To the English, she was Grace O’Malley (1530-1603), notorious pirate. To the Irish, she was Gráinne Ní Mháille, Queen of Clew Bay, and her crews were just collecting taxes from the ships that entered her waters. True, these “taxes” were collected at the point of a sword by armed boarding parties of sailors who behaved […]
The pop culture image of Jezebel bears almost no resemblance to the woman who was queen of Israel in the 9th century BCE. There is nothing remotely sexy about Jezebel in the Bible; she’s just mean. By the same token, the biblical account was written by people who utterly loathed Jezebel and everything she stood […]
Why yes, that is a snake on her head. Ixchel is the Maya goddess of fertility, childbirth, weaving, and maybe the moon. The snake in her hair is the cosmic serpent, representing rain and the creative principle, while Ixchel herself is shown pouring out the waters of heaven from an upturned jar. She wears a […]
Chalchiuhtlicue, whose name means “She of the Jade Skirt,” is the Aztec goddess of rivers, lakes, seas, springs, and all running water. She is traditionally depicted as an elegant woman in blue-green clothes, with her skirt flowing out to form the river of life—and of death, for Chalchiuhtlicue also presided over the fourth sun of […]
“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” Did Emma Goldman (1869-1940) really say that? In a word, no. The sentiment was certainly hers, and in her memoirs she told of being admonished for dancing when she was a young radical; but the actual words? No. The quote (or rather, […]
Mama Quilla is the Inca goddess of the moon. Married to Inti, the sun god, she is the female half of the divine equation. Before the Spaniards got to work smashing and melting things, Mama Quilla was worshipped in temples with walls of pure silver. Silver is her metal: in Inca mythology, silver is the […]
You would think that the person who discovered nuclear fission would be one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century. You would think she’d be a household name. But unless you’re a geek or a history buff, it’s possible that you’ve never even heard of Lise Meitner (1878-1968). Meitner was born in Austria […]
We don’t know her name. And unless somebody deciphers Linear A, we probably never will. All we know is that she existed, and that her world was beautiful. The centerpiece of our main illustration is an artist’s recreation of life in the queen’s apartments at the Palace of Knossos around 1500 BCE (bottom center). Note, […]
How great was Empress Theodora (500-548)? This great: she outlawed wife-killing, banned sex trafficking and sex slavery, expanded women’s property rights, gave mothers the right to raise their own children, and generally endowed women with higher legal status than they’d ever had in the entire history of the Roman Empire. Yay, Theodora! She wasn’t a […]
Related post: Last-minute Demeter (sheets, some leaves, and grocery store produce) Demeter is the Greek goddess of agriculture and the bountiful earth. It is she who makes the crops grow—except for those months when her daughter Persephone is in the Underworld, for then Demeter weeps and leaves the earth bare. Together Demeter and Persephone represent […]
Lady Six Monkey (1073-1101) was a Mixtec warrior queen whose story is known from the Mixtec Group Codices. She and her arch nemesis, Lord Eight Deer, loomed large in the legends of Oaxaca for many centuries. (People were named after their birthdates, by the way.) Mixtec society was remarkably gender-equal, and both males and females […]
Empress Carlota (1840-1927) is one of the most intriguing and tragic figures in Mexican history. Born Charlotte of Belgium, she married Archduke Maximilian of Austria when she was only seventeen years old. In 1863 the young couple were invited to become Emperor and Empress of Mexico. Unfortunately, the person doing the inviting was Napoleon III […]
