Τό γυναικεῖον τῆς Ὑπατίας - An Áit Bhanda na Hypatia - Hypatia's Gynaeceum

மள்ளர் குழீஇய விழவி னானும்
மகளிர் தழீஇய துணங்கை யானும்
யாண்டுங் காணேன் மாண்தக் கோனை
யானுமோர் ஆடுகள மகளே என்கைக்
கோடீர் இலங்குவளை நெகிழ்த்த
பீடுகெழு குரிசிலுமோர் ஆடுகள மகளே.

maLLar kulīiya vilavi nānum
makaLir talīiya tuNankai yānum
yāNTung kāNēn māNtak kōnai
yānumōr āTukaLa makaLē enkai
kōTīr ilankuvaLai nekiltta
pīTukelu kuricilum ōr āTukaLa makaLē

Nowhere, not among the warriors at their festival,
nor with the girls dancing close in pairs,
nowhere did I see my dancer.

I am a dancer;
my pride, my lover,

—for love of her
these conch-shell bangles slip
from my wasting hands—

she's a dancer too.

—Kuruntokai 31
attributed to Princess Ādimantiyār (2nd century CE)

Happy birthday, Vicki! :*

Alessandra Belloni is a percussionist, singer, dancer, and folklorist from the region of Apulia in southern Italy. Her art is centered on the dance indigenous to Apulia, the tarantella.



She has four CDs of her music out currently: the first was Earth, Sun, and Moon recorded with a folkloric group she founded, I Giullari di Piazza (which roughly translates as 'the town square players'). Then her solo career broke out with Tarantata: Dance of the Ancient Spider, followed by Tarantelli & Canti d'Amore. Her latest CD, Daughter of the Drum, is privately issued. I hope she gets a recording contract again. She is an amazing artist who deserves to be better appreciated. She performs her music with a certain raw intensity. It isn't for people who want their music to be all smooth and safe. Her music is wild, powerful, and very female.



There is more to the tarantella than the conventional story about how the dance was used to cure tarantula bites. Signora Belloni traces its origins back to pre-Christian pagan Greek and Roman women's mysteries. The bite of the spider is allegorical-- the real ailment the tarantella is a cure for, the tarantism, comes from the repression of women's freedom and sexuality in a patriarchal world. For ages women in southern Italy have been gathering and dancing themselves into a frenzy to let their female power out in a safe space for healing. The Greek mythology about the Maenads came from real women who drummed and danced ecstatically in their rites. Taranto was a Greek colony long before the Romans came along.
( continued )

I Will Dance
by Mirabai (1498-1547)
Translation by Johanna-Hypatia Cybeleia

चितनन्दन आगे नाचूँगी ।
नाचि नाचि पिय रसिक रिझाऊँ, प्रेमी जन को जाचूँगी ।
प्रेम प्रीत का बाँध घूँघरा, सूरत की कछनी काछूँगी ।
लोक लाज कुल की मरजादा, या मैं एक न राखूँगी ।
पिया के पलंगा जा पौढ़ूँगी, मीराँ हरि रंग राचूँगी ॥

I will dance before the Consciousness-Charmer.
Having danced and danced, I will please my enjoyer. I will feel my lover.
I will tie on the ankle bells of love and affection. I will wear the dancing-garment of his face.
Worldly modesty, family honor—I will not care for either of these.
I will go and lie in the bed of my beloved. I, Mira, will dye myself in Hari's color.

citanandana aage naacuungii
naaci naaci piya rasika rijhaauum, premii jana ko jaacuungii
prema priita kaa baandha ghuungharaa, suurata kii kachanii kaachuungii
loka laaja kula kaa marajaadaa, yaa maim eka na raakhuungii
piyaa ke palangaa jaa pauRhuungii, miiraam hari ranga raacuungii

Comparison of root words in the Uzbek language points back to a very ancient nexus between the Moon, consciousness, and women's shamanism.


photo courtesy of Silk Road Dance Company

An Uzbek word for dancer is o'yinchi. (Looks like an Irish Chinese name, doesn't it?) Originally, if you go far back enough into Proto-Turkic, the word meant a shamaness who does a sacred trance dance. The verb this is derived from, o’yna-, means either 'to dance' or 'to play', but originally it referred to sacred shamanic trance activities.


photo courtesy of Silk Road Dance Company

Also in Uzbek, oy 'moon' and the first syllable of o'yna- 'dance, play' are pronounced the same.


photo courtesy of Silk Road Dance Company

What if the resemblance between oy and o'yna- were not just coincidental? What if there was some proto-Turkic shamanist connection between the sacred trance dance and the Moon goddess? Am I going way out on a limb here? Also, the noun o'y means 'idea, thought'. In Old Turkic the verb ay- ‘to tell, to judge’ is the same as the word for ‘moon’, ay. Just as in Indo-European the roots for 'mind' (*men-) and 'measure' (*me-) originated from the root for 'moon' (*me-) - there's a theory that human intelligence and mathematics developed in the Paleolithic because of women calculating their moon cycles - likewise in Turkic the connection of Moon with dance, shamanism, and thought is transparent. As a verbal root in Uzbek, o'y- means ‘to carve notches’, as in the bones which were the first calendars, made by Ice Age women tracking their menstrual periods.



Lunar calendar incised on antler, Abri Blanchard, France, 25,000-32,000 BCE



Lunar calendar incised on antler, Isturitz, France, 25,000 BCE



Lunar calendar incised on bone, Ishango, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 20,000 BCE



Goddess of Laussel, bas-relief on limestone, France, 20,000 BCE

Another meaning of oy- in Uzbek is ‘Mother’. So Mother, Moon, dance, shamanism, thought, and mathematics all share interwoven words and meanings in Uzbek.

Also, o'ynash means 'darling, lover', literally the one you dance with/play with, using the mutual stem of the verbal root o'yna-.

In Sakha, a Turkic language of northern Siberia whose speakers migrated from the Baikal region, oyokh means 'woman' while oyun means 'shaman'.

The earliest ancestor language of Uzbek was spoken in the Altay mountain region between Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Siberia. The book Dawn Behind the Dawn: A Search for the Earthly Paradise by Geoffrey Ashe traces the origin of Paleolithic Mother Goddess shamanism to the Altay-Baikal region circa 25,000 years ago. From there, similar mythological themes can be traced throughout not only the Uralic and Altaic language families that were in contact with the early culture, but Indo-European as well--making it one of the earliest sources of Western and Indic culture. The steppes of Central Asia functioned as an information superhighway during the era of the Silk Road, and could have done the same during the Paleolithic.

In the Altay region as well as throughout the Paleo-Siberian cultural sphere of shamanism, one word was shared in common by many languages: udagan 'female shaman'. This is an example of a Wanderword: it traveled far and wide in the prehistoric world, and it points to the major importance of women as shamanesses in the origin of shamanism. (See Aboriginal Siberia by Maria Antonina Czaplicka, Chapter 12, Shamanism and Sex)

Where I went tonight was utterly cool and thrilling. My friend Kristen who I told you about (Gaia Drum Circle) has organized and led the Young Women's Drumming Empowerment Project since last year. They are doing performances now at the DC Arts Center on 18th Street in the busiest block of Adams-Morgan, man that is always one hoppin scene, and if you're been there you know what I mean--right? I saw several of my peeps from the DC Guerrilla Poetry Insurgency who I knew would be there because Kristen is one of us too. Dre, the founder of the Gaia Drum Circle, performed with the Goddesses of Rhythm too. They trained 11 amazing young artists to a high level of rhythmic precision and excellence in only a few months. I swear the District is exploding with talent.

Kristen teaches drumming, rap, dance, and self-empowerment to teenage girls in the District, she is giving them a valuable activity for after school (they said DC Public Schools don't provide activities for them), and the miracle she and Dre work with their creativity, intellect, and energy gives me hope for the future. Gives me as much hope as anything. These women totally rock. They had a lot of us dancing. It was hot in there... I'd been thinking it was cool weather, and had worn a purple long-sleeved tee, silk scarf, a long skirt, boots and tights (tights?? what was I, crazy?), thinking autumn was coming... wish I'd dressed for summer... the theater space was tiny and really hot under the lights... and we didn't care, we danced, we loved it. I improvised a combination of belly dance and Yoruba dance, which pleased one of the young drummers who shimmied her hips to match mine.

Each of the young artists, plus Dre, got up and rapped. It was about equal parts drumming and rap to the drums, plus dance. The youngest artist (13) with the dreadlocks was also the best dancer, but she had a cold so that dampened the force of her raps a bit. Dre told an eerie story about a balafon (African proto-xylophone) she had recently acquired. She had played it at drumming practice and then heard it being played when no one else was around. After the show when we were saying goodnight, she apologized for telling the story, but I thanked her for introducing a note of something supernatural...

Kristen went around and introduced each of her djembes, which country each one came from. Mali, Ivory Coast, USA, Guinea, and one from Indonesia. Mmm, she is one lucky woman to hold such a tribe of beautiful skins in her care. Feminine power--dyke women--drumming--dancing--everything tonight was perfect for energy that heals our reality--tiqqun ‘olam--the woman-magick whose truth I feel upwelling from the core of my existence--it was all there tonight. Big shout-out to Kristen, Dre, and the Goddesses of Rhythm, you go grrls!

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So on the way there tonight, as I was getting on the toll road, I handed a fiver to the tollbooth attendant and waited for my change. He just held my money for a while and didn't move, just stared at me making googoo eyes and saying "Oh you are so beautiful! You are very beautiful!" He was an old man with a white beard, from Pakistan I think. I said, "Thank you, can I have my change now?" He still didn't move, saying "You are so beautiful I forgot to get the change!" and stared at me some more until I told him to just do his job already.

I mean, there is literally no place a woman can feel safe from getting hit on--like in the middle of fucking traffic, for cripes sakes?! The only worse setting would be a combat zone! This was not the first time guys in tollbooths hit on me, but this was the most blatant use of an invasive male gaze I ever got from a tollbooth. Screw those guys, that does it, I'm buying a Smartpass tomorrow!

Well it's true I am beautiful, thank the Goddess for giving me these dark pretty eyes (and skill at applying makeup). I feel a certain sensuous richness developing in my life, a depth of feeling, a refined sensitivity to the texture and luxuriousness of life, that comes with maturity. I wore Boucheron tonight, that helps; they say it's an old-lady perfume, but I find its aroma fascinatingly deep, voluptuous, nuanced, and richly satisfying to my aesthetic sense. I really like this age, my forties, already a grandmother but still dancing, still looking hot. At least to old men! :) The last guy who hit on me on the street was grizzled too. OK, I know I'm getting on in years, I'm at peace with that. Soon I'll be a Crone... <cackle>