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Citation: S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies V1 N2 (2022)
Publisher: Mago Books (https://magobooks.com)
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Published date: October 31, 2022
Publisher: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
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Abstract: This essay describes how I proceeded in introducing little-known Finnish goddesses and ancestral great mothers to Finns and non-Finns beyond the hegemonic interpretations of the past. I intend to give a new voice and face to the female spirits through quilt art while honoring ”matriarchal aesthetics.” We need to decolonize mythology and shatter the mythological glass ceiling that has left women’s wisdom traditions invisible. It is not that universities fail to consider the impact of the dominant research. Despite the myth of academic freedom, research has always been part of the ideological machinery of the elites. Only the degree of the utilitarian, exchange-oriented research has varied, and as is widely recognized, under neoliberalism the university has changed in line with the demands of the corporate world and its demands.
Keywords: Finnish goddesses and great mothers, Decolonizing women and mythology, Quilt art
The creative arts play a crucial role in this expression of Earth Love. Ecofeminst arts … [are] essential catalysts of change that (re)connect us with nature and spirit.
–Irene Diamond and Gloria F. Orenstein[1]
The aim of this article is to describe how I have proceeded in introducing little-known Finnish goddesses and ancestral great mothers to Finns at home and abroad, and how I have tried to give them a new voice and face through quilt art. As I have little academic or financial support for my projects (having retired), I try to encourage other, better funded scholars to delve into the topics that need revisiting and a different approach. The work I am carrying out would ideally be part of a team effort involving gender studies experts, linguists, etymologists, archeologists, religious studies experts with a feminist perspective and ethnographers, as well as historians committed to recovering herstory and its mysteries. Since there is no such team, I see as my mandate to plant seeds and to gather hints and vestiges of another imaginary and land of women – Terra Feminarum, the mythical Kvenland of high antiquity in the North.[2] Pioneers and bioneers tread on thin ice but are needed so new flows of information and wisdom traditions can be uncovered from under the ice age of patriarchal overwriting of our past…My aim here is to scrape off the patriarchal layers of bias and make room for the knowledge brought by archeomythological, modern matriarchal and indigenous studies as well as rock art and ancient figurines….
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[1] Irene Diamond, and Gloria F. Orenstein, Reweaving the World: the Emergence of Ecofeminism (Philadelphia, Pa., Santa Cruz, New Society Publishers, 1989), 279.
[2] I take this opportunity to thank the international network of Feminists for a Gift Economy, Harald Haarmann and many others who are a kind of team that has supported me with information, advice, knowledge and the matristic spirit that gives one energy to keep pushing the boundaries of science.
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S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies Volume 1 Number 2 (2022)