Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Of Women Warriors and the Cultural Pragmatism of Traditional Societies
You know the stereotypes.
5000 years ago, a horde of milk-drinking, pot-smoking, trouser-wearing, pastoralist warriors rode (on horses) out of the Pontic-Caspian steppes to take over much of Eurasia. We can follow the trajectory of their expansion by the kurgans—burial mounds—that they left behind, in which those very warriors were buried with full panoply of arms.
There's a certain amount of truth to the stereotypes, certainly. But with the advent of genetic science, a fascinating new window of insight into the ancient Indo-Europeans opens up for us.
In fact, one in twenty-five of those warriors buried with arms in those barrows was a woman (Winegard 99). One in twenty-five.
Take that, Marija Gimbutas.
Really, we shouldn't be surprised. We know that women in historic Celtic-speaking societies underwent arms training. (Think of Boudicca. Being able to defend yourself is a valuable skill.) Well into historic times, the Scythians—essentially, Indo-Europeans who stayed on the steppes—were known for their women-under-arms, who gave rise to Classical legends of the Amazons. Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great, unifier of Persia, lost his head (literally) after treacherously attempting to annex the kingdom of Scythian warrior-queen Tomyris of the Massagetae. (He had previously proposed marriage to her, but she turned him down.)
Warrior goddesses turn up all across Indo-Europeandom, from the Morrigan in the West, to Durga in the East, with Athene in-between. Why would we be surprised to find an underlying social reality to match? Religion reflects society, as every student of either knows.
In fact, traditional cultures, which tend to be economically marginal and so need maximum output from every individual member, also tend towards social pragmatism. Yes, labor tends to be divided along sexual lines, but there's no point in being over-rigid about it. If a man wants to wear “women's” clothing and do “women's" work, so what? Among the Lakota, it was a fortunate man who had a winkte wife. Winktes are strong and can tan lots of hides. If you take a winkte wife, you'll be rich. Sitting Bull had a winkte among his wives.
Likewise, if a woman wants to take up arms and go out on raids with the war-parties, so long as she's physically and psychologically capable of the work, why not? Getting the most that you can out of every individual makes good, strong socioeconomic sense.
Of course, those women-warriors buried under those mounds didn't look anything like Hollywood's War-Paint Barbies; but you already knew that. If anything, they bore more resemblance to Brienne of Tarth.
In his opposition to women in combat, the Tr*mp administration's proposed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is operating, apparently, out of an outmoded Biblical mindset.
Shame on him and his handlers. The pagan ancestors knew better.
Timothy C. Winegard, The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity. Dutton 2024.
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