Hi Brian. I don't have the name of the tribe with me, but I'll do my best to
find it (saw the film in sociology/anthropology classes at my old school, can't
find it here) I think they're located on an island somewhere near Australia(?)
but maybe that's just my brain telling me something wrong.
When i say the roles are reversed, I mean it. Women are the ones who decide
who they marry, whether or not they divorce, etc. Men have no say in these
things. A "pretty" man is a good man, and therefore, the men beautify
themselves in ways similar to the ways women do in this culture - jewelry,
elaborate costumes. And an old, "ugly" man who has been left for a younger man
will have an impossible time finding a new spouse.
A woman of the tribe (don't know if she's their "leader" or what) who doing
much of the talking kept saying things such as "women are better at
EVERYTHING," although many of the things that women were doing that men were
supposedly incapable of doing (such as knowing how to gather fish when the tide
went out) are obviously simple enough that anyone could do it.
I'm not sure how this society emerged - I tried to do a research paper once on
matriarchal societies, but found nothing. The woman said things like "this is
the way is has always been, this is the way it is all throughout the world,"
but who knows about 20,000 years ago.
It will be interesting to see how things change when patriarchal cultures begin
influencing this culture, what do you think?
Tj.
