctrine. There would be no woman better dressed than need be sitting on a throne while men peeled her grapes or otherwise offered their services. A de facto matriarchy would in no way resemble an empire serving patriarchy where the men were merely replaced by self-serving women. It had taken Dr. Reichel-Dolmotoff, by his own account, several months to get his head around what his female informants were telling him. What they were telling him was exactly what he had been observing for years, but without understanding what was in front of his face. His teachers had judged him to be one who would rather know than believe, making him one of the few Younger Brothers who could, given enough time and careful instruction, come to understand a few bits and pieces of the Aluna of things.
Again, being a slow learner, it had taken several months for Dr. Reichel-Dolmotoff to realize the the Kogi do not believe in Aluna. By repeated and patient instruction he had come to understand that Aluna was a metaphor for the complex system of environment, power, and society that the Kogi are. Aluna is the living of things as the centuries pass. The Kogi are as elder children of the Mother, Aluna, who is coextensive with the universe. That any image his mind might form of Aluna is not the Aluna-one, came to be accepted. Men could know of Aluna, though being a woman helped to intuit her ways.
Búnkuasé knew of the prior phase of Taironan empire-building that had failed, and something of how the people had lived as simple agriculturalists before them who still remembered and at times lived their hunter-gatherer past as it had been prior to the arising of elite privilege, demagoguery and conflict. She was as knowledgeable as anyone of the reboot of Taironan civilization, of complex society that had reemerged, and of how the changes by the rebuilders, such as had been made, were supposed to prevent the descent to chaotic collapse that the first Taironans had endured.
Búnkuasé had foreseen the coming descent of her phase II society when she first proposed her 'solutions' that, per her best guess, might actually work. When she had first attempted to speak to others of her concerns, virtually no one deigned to listen and all were dismissive. She kept thinking about what might actually work while listening to Nature, to the Aluna of things. She came to spend much time wandering forest paths to take in the view from the hill tops. When descent could no longer be denied, some came to listen to her. She told them to listen to the Mother. She pointed out that Mother has all the answers, so each should ask her their questions. She taught that to think is to listen.
Búnkuasé was alone because before the descent no one could think the unthinkable, and during the descent all were distracted and unable to think. She alone was not surprised. Some remembered that she had foreseen, if not in detail, the way down all were forced to endure and thereby acknowledge. She alone was optimistic and calm. Some turned to her for answers. She knew that she had no answers, that she knew nothing apart from hints that came to her when her inner voice became quiet enough to listen. She also knew that none about her were in a position to hear the still voice that came from all about. They could only hear the yelling of the priests and political would-be leaders who were loudly shouting out their 'solutions'.
Búnkuasé had a mouth and must speak. She could but speak the truth to power. She could but repeat herself. She said to listen to the Mother, not to the priests and would-be demagogues with 'solutions'. She shared the best guesses that came to her. She told the people to not believe a single word she spoke, but to listen to that which lay behind her words and behind all words spoken by other humans, especially those of self-serving men. Those who could not listen to Nature, who could only hear the prattle of others, could hear, as an echo, what the source of words might be. When the priests and demagogues speak, listen to the commingling of fear and craving for power, for 'solutions' and 'salvation' they desperately want you to believe in.
Those the people listened to listened to her words and self-recognition crept in. They had been forced by events to doubt the self-appointed certitudes of the priests whose empire was failing. They knew uncertainty; their minds were able to listen. Búnkuasé gave them something to think about, something more credible than the loudly yelling priests and demagogues were promising. They managed to listen to Búnkuasé, and as the years passed some came to listen to Nature. As the generations passed, enough came to listen to enable all the people to live a prosperous life of enough in accord with the Aluna of things.
Búnkuasé started by redefining the relationship between men and women with a focus on helping men to know their proper place in society founded on the pair-bond and the developments thereof, i.e. posterity. If the pair-bond worked, the family could function right and well. If society could be managed so as to not become too large, yet communities could ally themselves, then enough could live cooperatively together to prevent conquest by the Carib or other outlying empire builders. Foundational changes needed: The Tairona of the third iteration must forgo empire-building, whether political, religious, and/or material so all may prosper as the centuries pass.
Búnkuasé saw that Nature comes first. She saw that women had a better grasp of Aluna's supremacy than men who were more inclined to put short-term self interest over that of posterity. She saw that men do not come first, but women do. That women are closer to Aluna by nature was antithetical to the narrative of empire builders and elite privilege. Some thoughts only became thinkable during the chaos of collapse. Búnkuasé spoke to the men of the natural superiority of women. She pointed out that they were dependent on women and that together men and women were dependent on Nature. Women understand that Aluna comes first. Men must endeavor to understand that women come first as first iteration towards loving and understanding Nature. While men may seemingly manage the affairs of society, women have de facto veto powers. If a consensus among them emerges, the men must listen carefully, but never obey. Demands for obedience is not Aluna's way. Love and understanding are Mother's way.
That women come first was a foundational claim, but did not imply that patriarchal men should be replaced by empire-building self-serving women. There would be no overt matriarchy. Men would be appointed mayors of communities by male mámas, and other men would be appointed guardians, as women had more important responsibilities than to be bureaucrats or community organizers. That men needed the most instruction meant most teachers, mámas, needed to be males who had to undergo eighteen years of intensive training to counter biological proclivities. Men needed a special place to gather and two or more mámas had to be with them to guide, instruct, and steer them to a better view than they were by nature inclined to have (e.g. viewing women as cockroaches). Being drugged by a mindful practice of coca chewing had been observed by Búnkuasé to help men focus and the practice, doing more good than harm, became the norm.
Other changes included housing men separately from women and children when at the family farm. To avoid the unintended, husbands and wives never had sex indoors, but would agree to meet outdoors, usually in the garden area where the woman had made a bed of leaves. They would use their robes turned inside out and lie upon. When visiting the city, men stayed in the nuhue or World house to be educated. Búnkuasé had realized that the number of new citizens born had to be managed. Women, those who were mothers, were well aware of the general state of prosperity among the people. If environmental resources were abundant, the population could be increased, and if scarcity seemed to be increasing, then population must be decreased. To maximize population, consumption of the Mother's gifts was equitable as evidenced by no one being under or over nourished. Managing an agro-ecosystem so all lived a prosperous life of enough allowed for, indeed resulted in, population growth if unmanaged. Búnkuasé enabled the women to decide, by consensus among the mothers, how many babies would be born each year and in what order those women wishing to become mothers could become pregnant. All women were taught to manage their fertility. All men were taught that they must never ejaculate in or on a vagina without the permission of a woman blessed by the mothers to become with child. Once a mother, a wife could confer the blessing at her discretion.
Some women who were also mothers allowed vaginal intercourse when they believed themselves to be infertile between ovulation or while nursing a child. Some asked their husbands to nurse on them after their child stopped to continue to suppress ovulation. Some also asked their husbands to withdraw before ejaculating, as an extra precaution, but many women practiced safe sex and only allowed vaginal intercourse to become pregnant and while pregnant. Both husbands and wives learned from their gay benefactors how to make love without ejaculate coming in the vagina.
Failures, despite diligent care, happened. Attempts to abort could be made, or infanticide was allowed and at times required. Since all women who wanted children could have two or more in due time, given that childhood mortality was significant, if the failure was a woman's first pregnancy, and she wanted to keep the child after birth, she was typically allowed to, but with the understanding that it would be her last. Thus diligence was selected for. Sexual indiscretion in males was selected against as the only capital offence was rape, including of a wife by her husband.
Of course all of Dr. Reichel-Dolmatoff's informants, men and women, considered all the changes Búnkuasé had instigated to have been for the better, to have allowed all, for 1,100 years, to live the prosperous life of enough. Anthropologists, serving their globe dominating empire of civilized growth, could not believe such aberrant behavior possible.
As noted elsewhere, I propose that humans be known as Homo s. sapiens var. narrator. I am a storyteller, you're a storyteller, we're all storytelling animals. Some actually don't believe their own stories, nor the narratives others tell. Some listen to Nature who has all the answers.
