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Arguing About the Goddess

The Myth claims that "feminist matriarchalists almost always posit a
form of goddess monotheism for prehistory..." Eller doesn't seem to
have a clue to how controversial this idea has been in Goddess
circles. Already in the '70s feminist pagans protested against
anything that smacked of a monotheist Big Daddy in the Sky. More
recently, Asphodel Long wrote, "for Goddess people generally the term
'the Goddess' describes all aspects of female divinity, goddesses
singular and plural: academic determination to impose a monotheism on
us is misplaced and counterproductive." Daniel Cohen remarks that
archaeologists "perceive 'the goddess' and 'goddesses' as being
opposing notions," but points out that pagans use these terms
interchangeably, "with the same person referring to 'the goddess' in
one sentence and 'goddesses' in the next." [Review of Ancient
Goddesses: the Myth and the Evidence, in Wood and Water, UK, Winter
Solstice 1998].

[INLINE] Eller uses her problematic claim of goddess monotheism to
sidestep the preponderance of female iconography in prehistoric
cultures. She acknowledges "a huge number of anthropomorphic
figurines, many of them clearly female." Putting aside the masculine
default conveyed by "anthropomorphic," it is not "many" but "most."
These overwhelmingly female statuettes are found on a global scale,
from Ecuador and Colombia to Ohio and Utah and Alaska, from Chad and
Egypt to Syria, Kazakhstan, the Punjab, and Japan, as well as in
ancient Europe.

<<< El Salvador

Their femaleness has not been controversial. But Eller contends that
only 50% of the ancient Balkan figurines are indisputably female. If
we assume all the rest are male, she says, then the gender breakdown
would be 50-50. An illustration shows one of these "sexless" images: a
breastless statuette from Vinca, in the same stance as the obviously
female figurines: hands on belly, feet together. Its rounded hips are
wider than the shoulders, the body violin-shaped, yet Eller thinks it
may be male. Her interpretation is hardly compelling, but even if we
conceded that such images were male: how many male-dominated societies
do we know of that make nude figures of masculine gods, lords,
warriors, or fathers -- sans penis?

Conversely, Eller believes the female images are the neolithic
equivalent of pornography: after all, "how do we know" they aren't? To
make her case, she uses drawings by Hubert Pepper comparing
paleolithic art and modern porn. He pictures an archaic sculpture
viewed from the rear, with its buttocks turned up, next to a
doggy-style picture. A butt is a butt, but the figurine is not on
hands and knees, neither does the reclining female relief in the
second example assume the splayed position of the modern photo. None
of the ancient figures show the simpering coyness of Playboy pinups.
Nor do people bury their dead with porn. It's pretty extreme to assume
that all representation of female nakedness equates to pornography.
And the presumption that a vulva signifies a sex object, while a
phallus indicates power, should be jettisoned.

Eller proffers other possible interpretations of the figurines: they
may have been used in curative rites and then disposed of, since some
were found in garbage middens. (Didn't men also get sick, or do the
figurines then represent healing goddesses?) The sacramental context
of many finds hardly comes into consideration, although Eller concedes
that the figurines had "protective or magical functions in some
cultures." She runs through other theories that they were dolls, toys,
or were used to teach boys. (Why not girls?). None of this explains
how they ended up in so many burials, or in granaries, under
thresholds, and in temples from Malta to northeastern China.

Thus, Eller repeats processual archeology's monolithic insistence that
the female figurines were at best fertility idols, at worst of no
significance, and anyway, we can't prove what they were in the absence
of written evidence. The idea that they represented goddesses whose
divinity could be considered on a par with the gods of the "great"
religions is dismissed.

We are informed that feminist researchers are prone to see vulvas
everywhere (although even a male archaeologist comes under fire for
interpretating signs in cave art as vulvas). The symbols "said to be
vulvae" in Figure 7.3 seem to fit the bill quite well (and some of
them reappear on the phallic baton in Figure 7.9). The author expects
"fms" to object to interpretation of a multivalent Cypriot seated
figure/phallus/vulva as a dildo. Yet for decades now, feminists have
speculated that phallic-headed female figurines were ritually used to
stretch hymens in womanhood initiations.

Eller believes that most of the images regarded as female, including
the famous plaster reliefs at Catal Huyuk, "are not definitely or even
probably female." Her short discussion of Malta states that evidence
for widespread goddess worship "is practically nonexistent." Why?
Because certain archaeologists have declared the larger statues to be
of uncertain sex, or even eunuchs. (One male archaeologist has likened
them to Sumo wrestlers.) Common sense should apply here: the
sculptures have huge hips, round feminine arms, and tiny hands. There
is no penis. The breasts are small, but similar proportions are found,
with the same ridge of belly fat, on female figurines from Sardinia
and, from a much earlier period, at Sesklo in northern Greece. And a
small Maltese scupture from Gozo shows an identically-formed pair of
seated women holding children in their laps. Add to all this the fact
that no masculine statues of similar proportions have been found
anywhere in the world.

A further argument opposes the idea that the Maltese temples are
shaped in the form of a goddess. Eller admits that their outlines
resemble the amply proportioned sculptures, but cites two exceptions
at Hagar Qim and Tarxien. Both from the later phase of
temple-building, they depart from the shape of the earlier temples at
Ggantija, Mnajdra and Gozo because extra chambers have been added. But
Tarxien also has temples of the classic fat-woman shape.

Although I usually disagreed with Eller on issues of interpretation,
some of her points are well taken. For example, she criticizes a woman
who called some four-fold cross-like symbols "moon signs." I couldn't
see any basis for the claim myself. The same signs have elsewhere been
interpreted as "sun signs" -- who's to say? I think Eller's right that
the paleolithic "Venuses" are not pregnant, but that's hardly
startling: everyone I know thinks they are simply fat. Gimbutas'
concept of the "egg-shaped buttocks"is a more prevalent
interpretation; although I'm not convinced, neither do I find it
ridiculous. What strikes me about these clay sculptures from the
Balkans is their resemblance to contemporary figurines from the Nile
Valley, and to silhouettes seen in Saharan and South African rock art.

Eller observes that the classical Greeks did not regard their various
goddesses as "aspects of a unitary goddess." That's true for classical
Greece, but a case can be made for a syncretic Mediterranean goddess
in late antiquity. An aretology of Isis identifies her [INLINE] with
Artemis and various west Asian goddesses such as Astarte (Palestine)
and Nanaia (Iraq). Apuleius' famous invocation is one of several
Roman-era litanies treating primary national goddesses as
manifestations of one Great Goddess: "My name, my divinity, is adored
throughout all the world, in different ways, in variable customs and
in many names, for the Phrygians call me the Mother of the Gods; the
Athenians, Minerva; the Cypriots, Venus; the Candians, Diana..." and
so on at length, ending with the Egyptian veneration of Isis. The
overlap extends to iconography with Isis, Tyche, Fortuna, Terra Mater,
and various Celtic and west Asian deities exchanging symbols and
attributes over a vast range.

Naqada, predynastic Egypt >>>

Another example of a "unified" goddess is found in the Shakta
(goddess-oriented) stream of Hindu religion. Devi (Goddess) is
worshipped under a myriad names and forms. A number of litanies of her
Thousand Names are still being chanted today, the most famous being
the Sri Lalitambika Sahasranama. They approach all the classic Hindu
goddesses as aspects of Devi, one of whose names is Ekakini, "the One,
Only."

Litanies of the ancient Kemetic goddess Neit include the same title.
Neit is also called Mother of the Gods, a concept found in many
cultures, including the Ugaritic, Phrygian, Aztec, and Kalinya Caribs.
Other widespread variants are Mother of All (or of Us All, of the
All), which run the gamut from aboriginal Australia to Mediterranean
Gnostics. While not monotheistic or exclusive of male gods, these
traditions clearly do envision a Great Goddess. This is the
configuration envisioned by most matrix historians, not the singular
goddess The Myth is attempting to refute.

Naturally, Eller counters the assertion that goddess veneration proves
high female status by bringing up goddesses who are violent or support
patriarchal custom. No surprises there, since not all patriarchies are
monotheistic. Her Ugaritic example of Anat wading in the blood of
battle is to the point (although she did leave out Anat bearding her
father El, king of the gods, and making him do her will). Observing
that "Goddess worship has been reported for societies rife with
misogyny," Eller points to women's low status in Hindu, Buddhist and
Catholic societies. She neglects to add that Catholic doctrine denies
its female saints the status of deities, and Buddhist technically has
no deities, being non-theistic. Historical denial of ordination to
women is part of the picture here, as well.

Even so, goddess worship alone clearly can not be used as the measure
of women's social power. But is it really meaningless as an indicator?
All the examples Eller gives come from post-imperial societies, which
combined many strands of indigenous traditions with the religion of
ruling elites and their priesthoods. These patriarchies are complex
cultural mixtures; their retention of goddesses can't be used as a
yes/no indicator of high female status. But their goddess myths do
supply interesting clues about women's status.

The Vedas, the Icelandic Edda, Sumerian and Greek texts, all show
patriarchy among the gods themselves. In India, over the millennia,
the brahmin priesthood absorbed indigenous goddesses into their
profoundly hybrid religion. Adivasi peoples who maintained their
sovereignty placed great emphasis on a primary goddess. For example,
the Toda attribute the origins of all their clans and ceremonies to
the goddess Tökisy, "who divided and gave them in the beginning." Some
of these peoples held on to mother-right and female liberty in
choosing partners. Those subjugated into the lower castes also tended
to retain matrilineage, primary goddess veneration, and womanhood
initiation rituals.

Western feminist analysis turned to goddesses because they are so
strongly anathematized in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scriptures.
In the Christian world, their erasure was linked to suppression of
priestesses, while in Judaic scripture their worship was condemned as
"whoring after false gods," and the metaphor recurs of Zion as a
adulterous wife who will be punished by a wrathful god/husband.
Islam's triumph resulted in outlawing of the old Arabian deities,
among whom a trilogy of goddesses was prominent. A famous hadith
(saying attributed to Muhammad) says of the pagan Arabs: "instead of
him, they worship only females." The idea that patriarchal religion is
pervaded by sexual politics was inescapable.

In the past 30 years, an extremely strong case has been built for
religious pluralism in ancient Judah and Israel. In The Hebrew Goddess
, Raphael Patai marshalled piles of evidence from the Bible itself to
show that many Jews worshipped the goddess Asherah, and that her image
even stood in the Temple itself for two-thirds of its existence.
Archaeology has turned up female figurines in great numbers, but Eller
scoffs at discussions of the Hebrew goddess figurines because "we know
that the religion of that place and era was adamantly monotheistic."
This assumption is seriously out of date. (Not too surprisingly, the
sole footnoted source for it is Tikvah Frymer-Kensky, who is fighting
a rearguard action against the idea that Asherah was a goddess.) The
weight of scholarly opinion has shifted as more information emerges --
including the Asherah inscriptions from Kuntillet 'Ajrud and Khirbet
el-Qom -- indicating greater religious diversity than conventional
Biblical scholarship has been ready to concede until recently.

Eller is correct that some feminists advanced an anti-Semitic thesis
focusing on the Hebrews as patriarchal invaders and destroyers of
Goddess religion. But this stance has been roundly attacked and not
the all-pervading theme she implies it to be. (Her only reference to
criticism of this charge is in the footnotes.) Jewish women such as
Naomi Goldenberg, Phyllis Chesler, and Starhawk are absent from this
picture, though described elsewhere in the book as supporters of "the
myth." Starhawk refuted Judith Antonelli's charges that the Goddess
movement was inherently anti-Semitic in her "Response to 'The Goddess
Myth'." [See [1]http://www.reclaiming.org/starhawk/utne.html . The
Utne Reader published Antonelli's article but refused to print
Starhawk's rebuttal.] We could also note that a number of Jewish men
from Julian Morganstern to David Bakan have argued for "matriarchal"
Jewish origins.

The story is even more complicated; feminists did not make up the
Hebrew invasion narrative or the stories of prophets smashing idols.
The Book of Joshua describes a conquest with genocidal destructions of
Canaanite towns. Like many others, feminists took the Biblical account
at its face value as history, but identified with the Canaanites
(often over-idealizing their culture as egalitarian). In recent
decades, archaeology has contradicted the Bible, showing Hebrews
gradually assimilating to their Canaanite relatives. Some excavators
have even stated that itÕs difficult to tell the two cultures apart.
ItÕs become clear that the Hebrew states were never a great regional
power.

(Continued) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[2]NEXT ------>

[3]Whose Interpretation?
[4]T [5]he Furor Over Gimbutas
[6]Deconstructing "Matriarchal Myth" 
[7]Where's the History? 
[8]PoMo Prescriptions

© 2000 Max Dashu

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References

1. http://www.reclaiming.org/starhawk/utne.html
2. http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/eller6.html
3. http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/eller.html
4. http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/eller2.html
5. http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/eller2.html
6. http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/eller3.html
7. http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/eller4.html
8. http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/eller6.html
9. http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/articles.html
10. http://www.suppressedhistories.net/catalog.html
11. http://www.suppressedhistories.net/index.html