How reverence for the female Divine survived theological coups, icon-smashers, and patriarchal / colonial regimes.
- Khochmah, Sophia, a female Holy Spirit.
- Isis Lactans becomes the Madonna, who takes her title Theotokos, or Bogoroditsa in Ukraine and Russia.
- Temples become churches, pagan shrines become christian chapels, as sacred trees are felled.
- Churchmen turn Mother Earth suckling the snake into Luxuria (“lust”); but artists discover Eve’s communion with the Serpent Goddess in the Tree of Wisdom.
- Sirenas, mermaids, the vesica pisces.
- Black Madonnas, Vierges Ouvrantes, and the Mantle of Mercy.
- Allegorical and alchemical goddesses of Nature.
- Syncretizations with Orisa, Vodou, and Aztec divinities; Tonantzín becomes La Guadalupana; Yemaya becomes la Virgen de Regla; Oshun becomes Caridad del Cobre.
- Black Madonnas in the Caribbean—including Erzulie Dantor in Haiti—and the Philippines.
- How the 12 Tenmas changed to Dharma Protectors, and Tara vowed to attain enlightenment in a woman’s form.
The Suppressed Histories Archives uncovers the realities of women’s lives, internationally and across time, asking questions abbout mother-right, female spheres of power, and about patriarchy and slavery, conquest and aboriginality. About Indigenous philosophies—and the historical chemistry of their repression, and even more importantly, their role in resisting oppression.
A global perspective on women’s history offers fresh and diverse conceptions of women’s power, as well as of men and gender borders. It overturns stereotypes of race and class, and the structures of domination that enforce them. It digs under the usual story of lords and rulers, looking for hidden strands, and reweaves knowledge from the divided fields of history, archaeology, linguistics and folk tradition.
Maxine Hammond Dashu (born 1950), known professionally as Max Dashu, is an American feminist historian, author, and artist. Her areas of expertise include female iconography, mother-right cultures and the origins of patriarchy.
In 1970, Dashu, who is lesbian,[citation needed] founded the Suppressed Histories Archives to research and document women’s history and to make the full spectrum of women’s history and culture visible and accessible.[1][2] The collection includes 15,000 slides and 30,000 digital images.[3][4] Since the early 1970s, Dashu has delivered visual presentations on women’s history throughout North America, Europe and Australia.[3]
Dashu is the author of Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700–1100 (2016), the first volume of a planned 16-volume series called Secret History of the Witches.
