La Madre, Chapter 1

It was recently proved once again that we live in a male-dominated society, here in the so-called "modern" world. This article was submitted, although in a more scholarly format, to Quarterly Review of Cultural Anthropology. It was soundly rejected by the editorial board, all men of course. After you have read what I've written here, I'm sure you'll understand why those seven old men made their decision. Who knows, maybe you'll even agree with them.

My story begins approximately two years ago, and the events recorded here took place in South America, in the Orinoco River basin. My work as a cultural anthropologist has taken me on many expeditions in the last twenty years, but none has changed my life, and that of my husband, to the extent of this trip.

My life's work has been the study of matriarchal societies, which are those in which the female members are in charge. The women are the ones who make the decisions, as well as own the property. I'm sure my readers are all living in patriarchal societies, and undoubtedly think those are the norm. While I would agree that they are certainly in the majority, I would argue that number does not always determine right from wrong.

In previous trips to South America, I had studied clans and villages that were said to be matriarchal in organization, but was always disappointed to learn they were in fact not. Most of them had female chiefs or leaders, but that certainly did not change the fact that men were the ultimate arbiters. It was as if a city in the United States had a woman serving as mayor, and then proclaiming to the world that it was matriarchal. Of course, it would be no such thing. That was the situation I had discovered in every one of my South American researches.

For quite some time, I had been hearing rumors of a hidden society said to exist in the headwater territory of the Orinoco, and I resolved to make one last trip to that continent, hoping to either discover the truth, or to put the rumors to rest. My husband has always served as my research assistant, and it fell to him to make the arrangements for this final expedition. Since my employer (a small university in the U.S.) was short of funds for another fruitless research excursion, I was told that the only personnel would be myself and my husband, James. That suited me just fine, since it is a truism of contacting primitive tribes that a large party will usually just scare them so much they hide in the jungle, and no contact is ever made.

It should also be said that James could not be trusted out of my sight. He always had a wandering eye, and seemed to be especially fond of female students. In one incident, he had even had an affair with a young girl who was one of my graduate assistants, and the situation was hushed up by my giving her a glowing recommendation to another university, along with a substantial cash payment to keep quiet. There had been several incidents, when on expeditions, when he had tried to convince female students to share his sleeping bag. He'd done so even though I was in close company with him. So you see what I mean when I say that he couldn't be left at home.

James used some contacts he had in Venezuela to arrange for hiring a combination boat captain and guide to make the arrangements for us. We would fly from the States to Caracas, then catch a bush flight to Puerto Ayachuco. We would meet our guide there, and he would take us upriver on his boat as far as possible. After that, we'd use a freight canoe to further penetrate the wilderness. After that, we would have to trust to our guide's knowledge of the area to help us locate our quarry.

Because of all the trips we'd made to that part of the world, we knew that our expedition had to be scheduled for the cool season. The insects are bad enough in that part of the year, and are simply intolerable in the hot months. Since we would be traveling so far from civilization, and living in primitive conditions, the summer climate would be too much for a couple of softies like my husband and I.

Let me cut short this preamble by saying that we arrived on schedule in Caracas, and then Puerto Ayachuco. We met our guide, inspected the equipment he had purchased, and were soon on our way up the Orinoco. We planned to travel whenever the light was sufficient to allow us to see trees floating down the river, and to avoid taking a wrong branch of the water. The captain, who oddly enough was an expatriate American named Michael (just call me "Mike"), said that we'd be able to make fairly good time as far as the village where his wife had been dropped off to visit some relatives. After that, it would be slow going because of obstructions and shallow water. At a point approximately 100 miles above the village, we would have to leave the boat and use the canoe for further progress.

There was one other person on the boat with us, and he was introduced as Paolo. It was his job to take turns piloting the craft, so that the captain wouldn't become too fatigued for safety. My husband and I were told that it would be necessary for us to take turns at the bow, being watchful for snags and debris in the river. If we sighted something that posed a danger to the boat, we were to yell out, and then use a long pole to deflect the object to the side. Since there was an awning set up to provide shade, it really wasn't unpleasant duty, and James and I spent most of the time sitting there discussing the country we were passing through.

Mike and Paolo also visited with us when not on wheelhouse duty. Mike spoke good English of course, and seemed to be fairly knowledgeable. Paolo knew a smattering of English, some Spanish, and some Portuguese. I had picked up enough of the last two languages to be able to converse with him on simple subjects, and never ceased to be amazed at the information he had about the area and the wildlife that lived there. All in all, it was a pleasant journey.

That changed immediately as soon as Mike's wife, Antiguilla (at least, that's my rendering of her name), came aboard. She was certainly no beauty, but at the same time was not plain. Her obsidian hair, with flashing eyes to match, were her most striking features. Her brown skin shone with good health, and my only complaint with it was she revealed more of it than I would have preferred. In the fashion of native women in that area, she wore only a short skirt, and I knew it was a problem for James to avoid staring at her beautiful breasts. Based on the firmness of those two attributes, I guessed her age to be in the mid-twenties, which would put her at less than half her husband's age, and considerably younger than our early fifties.

The change that I mentioned was in the attitude and demeanor of Mike and Paolo. Antiguilla had been waiting for us at the dock, and as soon as she stepped on board, both men met her at the gangplank. Their eyes were downcast, and they stood in silence. The young woman said something that was mostly in a native language I didn't know, but I was able to catch the words for "husband" and another for "lover". I assumed she was addressing Mike, and ignoring Paolo since he was just a deckhand.

As soon as she had greeted them, the men raised their eyes to her face. The expressions I saw on their faces were almost shocking to me, as I had never in my life seen such open love, adoration, and respect. Also mixed with that emotion, though, was another that I was convinced was fear. I was struck by how their faces could mirror such differing emotions, and wondered what there was in the young woman to engender such passion.

That she was the one truly in charge of the boat was soon evident in her voice, and the commands she issued. While Mike introduced us to his wife, Paolo hurriedly loaded the baggage and cargo that was piled on the dock. As soon as the captain had performed the formalities, he quickly joined in the loading.

Antiguilla and I seemed to immediately form a friendship, which is rare for me. Maybe I somehow sensed a kindred relationship of one strong woman to another. However, I knew in my heart that James had never felt the intense level of adoration for me that the two other men had shown her. Of course, he didn't fear me as they did her, at least not as intensely. This trip promised to be much more interesting than others in the past, as it seemed to present the opportunity for me to explore a further dimension of the matriarchal relationship.

James was obviously fascinated by the new arrival, even though he tried to avoid staring too openly at her lovely young breasts. I noticed that whenever he was near her, he always stood or sat facing her, rather than being at her side or behind. I have known for years that he's a "breast man", and that assessment was certainly borne out at that time.

She and I spent many hours talking about our lives. My main interest was in ascertaining if she knew anything about the clan or tribe we were seeking, but she was very circumspect on that topic. I was sure she knew more than she was telling, but wasn't familiar enough with her language to allow me to determine just what it was she was hiding. Our conversations were enjoyable, though, and the time seemed to pass quickly.

When it became too dark to travel safely on the river, the boat was tied up for the night. After dinner, we shared a bottle of wine, and then retired for the night. It wasn't long before the sounds of lovemaking could be heard in the still night air, and I assumed that Mike was pleasuring his wife, and vice versa. The erotic sounds soon affected James, and he began to make love to me in his own ineffectual way. In a short time he had found his pleasure, and was soon asleep. My own sleep was long in coming as I continued to eavesdrop on the romantic encounter taking place in the captain's cabin. I was surprised that a man of Mike's age could spend such a long time in making love to his wife, and was envious of her. Finally I drifted off, with the sounds still in the air.

The next day, and many after that were carbon copies of one another. Conversation and meals were followed by nights listening to Mike pleasuring Antiguilla, or at least I assumed it was them. I'm not sure where Paolo was sleeping, but was sure he too was listening, and probably finding his pleasure with his hand.

During our daily talks, Antiguilla and I always gravitated toward the subject of which sex should be in charge of domestic relationships, and indeed society in general. She mentioned that Mike had told her many times of how males were dominant in the outside world, and how strange that seemed to her. She was sure that all the strife and unrest so prevalent then, and probably since the beginning of time, was due to that one issue. As we became closer to one another, she began to confide more details about her own village, and it soon became clear to me that it was indeed a matriarch. That only stimulated my interest in her, and I never lost an opportunity to ask probing questions.

The days seemed to blend into one another as we traveled up the Orinoco, and I was surprised when Mike announced one evening that the boat would be left tied in this place until our return. We would begin traveling by canoe in the morning, and that meant the journey would become much more arduous for all concerned. The previous leg of the journey had been a life of leisure compared to the physical exertions that would be required in paddling the canoe, and in the various portages we would be forced to perform.

I asked Mike if he had a destination in mind, and he said, somewhat mysteriously, "Antiguilla is our guide from now on. What lies ahead is probably the most dense wilderness on the face of this earth, and one spot looks like another to me. She's taken me through here several times, but I'd have no chance on my own. Paolo also knows the route, and that makes me think it's some inborn sense of direction that's guiding them. Whatever it is, we're in her hands now."

With that, our good-nights were said, and soon we were listening to another session of lovemaking from the captain's cabin. As I drifted to sleep, I saw a shadowy figure standing by the rail and looking over the water. For a moment I thought it was Mike, but realized that it would have to be Paolo, since the married couple was obviously enjoying each other's company.

The next morning the large canoe was loaded with our essentials, plus the cargo that had been on the dock when Antiguilla came aboard. She sat in the stern of the canoe, steering with her paddle, while the rest of us paddled, two on a side. Both James and I had used canoes before, so it took very little time for us to settle into a rhythm of dip, stroke, dip, stroke. Soon we were gliding up the much smaller river at a pace that was at least twice that of the cautiously-proceeding boat.

In the early afternoon, we turned into a branch of the river that was obviously different from the main stream. The water was much more clear, and it seemed to sparkle invitingly after all those days of staring at the muddy swirls of the Orinoco. We followed the tributary for several miles, and then Antiguilla steered us to a landing in a small clearing.

She told us that the remainder of the journey would be by foot, and it would take about two days. That indicated to me that we were about forty miles from our destination, and my excitement mounted as I realized that in a space of a few hours, I would see the true matriarchal society that I had been hoping to study for all my professional life. That thought made the weary miles seem shorter, and put a lighter touch in my step. I was sure that James didn't much like this part, since Antiguilla was ahead of us and he couldn't cast those sly glances at her breasts.

In the late afternoon of the second day of our hike, I could see a change in the demeanor of Paolo and the other woman. When I looked questioningly at Mike, who was walking immediately behind me, he said we were almost at our destination, and that was the cause of the excitement and quicker pace of the two. Almost at that very moment, we entered a small clearing, occupied almost entirely by a large hut that had been constructed of poles, reeds, vines, and grasses. We stopped at the open doorway to the hut, and Antiguilla began to explain that James and I would have to remain there until she had visited with her relatives and obtained their permission for strangers to enter the village.

We were only too glad for this opportunity to rest, and accepted this delay with good graces. As we entered the hut to rest on the sleeping platforms there, our three companions continued down the path to the village. I couldn't help but feel nervous, but was determined to obey all restrictions put upon us, in order to avoid angering our hosts.

The two of us napped and ate sparingly of our supplies for a couple of hours, and then Antiguilla appeared at the door. She told me that I was welcome to make my first visit to the village at that time, but that James would have to remain in the hut until he had met someone, who I guessed would be the leader of the clan. The young woman referred to the leader by a name completely unfamiliar to me, and when I asked for an explanation, she thought for awhile and then said, "La Madre". I knew that phrase would be translated as "The Mother", and was sure that my guess about the person being the village leader was correct.

James was put out by the thought of being left behind, but saw no other choice. I told him to transcribe the field notes I'd made up to that point, and knew that would keep him busy, and hopefully out of mischief. I could tell by the way Antiguilla looked at him that she seemed to have ill feelings for him, and I hoped they wouldn't jeopardize my mission.

The two of us walked the short distance to the village, and then came to a halt just as we were ready to step into the large clearing that contained it. My hostess looked at me with a mixture of concern and amusement on her face, finally saying, "Mike said I should warn you about something that may shock you. The males in our clan are not allowed to wear clothing when in the village. You should be prepared for that sight."

I certainly did find that interesting, but was sure my professional training was preparation enough to keep me from being shocked, and even more, from embarrassing myself by expressing any sort of outrage. Cultural anthropologists have to be prepared to accept many things that would be strange to a layman, and I was sure I'd be up to the task. Little did I know just how wrong I was.

As we entered the clearing, we were met by a throng of children, which seemed to be a universal thing. Kids have an unbounded curiosity, and didn't hesitate to express it whenever an opportunity presented itself. I had seen naked children many times in the past, at villages much like this one, so nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me. The children gathered around us in a noisy escort, alerting everyone to our arrival. We continue to walk toward the center of the clearing, albeit much more slowly now.

As we finally arrived in front of the largest building there, much too large to be characterized as a "hut", the children fell back and became still. It was then that I saw the first of the adults, and even my training could not keep my eyes from widening and my mouth from falling open. Apparently Antiguilla had been anticipating my reaction, for she began to laugh openly at my surprise.

There was nothing at all surprising about the women, since they were clothed in the same manner as my guide. They wore short skirts and nothing else, and the array of breasts was very indicative of their ages. There were several women of Antiguilla's apparent age, with firm breasts. As the ages rose, the breasts sank, in that universal response to gravity. The woman who was obviously the center of attention was undoubtedly much older than I, and her breasts were hanging almost to her waist.

As I said: nothing at all surprising about the women. What dumbfounded me, and left me entirely speechless, were the men. I had been warned to expect they would be naked, and they were. What Antiguilla had not warned about, though, was the condition of their crotches.

Standing arrayed before me were probably fifty males, ranging in age from pre-pubescent boys to one man who was obviously the consort of the leader, and was her equal in years. Of the fifty, about one-third of them had intact penises, and oh, what penises they were! I simply couldn't believe my eyes when they told me that the things, even though not erect, were easily twice as big as James' cock. His seven incher is longer than average, as he never ceased to remind me, but these specimens of manhood made him look like a child.

Even that, though, was not what shocked me. Of the other two-thirds of the men, there was not one with an intact penis! If the bearer were a post-pubescent boy, then the head of his cock was missing. Some of the young men were in the same state, but several who had penises possessed about half of the original. The ones that left me truly speechless were the men who sported full sets of testicles, and absolutely no penises whatsoever!

I don't know how long I stared at the spectacle before me until my training asserted itself. I do know that my first rational thought was a realization that the males who still had heads on their cocks had all been circumcised. That may not seem strange to members of western cultures, but it is certainly strange to other cultures, especially those in primitive areas of South America. Never before had I seen circumcision practiced by native tribes, and that alone would be worth at least two articles in professional publications. The fact that the majority of the males had also been subjected to partial or full penectomies should keep me in writing material for the rest of my career.

As I finally accepted the truth of what my eyes were reporting, another less important observation registered with my brain. None of the older boys and men standing there had pubic hair. While there are some races that have very little of that feature, I know of none where it is totally absent in the natural state. The fact that case didn't apply here was demonstrated by the full bushes of the women. It was apparent to me that the men's pubic hair had been shaved for some reason, and it presented just another in a long line of mysteries about this culture. Antiguilla would soon face a barrage of questions.

One of the intact men standing there was Paolo, and I couldn't stop myself from looking at his huge member. At first glance it appeared to hang almost to his knees, but after more sober reflection I knew it was only halfway there. The thing would surely be at least ten inches long when erect, and maybe longer. Despite my best intentions, I couldn't help but recall all the nights spent in his company, with that monster just a few feet away from me.

Mike had been standing in the crowd of men, but was shielded by them from my gaze. As the crowd shifted, my eyes were drawn to his crotch, and I once again was speechless. He was one of those men who had no penis! His testicles were completely normal-appearing, but there was not even a stub to indicate where his member used to be. I finally recovered my composure enough to move my eyes away from him, and resolved to keep my them on Antiguilla and the other women. At least then my discomposure wouldn't interfere with my observations.

At last her amusement subsided, and she took me by the hand and led me to a place immediately in front of the elderly woman. She spoke then in her native language, which was incomprehensible to me. I assumed she was performing introductions, and also assumed this woman to be La Madre, or the mother of the tribe. When I lowered my eyes and murmured something about being pleased to meet La Madre, Antiguilla was again amused. When she explained what I'd said, all the nearby women began to laugh also. Even in my discomfort, I noticed that none of the men joined in.

Finally Antiguilla told me that the elder's name was Mantotini (or something like that), and that La Madre was not here, but that I would be introduced to her later. I was disappointed that La Madre hadn't seen fit to greet me at this time, but thought that maybe she was in ill health, and was bed-ridden. I was glad that we would meet later, and sought to cover my disappointment.

After another long conversation with Mantotini, Antiguilla told me that I was welcome to study them and learn all the benefits of a society that was totally dominated and administered by women. She then noted that the hour was late (it had long since become dark), and that she would escort me to the "guest quarters" to join my husband. Since I was tired from the two days of walking in the jungle, I was quick to agree. Tomorrow would be a new day, and there would be so much to learn. I was eager to start, but knew that fatigue would hinder my observations.

As we returned to the hut where James was waiting, Antiguilla sought to answer my questions. As you may guess, the main thing occupying my mind at that time was what had been done to most of the males in the tribe. She assured me that all would be explained the following night, when I would see La Madre. I resolved to hold my curiosity until then, and trusted that The Mother would satisfy me relative to their customs and rituals.