Maria Quitéria – The Brazilian Joan of Arc

by | Oct 12, 2018 | Brazil, Mid Modern Period (1750 - 1914), South America | 0 comments

This week I’m taking you to Brazil where a brave woman joined the army in the War of Independence, dresses as a man. And although she was outed, her valor and skill in battle allowed her to continue fighting. She even was promoted and endorsed by the emperor! Let me tell you the story of Maria Quitéria, the Brazilian Joan of Arc.

On June 27, 1792 Maria Quitéria de Jesus Medeiros was born as the first child of a farming family in the state of Bahia on the country’s eastern coast. Two brothers would follow. Although she did not receive a formal education, she learned to ride, hunt and fish and even how to handle a weapon. Mother Dona Quitéria was queen of the home while father Gonçalo tended the cattle. And Maria took the best from both worlds. She loved to prepare dinner with her mother, but she also loved to run in the fields with her brothers.

This carefree time however ended when her mother died when Maria was only ten. Suddenly she had to take care of her younger brothers and fulfill a more important role in the household, although even that could not completely cure her of her independent ways. And only five months later, while Maria was still grieving, her father remarried. The marriage was short-lived however, as the woman was, but soon her father married a third time. Maria didn’t quite like this new women who tried to meddle with their family and who opposed her tomboyish lifestyle. She did however love her new sisters that came from this marriage.

This is where our story leaves off and doesn’t continue until more than a decade later, in 1822. The relationship between the colonizing power of Portugal and the people of Brazil had been tense for a while and in that year, war broke out. Partisan groups were travelling cross-country, recruiting volunteers and/or asking for funds, and before long they came by Maria’s home. Her father, by now a widower with his sons having moved out of the house, told them he didn’t have anything to offer and tried to shoo them off. To his surprise, Maria stepped forward, asking him for permission to join the fight. Of course he refused vehemently. Of course she paid him no heed. Instead she ran away to her sister’s house who had married a man in a neighboring village. Her sister cut her hair while her brother-in-law provided her with proper male clothing and allowed her to use his name. In this attire she went to the nearest Artillery Regiment to register – the first woman in the country to do so, albeit incognito.

Her battalion travelled her home region of Bahia, engaging in battle several times and each time Maria, or “Soldado Medeiros,” stood out for her valor and skill. After a few months however, in June 1823, her father caught up with her, revealing her true identity to her comrades. Surprisingly they didn’t really care. She was brave, she fought well, so who cares about her gender? The captain personally forbade her to leave and so her father had to return home empty-handed. Maria in the meantime dropped her male attire and embraced her female identity. She went on to be promoted cadet in July, allowing her to officially carry a sword, and one month later reached the rank of lieutenant, including royal honors and everything!

In 1824 the Portuguese garrison in Montevideo surrendered and the war was won. Maria returned home a decorated soldier. She reconciled with her father and rekindled the relationship with her former boyfriend Gabriel Pereira Brito. Soon the pair was married and not much later their daughter Luísa was born. This is where her story gets a little foggy. It is known that she was widowed about ten years later and that her father died not soon after. Maria claimed her inheritance and moved near Salvador with her daughter. There she died in August 2853, aged 61, poor and almost blind. It wasn’t until decades later that her achievements were recognized. Today she is revered as the Brazilian Joan of Arc, a comparison to another woman who actively participated in battle, defending her country and its independence as well as their personal ones.

image credits:

1: “Maria Quitéria” by Domenico Failutti (1920) – Link
2: Monument to Maria Quitéria – A Verdade

Hipparchia of Maroneia – A Cynic Life

by | Sep 21, 2018 | Ancient History (before 500 AD), Europe, Greece | 0 comments

Today’s article is taking us to the philosophers of Ancient Greece, specifically the Cynics. And to a woman who challenged the conventions of a philosophical school devoted to challenging society’s conventions. Meet one of the few female philosophers of the time, Hipparchia of Maroneia.

As her name suggests, Hipparchia was born around 350 BC in Maroneia, a small town on the coastline of the Greek region of Thrace, and her birth was soon followed by that of her brother Metrocles – with whom this story actually begins. You see, he was a philosopher’s student and quickly won over a teenage Hipparchia as well. One day Metrocles came home mortified, he had farted while giving a speech at the Lyceum, what an embarrassment! Promptly he locked himself up in his room, set on starving himself to death. Enter Crates, a Cynic philosopher who had heard of the situation and came to resolve it. Calling on the despairing young man, he convinced him that his actions had been an entirely natural act and no cause for shame. Intrigued by this philosophical approach, Metrocles became a follower of Crates and soon he introduced him to his family. To enable him to study with his new mentor, the whole family moved to Athens, the cultural hotspot of Ancient Greece.

While his parents must have been incredibly grateful that their son had refrained from suicide, they were less than happy when Hipparchia announced that she planned on marrying Crates. They pleaded with her to reconsider, to choose one of her more “fitting” suitors, after all he was already an old man at the time, but to no avail. They only succeeded in having their second child threatening suicide as well, should they not stand aside. To understand their opposition, you need to understand the life a Cynic was leading. Cynicism teaches that human life should not be limited and complicated by the conventions and traditions of society, but should be lived in accordance with nature. This meant renouncing all physical possessions, only keeping that what is necessary, and acting according to natural impulses instead of societal norms. That included the institution of marriage which was seen as impeding on the individual’s personal freedom.

Failing to talk Hipparchia out of her idea and unable to intervene further, her parents begged Crates to talk some sense into her. Let’s say, the talk didn’t exactly go as planned. He pictured their life together in the bleakest colours, home- and penniless, living on the charity of others and owning nothing but the clothes they wore. She remained certain that his kindness, empathy and intelligence was enough for her to be happy and worth more than the wealth that surrounded her at the moment. Running out of ideas, Crates supposedly tore off his cloak, hoping to scare her off with his age and probably unkempt appearance, announcing “this is the groom, and these are his possessions; choose accordingly.” And Hipparchia chose him. They were married around 326 BC.

It was a happy marriage and Hipparchia turned out to be right. She did not miss her former life in luxury and the marriage went on to last more than 30 years until his death around 285 BC. She lived out the last five-ish years of her life as a content woman. But back to her younger years. Besides her philosophical lectures she also worked as a counsellor for those in need, never charging but gladly accepting donations. One of her specialities was marriage counselling, obviously. It is also reported that the couple had at least one son, named Pasicles, and one daughter. They were raised according to their parents’ values, sleeping in a tortoise shell cradle and when her daughter wanted to get married, her parents did not object. They did however ask that she lived with her intended for one month before making a final decision. This marks the first trial marriage in history – it is not known if it worked out or not.

Hipparchia quickly became popular with other Cynics, so much that they would later make an exception for her whenever they talked about their opposition to marriage. They figured that she truly lived according to Cynic values, challenging their own traditions by marrying in the first place and those of society by renouncing all possessions and becoming a philosopher in doing so. However not everyone was impressed.

Hipparchia had a habit of attending philosophical discussions and dinner parties with her husband, something respectable women usually refrained from. At one such banquet she was approached by a man named Theodorus who questioned her right to be there. She retorted that it could not be wrong if he was doing it, so it could not be wrong for her and swiftly added that, in conclusion, if it isn’t wrong for him to hit himself, it would not be wrong for her to hit him as well. Hurt, but not defeated, he tried another jab by asking if she wasn’t neglecting her work at the loom in order to attend a banquet. She answered that, yes, she was, but wasn’t it right to devote herself to education and knowledge instead of such useless tasks? Theodorus had no comeback. An anecdote recalls that at loss for a better argument, he stripped her of her cloak, but Hipparchia did not flinch. To her nudity was natural and not a reason for shame.

She had used her understanding of Cynic philosophy to free herself.

image credits:

1: Engraving depicting the Greek philosophers Hipparchia of Maroneia and Crates of Thebes. From the book Proefsteen van de Trou-ringh (Touchstone of the Wedding Ring) written by Jacob Cats. Hipparchia and Crates are depicted wearing 17th-century clothing. In the scene depicted, Crates is trying to dissuade Hipparchia from her affections for him by pointing to his head to show how ugly he is. (1637) – Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons – Link

2: Wall painting showing the Cynic philosophers Crates and Hipparchia. From the garden of the Villa Farnesina, Museo delle Terme, Rome (ca. 1st century) – Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons – Link

Lee Miller – Taking Photos in Hitler’s Bathtub

by | Sep 8, 2018 | Contemporary (1914 - today), Europe, North America, UK, USA | 0 comments

I would like to start with a little warning: This article covers a number of uncomfortable topics like rape, World War II and its aftermath, PTSD, alcoholism, and to a certain degree child abuse. Please only proceed if you feel safe to do so.

Lee Miller is certainly one of the most interesting people I have yet encountered in my research. She led many lives, reinventing herself time and time again. At first as a model in the 20s, then as a photographer and war correspondent in World War II. On the other side lay trauma and self-destruction and a broken relationship with her only son. Let’s dive into this multifaceted story of a fascinating woman.

On a spring day in 1907 in the city of Poughkeepsie in New York, little Elizabeth was born as the second child of Theodore and Florence Miller (after brother John who was two years her senior). Three years later the youngest, Erik, was born. Their father was an engineer but his passion and hobby was photography and as Lee was his favourite child, he introduced her to the medium at a very early age and took many pictures. Then when the girl was only seven years old, the first traumatic event transpired, as she was raped and infected with gonorrhea. Throughout her life, Lee would never talk of the incident, even keeping it a secret from those she was closest to. Disturbingly only one year later her father would start taking nude photographs of her and continue to do so until well into her twenties. It has never been found out or made public who the perpetrator of her abuse was.

Her story picks up again in 1925 when she travelled to Paris to study art. However her stay only lasted a year. 19-year-old Lee returned home, called back by her father. She did not give up on her art career though, enrolling in the Art Students League in New York City. And that’s when fate hit her – in the form of a car. Well, it was about to hit her when she was saved by Vogue publisher Condé Nast. Intrigued by her beauty and recognizing her potential, Condé introduced her to the modelling world, making her a Vogue covergirl in 1927. Lee was the perfect embodiment of the emerging “modern girl,” a look that would make her one of New York’s top models for the next years to come. But only two years later she had enough of the business, the shallowness of it all boring her. And she escaped to Europe again.

Lee arrived in Paris in 1929 with her mind set on becoming the apprentice of Man Ray, who was already a distinguished photographer and artist at the time. After making her way to his Montmartre studio, she introduced herself by announcing that she was his new student. Insisting at first that he did not take any students, he eventually succumbed to her charms and accepted her, although she became more than just his student. She went on to be his muse, his model and valued collaborator and finally his lover too. Soon she became an avid contributor to the surrealist movement, opening her own studio and living the Bohemian dream, befriending artists like Max Ernst, Picasso and Paul Élouard and becoming a muse to many. Jean Cocteau, the author of Les Enfants Terrible, was so fascinated by her beauty that he made a plaster cast of her to use as a statue in his movie The Blood of a Poet. 

Despite their IT-couple status, she often didn’t know where their next meal would come from, but she was happy, stating that she had never felt more alive then at that time. Her little brother Erik visited her once during this time, sharing her fascination with photography and learning from her. But as with many dreams, this one ended abruptly and in a huge fight. Man Ray found her when she was working on negatives he had discarded and threw her out of their apartment. She bought a ticket home, leaving him depressed in the realization that he had lost her, spending the next to years on a painting of her lips.

Back in New York City, she opened a portrait and commercial photography studio in 1932, this time in cooperation with Erik as her darkroom assistant and with the help of a loan over $10,000 (which she seems to have been able to pay back). Lee also rented an apartment next to her studio which became her home. Business boomed and many illustrious clients went in and out of her studio. Within the same year, Lee was included in the Modern European Photography Exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York and in the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition International Photographers, receiving favourable critiques through the bank. One year later The Julien Levy Gallery gave her the opportunity to host a solo exhibition – the only one in her lifetime.

In 1934 though, she abandoned her flourishing studio to marry Egyptian businessman Aziz Eloui Bey and, after a honeymoon at Niagara Falls, moved to Cairo with him. While she did not continue her career there, she didn’t stop taking photos and even partook in exhibitions. The desert inspired her and she created quite a few surreal motives there, one of which you can see to the right. And her pictures in turn continued to inspire her artistic friends; Magritte’s Baiser was modelled after one of her photos of the desert. Nonetheless life in Cairo did not seem to satisfy her and by 1937 she once more took off to Paris, where she met British surrealist painter and curator Roland Penrose. Together the pair travelled to London, Athens and later wandered the Balkans, photographing the village life in remote areas. In 1938 she returned to her husband, but only one year later Roland came to visit and she was excited to show him her beloved desert. In love with Roland, she parted ways with her husband in June 1939 and moved to London with Roland, right when World War II was about to begin.

Living in Hampstead, London at the time, she witnessed the bombing of the city first hand. Instead of returning to the US, as friends and family begged her to do, she became a freelance photojournalist for British Vogue, documenting the London Blitz. She also squeezed in two more exhibitions in London in 1940 and 1941. After the US entered the war in 1942, she was made an official war correspondent for the army, once again working for Condé Nast. She was the only female photographer given permission to travel independently in the European war zones. In this role, teaming up with American photographer David E. Scherman, she went to the front lines of the Allied advance from Normandy where she recorded the first use of napalm at the siege of St. Malo in 1944 (see picture). She witnessed the liberation of Paris and the Battle of Alsace and eventually her regiment reached Germany.

On April 8, 1945 Langenstein, a part of the Buchenwald KZ was liberated by Allied forces and Lee was there, documenting it all. 21 days later she was there when the Dachau KZ was liberated as well, still taking photos, despite her deep shock. The next day, her troop marched into Munich, where they found the private apartment of Adolf Hitler. One of the first to enter, tracing the mud from the KZs she had seen into his home, she had David Sherman, who still accompanied them, take a picture of her in Hitler’s bathtub. Only a few hours later, in a bunker in Berlin, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun would commit suicide. When their deaths were announced, she was more or less living in his apartment, having really bathed in his tub and slept in his bed.

Writing about this incident to her Vogue editor she recounted:

“Well, alright, he was dead. He’d never really been alive to me until today. He’d been an evil-machine-monster all these years, until I visited the places he made famous, talked to people who knew him, dug into backstairs gossip and ate and slept in his house. He became less fabulous and therefore more terrible, along with a little evidence of his having some almost human habits.”

In her role of documentary photographer she also travelled to Vienna and then to Hungary, where she took pictures of life after the war, of death that was ever present and finally of the execution of Prime Minister László Bárdossy, the driving force behind Hungary’s affiliation with Germany.

Finally, after four years of either being in the middle of war or witnessing its aftermath, Lee was able to return back home to London, moving in with Roland Penrose again. The things she had seen left a toll on her, she suffered from severe posttraumatic stress and depressive episodes and turned to alcohol for comfort. Still she kept working for Vogue for two more years, mainly covering fashion and celebrities in her photos. Roland accompanied her to a trip to the US in 1946, where she not only visited family and friends but also Man Ray who had moved to California during wartime and with whom she had by now formed a deep friendship. The picture shows the couple in Sedona, Arizona.

Back in London, upon discovering that she was pregnant at age 40, she divorced her husband and married Roland Penrose on May 3rd, 1947. Four months later her only son, Antony Penrose, was born. When he was two, the little family moved to the Farley Farm House in rural Chiddingly, East Sussex. The sky blue, brick red and sunny yellow they decorated the house with seemed to fit more into Southern France than the south of England and it quickly became an artistic hotspot. Among their frequent guests the likes of Miró, Henry Moore and Picasso (whom baby Antony really liked – and once bit in the finger. Look at that sweet photo Lee took of them!)

However, it was not a happy family. Lee’s alcoholism was hard to deal with for the boy, his mother switching from caring and sensitive, to sniding and verbally abusive. Roland was kind, but distant, having grown up the same way.

Generally their relationship was a very unconventional one. During her time as a war photographer, Lee has had a relationship with her partner David, while afterwards Roland’s first wife moved in with them. Furthermore both had affairs with many of the artists that visited the homestead regularly, sometimes separately, sometimes together. Amongst Lee’s conquests was Picasso who painted her six times! But all this attention made her feel isolated at times. “I looked like an angel on the outside. That’s how people saw me,” she wrote. “But I was like a demon inside. I had known all the suffering of the world since I was a very little girl.” In the meantime little Antony spent most of his time in boarding schools, growing to resent his mother.

But Lee was a fighter and eventually she overcame her addiction, reinventing herself once more in 1960. This time she became a gourmet cook. Yes, you read that right. While still modelling and taking pictures occasionally, oftentimes for Vogue, her focus now lay on the recreation of historical dishes with a surrealist touch: blue spaghetti and green chicken were only a few of the creative and colourful meals she served. The relationship with her son however remained tumultuous and Antony left home as soon as he was able too. Even though he most likely wasn’t aware of it at the time, this parallels his mother’s actions when she went to Paris for the first time, over 50 years ago. He travelled the world and eventually married in New Zealand. It was his wife Suzanna who reconciled mother and son, with them forming a grudging affection for each other, and in the spring of 1977, she held her first grandchild, Ami, in her arms. Three months later she died in her homestead. Her ashes were spread in her beloved herb garden.

If you think this is the end of Lee’s story, you are wrong. Not long after her death, Suzanna found a bunch of negatives, prints and articles while cleaning out the house’s attic and showed them to her husband. Antony has had no idea about his mother’s past as a photographer or about her time in Paris with Man Ray or about anything that has happened before the war really. And he was determined to find out more. In writing about her, he found a way to get closer to her and still he dedicates his life to preserving her legacy.

further reading and images: http://www.leemiller.co.uk/
and you can visit her home at: https://www.farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk/

image credits:

1: Lee Miller, Vogue, March 15, 1927: Georges Lepape – Link
2: Lee Miller and Man Ray in her Studio, 1932 (© Lee Miller Archives) – Link
3: Lee Miller by George Hoyningen-Huene, 1932 – Link
4: ‘Portrait of Space’ by Lee Miller, Egypt, 1937 – Link
5: ‘Fall of the Citadel, Aerial bombardment’ by Lee Miller, St. Malo, France, 1944 (© Lee Miller Archives) – Link
6: Lee Miller in Adolf Hitler’s bathtub, Munich, 1945, by David E. Scherman (© The LIFE Picture Collection) – Link
7: Roland Penrose & Lee Miller, Sedona, Arizona, 1946 – Link
8: Picasso and Antony Penrose by Lee Miller, 1950 (© Lee Miller Archives) – Link
9: Hallway [Hiquily sculpture] at Farley’s House (© Lee Miller Archives) – Link
10: Dining room fireplace (detail) at Farley’s House (© Lee Miller Archives) – Link
11: ‘Picnic’ by Roland Penrose, clockwise L-R, Nusch Éluard, Paul Éluard, Lee Miller, Man Ray and Aby Fidelin, Île Sainte-Marguerite, Cannes, France, 1937 (there is a picture taken by Lee with Roland sitting instead of her as well) (© Lee Miller Archives) – Link
12: Lee Miller Grocery Shopping – Link

Gabriela Mistral – The Unlikely Poet Who Won a Nobel Prize

by | Aug 24, 2018 | Chile, Contemporary (1914 - today), South America | 0 comments

Thinking of poetry in Chile, the first that comes to mind is Pablo Neruda. But there was another important poet before him – and she was a woman. Enter Gabriela Mistral, who overcame many, many obstacles to become a famous writer, eventually earning the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Latin American to ever do so.

But before she became Gabriela Mistral, she was Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, a girl of Basque and Indigenous heritage born on April 7, 1889 in the city of Vicuña in northern Chile. Before Lucila turned three, her father, a teacher with the heart of a traveling poet, left the family for good and his abandoned wife moved herself and her two daughters to the Andean village of Montegrande. You can see the family’s home below.

There she found work as a seamstress and the older sister, Emelina Molina, was employed as a teacher’s aide in the same school that Lucila soon attended. But despite their hard work, their life remained a humble one. As their money was running out, Lucila had to be taken out of school when she was only twelve, but she did not give up learning and with her sister by her side, she was able to feed her thirst for knowledge. By the time she was 15 she even got a position as a teacher’s aide in the seaside town of Compañia Baja and soon she taught in the near La Serena school as well. Around the same time she published her first poems in the local newspaper, using different pseudonyms such as Alguien, Soledad and Alma.

In 1906, when she was 17, she met her first love, a railway worker named Romelio Ureta. Only three years later the young love ended abruptly, as Romelio took his own life. This had a huge impact on her life, turning her to poetry even more and melancholy and the feeling of loss should become recurring themes in her work. It was then that Gabriela Mistral was born – a name chosen in remembrance of the archangel Gabriel and the warm Mistral wind of the Mediterranean. Or maybe it was a combination of the names of two of her favourite poets, Gabriele d’Annunzio and Frédéric Mistral.

She was determined to pursue a higher education, but was turned down from attending the Normal School without explanation. Later she found out that it was her writing that had blocked that path, Gabriela’s advocacy for universal access to education did not agree with the conservative views of the school’s chaplain. Undeterred, she decided to become an educator instead. Her task was made easier by the significant lack of teachers in the country. With the help of her sister’s contacts she got hired quickly and climbed the ladder utilizing her reputation as a published author and being willing to move wherever she was needed. By 1911 she was teaching several schools at primary level and worked as an inspector as well, often in remote areas. One year later she was hired to teach at a high school in Los Andes, near the capital of Santiago, where she would stay for six years. It was there that she wrote her “Sonetos de la Muerte,” her Sonnets of Death, in memory of her lost love, processing her grief. These Sonnets were what brought Gabriela to the attention of the wider masses when they won her the prestigious National Flower Award in 1914, aged 25.

When her stay in Los Andes ended, she moved on to a high school in Punta Arenas and then to Temuco in 1920, where she met and taught the young Pablo Neruda. The next year she was elected the director of Santiago’s newest and most prestigious girls’ school, so she moved back to the capital. Not everyone agreed with her nomination though and to escape the controversy, she accepted a job offer in Mexico only one year later to work with the Mexican Minister of Education to reform the national education system.

All the while she had been publishing her work and had acquired a considerable reputation as a journalist and public speaker. In 1922 she brought out her first book, “Desolación.” And she didn’t just publish it anywhere, she did so in New York! She was just getting started though. The next year she finished another text, “Lecturas para Mujeres,” Lectures for Women, celebrating Latin American culture. Her second book came out the year after; it was a children’s book of stories and lullabies, called “Ternura,” Tenderness. This one was published in Madrid, Spain! For she had left Mexico for Washington and then New York to tour Europe.

While she was a brilliant writer, she was not very good at taking care of herself; housework wasn’t really her thing and neither were finances, she didn’t like to cook and above all, she couldn’t stand being alone. Interestingly she still never married but preferred to live with women, all of them highly intelligent as herself and accomplished in their fields. One of them was Palma Guillén, a Mexican diplomat and educator, whom she met in 1922 during her time in Mexico. The two women should stay together for more than 15 years.

After a year of travelling she returned home to Chile in 1925 and retired from her teacher’s life at 36 years old. And not a moment too soon, for a law had just been passed that required teachers to have finished training at university. She had however been awarded the title of Spanish Professor by the University of Chile two years prior, although she had not had any form of formal education past the age of twelve. This shows what a remarkably intelligent woman she was and how determined to fill her head with all the knowledge she was denied by the system. This secured her a pension for life.

When she was invited to represent Latin America in the newly formed Institute for Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations, she moved to Marseilles, France with Palma and the couple adopted adopted the infant son of Gabriela’s half brother after his mother had died. Little Juan Miguel was physically disabled, which is why his father could not take care of him, but Gabriela did not care, she loved the boy as if he was her own. She supported their small family first with her journalism and then by giving lectures at universities in the US as well as Latin America. She also took up consular work, mainly in Italy and France but also in Spain, Guatemala and Brazil among others. In 1935, she was named consul for life. While working at the consulate in Madrid she once again met Pablo Neruda and was amongst the first to discover her fellow writer’s talent and originality.

undated portrait of Gabriela

All the while she kept writing and publishing her work in the Spanish-speaking world, with the help of her confidantes, the presidents of Colombia and Chile, as well as the First Lady of the US, Eleanor Roosevelt. And finally in 1938 she returned to Latin America, albeit not her home country, but Uruguay and Argentina. Her second major volume of poetry, “Tala,” was published in Buenos Aires that same year, with the proceeds going towards children orphaned by the Spanish Civil War. The book itself once more celebrated Latin American culture and heritage, but also the traditions of Mediterranean Europe – a fusion of different cultures, reflecting Gabriela’s own identity as both, European Basque and Native South American.

While they were living in Brazil, 17-year-old Juan Miguel took his own life in 1943. Gabriela was grief-stricken for she felt like she had lost a son and she blamed herself. Just one year before, her close friends, the Austrian couple Lotte and Stefan Zweig, writers who had taken residence in the city of Petrópolis like her, had chosen to end their lives as well. Furthermore her mother and sister had died not too long ago. All those wounds had not yet healed and now they were torn open once more. In 1946, Palma married a man, although she did continue to be Gabriela’s secretary and to support her emotionally. Gabriela, unable to move on, stayed in Brazil. And she remained there until two years later, when word arrived that she had won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Latin American to ever do so, and only the fifth woman. Just as bad things seem to only come in packs in her life, so did the good. In that same year her path crossed with that of Doris Dana, a beautiful and bright young woman from New York. Doris admired the poet, who was 31 years her senior, and although Gabriela did not remember their first meeting, Doris decided to write to her. A correspondence, and eventually a friendship, ensued.

Having found herself again, she once more felt restless. And so she packed her bags and moved to San Francisco, a delegate of the United Nations and soon also a founding member of UNICEF. She then took off to Los Angeles and later took up residence in Santa Barbara, California. In 1948, Gabriela finally invited Doris to visit her, after two years of regular correspondence. Soon the friendship turned romantic and Doris, then 28, decided to stay with the poet who was 59 at the time. Soon the two women travelled together to Mexico, where Gabriela was awarded a plot of land in Veracruz to build a house on (which the couple did.)

Oh, she also snatched a doctor honoris causa from Mills College in Oakland, California in 1947 and the Chilean National Literature Prize in 1951.

Although their relationship was very happy, Doris frequently had to return to her family in New York and every time she left, Gabriela feared that she would never return. But each and every time she did. Together they left Mexico around 1950 and spent the next two years in Italy, where they met Palma again. Doris and her became fast friends and she was only too happy to have a little help in handling Gabriela’s affairs. In 1953 the poet’s health began to decline and she realized she would not be able to travel anymore; after all she was 64 years old already. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with Doris but knew that her love could never call any other place than New York her home. So they settled on a compromise.

That same year, Gabriela set out for one last triumphant visit to her home country, with Doris accompanying her of course, and she was welcomed enthusiastically. And then the couple returned to their new home. Because Gabriela hated New York City, they settled in Roslyn Harbor, not too far away. There she continued to represent Chile in the General Assembly of the United Nations and, of course, to write. One year later her final book, “Lagar,” Winepress, was published and in it were all the grief over her son, the tension of World War II and more. It was the last one to be published in her lifetime. In early 1957, Gabriela was admitted to Hempstead Hospital in New York, where she died only a few days later on January 10, aged 67. Doris had not left her side.

Below a bonus picture of the two lovebirds because they were so darn cute: 

Nine days later Gabriela’s body was transferred back to her hometown of Montegrande, just as she had wished. Hundreds of thousands Chileans attended her funeral and paid their respects and the country declared three days of national mourning in her honor. At the same time her “Messages describing Chile“ were published posthumously. According to Gabriela’s testament the proceeds of her book sales in South America were to be used to help the impoverished children of Montegrande, one of which she had been too, so long ago. The proceeds from the sales in the rest of the world were supposed to go towards Doris Dana and Palma Guillén, who decided to give their parts to Chilean children in need as well. At first it looked like this wish could not be carried out as there was a law against inheriting profits yet to be made, but the decree was repealed and so her final wish came true. Doris was also the one holding all her literary legacy and she is the one who translated a selection of her poems into English and managed their publication.

Gabriela Mistral’s legacy can be found in many names all over the country. Within months of her death, a museum was opened in her birthtown of Vicuña. In 1977 an order for teaching and culture was named after her and in 1981 a private university was founded that bears her name. Once she had mentioned, jokingly I presume, that she would love the Hill of Montegrande to be named after her one day and indeed, on the day that would have been her 102nd birthday, on April 7, 1991, the street Fraile Hill was renamed Gabriela Mistral. Practically every major city in Chile has at least one street or plaza named after her. She certainly has left her mark and will not be forgotten.

image credits:

1: “House of Gabriela Mistral, Montegrande, Valle del Elqui, Coquimbo Region, Norte Chico” – © Educarchile – Link
2: “Manuscript Los Sonetos de la Muerte” – © Educarchile – Link
3: “Gabriela Mistral,” 1923 (© Archivo General Histórico del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores) – Link
4: Palma Guillén and Gabriela Mistral, undated – Link
5: “Gabriela Mistral (1889 – 1957)”  – © Educarchile – Link
6: “Gabriela Mistral and Doris Dana in the garden of their house in Long Island” – © Educarchile – Link
7: “Gabriela Mistral reading on her terrace” – © Educarchile – Link
8: “Gabriela Mistral and Doris Dana on the Beach” – © Educarchile – Link

Enheduanna – The World’s First Author

by | Aug 11, 2018 | Ancient History (before 500 AD), Asia, Iraq | 0 comments

Did you know that the first author ever was a woman? Well, we can’t say for certain as for a long time all writing was anonymous. But the first person to ever put their name on their work was today’s heroine: Enheduanna, Sumerian High Priestess. As far as we can tell, her opus encompasses 42 temple hymns and a number of longer texts, representing the first human attempt to compose a systematic theology. Isn’t that amazing?!

Enheduanna’s story takes us way back in time, to the ancient city of Ur in 2300 BC. Given how little information we have about people from that time, even royalty, it is fascinating how much we know about her. So let’s get started!

She was the daughter of one of history’s earliest empire builders, Sargon the Great, king of Akkadia. And great was his conquest indeed: his reign extended from all of southern Mesopotamia to parts of Syria, Anatolia and western Iran. In the late 23rd to early 22nd century BC, he incorporated a number of Sumerian city states into his kingdom and this is where our knowledge of Enheduanna’s life begins. While the Akkadians and Sumerians were culturally not quite that dissimilar and worshipped the same gods, their languages still differed and tensions arose. So Sargon appointed his daughter High Priestess of the city of Ur. That way she could keep an eye on the population and exert Akkadian influence.

The position of High Priestess was a powerful one indeed as the temples were not only religious places but social and economical centres as well. And the Ziggurat of Ur was one of the most significant temples in the Mesopotamian valley – in the picture you can see the modern reconstruction behind the ruins of the original.

Enheduanna’s religious duties included caring for the statues of their gods, offering sacrifices (animals, but also jewellery and produce) and interpreting dreams and omens. She and her staff were also responsible for cataloguing astronomical movements, a scientific process, although it is unclear how exactly they did this. Furthermore she controlled quite a large plot of land, employing an array of people such as fishermen, farmers and shepherds. Her land brought in a good amount of money, so the temple also functioned as a bank – which was overseen by Enheduanna as well. On top of that she also had to maintain relationships with the other temples in the area, advocating for her deities but also for her father.

I’d like to get into her daily religious duties a bit more because her role and status were tightly bound to her position of High Priestess. You can see her performing those alongside her staff on the disc in the picture; Enheduanna is the one in the middle with the frilly dress.

As High Priestess she was known as the “Wife of Nanna,” the Akkadian moon god and served him as well as his divine wife Ningal and their daughter Inanna. And she seemed to have had a real soft spot for the latter, starting a whole cult revolving around her which eventually made Inanna one of the pantheon’s highest-ranking deities. The temple was adorned with statues of the gods which were bathed and dressed ritually every day by the priestesses, but not before they themselves had cleansed themselves thoroughly and brought their offerings. Once a year, Enheduanna took part in a ritual of sacred marriage, where she lay with a mortal representative of Nanna. Another theory is that Enheduanna represented Inanna, a goddess of love and fertility, in this rite. Whether it involved literal intercourse or not is unclear, but is is far from improbable – there are a few lines of poetry that strongly suggest a physical component to these rituals. Certain is that this union was intended as some sort of blessing, ensuring the land’s fertility and the temple’s prosperity.

Now that her background is laid out, let’s get to the interesting part: her poetry. Yes, I too am wondering where she found the time to write besides all her duties and responsibilities. And yes, it gets even more interesting than ritualistic sex.

I already said before that Enheduanna wrote a total of 42 temple hymns – for comparison, Shakespeare “only” wrote 37 plays, and her count does not even include her other texts! To be fair, it might be that other authors used her fame and put her name under their own manuscripts but analyzing the style, it is pretty likely that most if not all of them were written by Enheduanna herself. Her work is generally divided into these temple hymns and her other texts which are mainly poems to her favourite goddess Inanna. In the picture you can see that they carved their letters into clay (the depicted text is not by Enheduanna though, I couldn’t find a plate that was certainly hers.) The former were means of communication between the temples and were not only used for religious exchange but also as propaganda for King Sargon, meant to dissolve tensions between the two people of the kingdom. However these texts are so lyrical in nature that they are unlikely to be purely political in nature – and if they basically were political pamphlets, why should she have signed them with her name when this was unheard of?

Here is why: she was proud of her work! It was not that she felt immortalized in her poems, or at least she never mentioned if she did, but she was fascinated by the fact that she created something entirely new and she took pride in it.

This kind of self-reflection was also completely new to poetry and writing in general. It wasn’t until more than 700 years later that the likes of Homer and Sappho started on that path – just to put things into perspective. Before Enheduanna there was no clear distinction between emotional and physical experiences, between mortal and divine in writing; she was the first to write about her inner turmoils and thoughts, marking the beginning of the human understanding of self.

Now back to an episode of her life when she was basically evicted from her temple and replaced by a man called Lugalunne, who was either a priest as well or a foreign king. Anyways, Enheduanna was not amused and wrote one of her most dramatic poems, one of those addressed to Inanna:

truly for your gain / you drew me toward
 my holy quarters
 / I 
the High Priestess / 
I 
Enheduanna /
 there I raised the ritual basket 
/ there I sang the shout of joy /
 but that man cast me among the dead / 
I am not allowed in my rooms 
/ gloom falls on the day
 / light turns leaden 
/ shadows close in 
/ dreaded southstorm cloaks the sun 
/ he wipes his spit-soaked hand 
/ on my honey-sweet mouth 
/ my beautiful image 
fades under dust
 / what is happening to me
 / O Suen [i.e. Inanna] 
/ what is this with Lugalanne?… / he gave me the ritual dagger of mutilation / he said / “it becomes you.”

The remarkable thing about this poem is that it was the first of its kind! Today we are used to emotions wrapped in words, but this was the first time that was ever done, more than 4000 years ago! And it’s poetic too! I’m not sure by the way if there truly was bodily mutilation involved, if it was a specific ritual or just another metaphor. Her exile however does not seem to have lasted very long as in the next part of her story she was already back home.

Another interesting part of her writing is the religious shift we are able to learn about from her diaries. As I already said, before her time the divine was one with the worldly, god was everything. This understanding however began to shift towards the belief that god is IN everything, a small but significant difference that implies that god transcends the worldly instead of being one with it. And Enheduanna did not like that notion, so she composed a poem (which is pretty long so a summary has to do): While Inanna was a relatively “young” goddess, she still stood for the old way, uniting the contradictions of life; the lover and the warrior, birth and death, growth and destruction. When the mountain Ebih defied her, she unleashed all her fury upon him, completely destroying her adversary.

What makes this story so fascinating is that Ebih is described as an almost utopian place with lambs and lions living in peace (bible, anyone?) and Inanna flat-out bulldozes it which Enheduanna is obviously more than okay with. Why is that? Because it is unnatural. Nature is not merciful an harmonious, there are contrasts, there is good and bad, light and dark. Eternal peace does not fit into this world view and Enheduanna has Inanna annihilate it entirely.

Obviously that opinion didn’t stick and was eventually replaced by a more distinctive view on religion and the gods – although Inanna did stick around for around 2000 years still, donning the names of Ishtar and Cybele among others. Ironically it was Enheduanna who lay the groundwork for this development. Had she not began her journey of self-awareness people might not have differentiated between divine and worldly for another 1000 years or so and the old gods would have survived a little longer. On the other hand, is there nothing divine in creating something that never was before? And in this aspect maybe Enheduanna was not all wrong.

Do you want to read all of her poems now? Because I did!

Unfortunately there is no complete collection on the internet, but you can find a selection of her temple hymns here (click) and there is one of her Inanna poems here (click.)
You can also hear one of her texts in the original Sumerian here (click and scroll down to the bottom.)

image credits:

Ruins: Ruins in the Town of Ur, Southern Iraq by M. Lubinski in Wikimedia Commons – Link
Disc: Penn Museum, British Museum/University Museum Expedition to Ur, Iraq, 1926 (B16665)
Clay Tablets: CDLI – Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, photo by Thomas Fish, 1982 (P212927)