Re-Materializing the Matriarchy

INDIGENOUS WOMEN AS ARTISTS
(RE) MATERIALIZING - THE MATRIARCHY

Indigenous women know that our societies traditionally followed under whats been termed, a “matrilineal order.” Although western anthropologists continue to dispute this, as being a mere “myth of matriarchy,” our art forms have carried these facts forward. We know of matriarchal systems because our traditional art forms have transmitted these teachings unto us through a unique Indigenous process. These teachings are carried, generation upon generation, through the multimedia of our art form. From the pictographs of ancient times, to the quillwork found on baskets, the function of our art form has always served in the purposes of transmitting cultural knowledge. As oral peoples’, our artwork has acted as the method of writing, history and identity. Indigenous artworks created during the past five hundred years are evidence of this, as our art has depicted the coming of the westerner, the spread of disease and the demise of the buffalo. However - It is also with the demise of the buffalo that our traditional role as women, demised. Before the arrival of colonialism, our women were not considered inferior. It was the beliefs of Christianity that infused this patriarchal mentality amongst our Nations and it was the illegal legislation of the Indian act, which took away our respected matriarchal positions. The effects of these Eurocentric theories upon Indigenous peoples, has been horrendous, but it is the role of woman as Matriarch, which has suffered most.

As colonial expansion and the industrial revolution sought control, the Nation became infected with a colonial contagion that raped, and exploited our land, and because we (as women) are the “direct manifestation of Earth in human form. ” we also, suffered rape, disease and devastation. - We continued with the responsibility of maintaining our cultural and ecological “survivance” by taking care of our land, carrying our culture forward, and also by transmitting this knowledge through the “writing” of our history and contemporary reality, into our art forms. It is the role - of the contemporary Indigenous women artist, to continue that function, of transmitting the messages of the Matriarchy, to the masses. Today – we continue to create artworks that pronounce these messages of matriarchy - by representing its legacy in material form.