Women need equal voice

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One of the great problems in the world today is that key political, cultural and social decisions are being made by men alone, or by a large majority of men with only minimal participation by women.

This presents a great danger for the world because men, by themselves, are not wise enough or balanced enough. It takes both men and women to keep the world balanced and to protect the interests of future generations.

Of course, traditional First Nation societies gave a very strong voice to women. Along the east coast we had many female political leaders, such as Queen Anne of Pamunky village, who was the leader of the Powhatan-Renape Confederation from about 1657 until about 1715.

The Manitowinni-wok (Algonkians) frequently had "queens" as did some tribes in the Carolinas. In the Caribbean, the Taino tribes had many female leaders including the famous Anacona, murdered by the Spaniards. America is one of our early heroes, resisting the Europeans on the Island of Haiti.

Many other tribes had specific powers set aside for female figures, as did the Six Nations and the Cherokees. But everywhere male "chiefs" and councils were limited in their authority by the power of female councils, groups of females, or strong individual women.

Officials "chiefs" were only ceremonial figures or spokespersons and real authority rested with Elders, both male and female. Females, of course, possessed great powers as the "owners" of houses, fields, gathering places, fruiting trees, et cetera.

Under the influence of white contact, however, the power of our women sometimes declined because the white males tended to want only to deal with males. Thus, ceremonial chiefs were often made to sign treaties giving away lands when they, in fact, had no legal authority to do any such thing without the approval of both men and women. But alcohol, fear and flattery often corrupted "chiefs" into signing treaties which cheated the people.

I believe that it is most important that each of our nations consider today if our women have been fully restored to their traditional powerful voices. Of course, some tribal councils have many females members or even leaders, but there are other places where the white-created chief still rules or where very few women serve on tribal councils.

There are many ways to deal with this. One is to specify in the constitution that the council must be half made up of women, half of men. Another way is to create two councils, one of women only and one of men only, both of whom must approve all actions.

This might be a bit cumbersome and is probably unnecessary for Native nations. But when we look at Asia, parts of Africa and Latin America, we often find that women are almost totally excluded from having any direct political voice.

(This column will be concluded in the next issue of Windspeaker.)

Professor Jack D. Forbes, Powhatan-Delaware, is the author of Columbus and Other Cannibals, Africans and Native Americans and other books.)