Oracular Women and Raincallers

A Livestream Class with Max Dashu

Sat at 6:45 pm in The Arcane Chamber

In this visual journey, we call back to memory the seeress, dreamer, sibyl, and oracle. She has many cultural names. The Greeks called her Pythia, Snake-Woman, and Melissa, Bee—and prophetis, “one who speaks forth.” The Chewa called her Makewana, Mother of Children—all children. The Python was the spirit who inspired prophecy in both lineages of prophetesses. The Makewanas were prophets and raincallers, part of a pattern of rain priestesses in southern Africa, including the Mudjaji rain queens of the Lovedu, female chiefs of the Soli in Zambia, and the Zulu devotees of Inkosakana. And what about rainmakers in Australia, Hawai’i, and the Transkei?

Prophecy might be defined as declaring something that cannot be known by ordinary means, as communicating profound insights about the nature of reality, what was, and what will be. The prophetess does more than “predict the future”; she speaks truths (“soothsayer”), she interprets reality in an inspired voice. The prophetic woman enters into a channel of Wisdom, “sitting out” on a stone, under a tree, in a cave, by a river, or in the sacred pool. She finds remedies and pathways in the dark, attaining profound states of spiritual inspiration by abiding in silence, or through sacred dance and incantation.

Ariadne leads the winding crane dance in the labyrinth of Knossos. In Malawi, the Makewana and her community sing, clap, and dance to raise power for rain or harvests or banishing locusts. How does the prophetic voice resound through the body, through cultural memory? How do we recuperate that entry into the stream, the torrent, of Wisdom?