In this episode Max Dashu speaks with Joanna about: Staff-women, the volur; the oldest texts about female spiritual leadership in Europe; nine worlds in the Tree, the nine primordial women in Nature; a common cosmology from Siberia to Scandinavia; the first primordial seeress mentioned in the Voluspa; theories about the Vanir, Alfar, ethnicity, and conquest; “the first war in the world” between the Aesir and the vanir, one of the core themes in the Voluspa; the demonization of the other and divide–and-conquer, the tools of patriarchy through history; deep parallels between the Norse and Vedic stories; the nectar of wisdom, the mead of poetry; a hopeful ending of the Voluspa; ancestral recovery work for the people of European descent.

Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research and document women’s history from an international perspective. She built a collection of 15,000 slides and 30,000 digital images, and has created 150 slideshows on female cultural heritages across human history. Dashu’s work bridges the gap between academia and grassroots education. It foregrounds indigenous women passed over by standard histories and highlights female spheres of power retained even in some patriarchal societies. Dashu is known for her expertise on ancient female iconography in world archaeology; women shamans, witches and the witch hunts, mother-right cultures, patriarchies and the origins of domination. Dashu has published “Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100” (Veleda Press, 2016). This book is Vol.VII in the 15-volume series “Secret History of the Witches“, with two more volumes forthcoming. She has also produced two videos on dvd: “Women’s Power in Global Perspective” (2008) and “Woman Shaman: the Ancients” (2013).

“I Can’t Sit Still”, original music by Evarusnik

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