#8 Tante Nameh
#8 Tante Nameh
This is the 1st character in a story I’m tossing around about an oppressively matriarchal culture. Because unlike many feminists would like to believe, men aren’t the only ones capable of despotism, oppression, delusions of grandeur, and warmongering.
Tante Nameh was strong. But of course, she had to be to lead a House the size and power of hers. She followed the teachings of the mothers before her and found no cause to doubt any of their tenets. After all, it was a strict adherence to the Ways that had brought her people as far as it had, and none of their neighbor nations could dispute this, even those that claimed serious grievances against the Seven Sisters Dominion.
Those nations might have even gone as far as criticizing Tante Nameh, although not publicly and not to her face. Which was really, in the end, all she could ask. Calling to task those who called her a bigot would only bring to light the fact that her presence reached far deeper than any of her enemy imagined. And if they wished to believe that her mindset was one of delusion, all the better for her. After all, believing your opponent deluded would inevitably lead to overconfidence, a fatal weakness and a trait she always described as exceedingly masculine.
As if it were bigotry not to ignore the physical evidence which was daily presented before her. Evidence as simple as that soft and delicate sack which males carried prominently between their legs. Evidence of their inability to hide their feelings, their passions, their… arousal. Clearly they had not the skills to control their urges, shackled as they were by their own physiology. Even their superior physical strength was evidence of how far the male body had to go to compensate for its vulnerabilities. Strong as a man may be, he would never be strong enough to bear a child. And it was no terribly complicated task to convince a man’s body to plant its seed, even when the man in question might not wish to.
Tanteh Nameh did not fear men any more than she might fear a draft horse or an elegantly turned weapon. The trick was to ensure you were the one wielding it. And being the head of Bear House, she should be the one to speak of weapons.
Being the Elder of Bear House also meant that she had no room for weaknesses, either in the powerful blooded men who kneeled to her or in the spirited daughters who carried her name. Or in herself, which meant that although she may not have hid her silver hair she carried herself ramrod straight regardless of how strenuously her joints may ache. She did not make a single move without purpose and she could still take down a fighter half her age, be they male or female.
On the days she felt all her years bear down on top of her and her bed tried to keep her down past dawn, she gripped tightly to her Purpose. She who knew, more than any other House might, exactly how serious that purpose was. Crow and Bee may think that she acted in order to bring more goods, wealth, and land to the Sisters, but one need not be Crow to know that the Sisters had more than enough coin and supplies. And Turtle may rail as much as she wished, arguing at every council that Bear House was bringing fire upon their doorstep, but none of this would blind her.
Most Houses were so lulled into complacency that they forgot their deeper History. All the reasons why the Sisters came to be were conveniently ignored in the name of civility. House Turtle might remain starkly vigilant in their defense, but Bear House were the only ones still willing to admit the truth. No House of the Dominion would ever be safe while any Man walked unclaimed upon the earth, willing and capable to pick up arms against whomever He may wish. Dominion. Dominion from sea to sea. That was her Purpose. Not in the name of gains or power, but in the name of total security for all the Seven Houses. And nothing, not a single living thing that was capable of bleeding was going to sway House Bear from this one course. This was the fire that glowed behind Tante Nameh’s icy gaze. This was the truth that caused all but the strongest willed to drop their eyes when dealing with the Elder of House Bear.
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