Re: Montanian

In a message dated 9/24/01 12:32:23 PM, and_yo@HOTMAIL.COM writes:

<< >     Ditto Oaxaca.

Never heard of - the name sounds Mesoamerican. Details please! >>

    Uhh...really?  Wow!  I guess I over-generalize being a Mexican-American.
Oaxaca is a city/province in Mexico (in the southwest, on the ocean).  There
are places that are quite urban now, but the places that aren't still adhere
to the "old ways", which, I'm told, went like this:
    The indigenous peoples of Oaxaca were mainly hunter/gatherer groups.  The
men went out to hunt and work in the fields all day, leaving the women, girls
and young boys at home to tend the children, clean the house, make dinner, do
odd-jobs, etc.  (In fact...maybe the women actually worked in the field.  I'm
not sure.)  As the hunter/gatherer societies became more village-like, the
men still wanted to go out and hunt and get drunk and do nothing all the time
(fyi, I was told all this by a woman), so the women left at home to not only
take care of the house and kids, but to take care of social matters: settle
disputes/arguments, land claims, trading with other groups, etc.  And, as
time progressed and the villages turned into towns, the women claimed even
more responsibility, as there were only women mayors, bailifs, judges,
merchants, handy"men"--everything.  At first, the men didn't care; they
considered this all "women's work" (see, it was still in part driven by
misogeny), leaving the men's work--hunting, fishing, etc.--to them.  Slowly
they began to realize that their world was becoming more urban, and so they
began to return to the towns, accepting menial jobs that women no longer
wanted to perform.  The women still retained all the political/economical
power, though, and, in some places, still do to this day.  In fact, I believe
there was statistics like a man from Oaxaca wasn't elected as mayor anywhere
until...the 80's?  Something like that; here my facts aren't facts at all,
just conjecture.  More or less, though, that's the story of Oaxaca.  That's
where my great grandmother was from, and everybody called her "la Jefa" (the
boss), and she was very much the head of the family, as well as her
household, even though neither she nor any of the family lived in Oaxaca any
longer (they moved to Tijuana).  So actually, if you want any cold hard
facts, not my half-memories, I can ask my family, and they probably no the
whole business, including what it's really like today.

-David